Scream 7: Ruining a franchise

Along with Wes Craven's New Nightmare in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, the first four Scream films were each Wes’s very own babies. While the rest were made under a different direction by directors Tyler Gillett, Matt Oplin, and the 7th being directed by Kevin Williamson. The most recent are famously not as loved, but everyone has their own opinion about this franchise in particular. While in my usual opinion, there is no bad Scream film, there are definitely ones that aren’t my favorite. At the time of its release, the horror genre itself, but specifically the slasher genre, was considered more of a joke than a serious thing. Scream was the first film since When a Stranger Calls to play on the fear of not a supernatural killer but a real person you could know behind the mask. The idea scared so many at the time, Drew Barrymore, who played Casey Beckers in the original Scream, said on her own TV show: “Did you know that caller ID usage tripled in the United States after the release of the first Scream?” 

The Scream franchise is the first film of its time, besides New Nightmare, to take on the job of calling out the cliches in the genre that hadn’t really been stepped away from at that point in time, which is why it will always be a classic and a beloved slasher. Scream 1996 takes on the rules of surviving a slasher, giving the characters a deeper background so we aren’t watching nobodies get killed for an hour. Scream is also the first slasher film to make references to other horror movies that the viewers have most likely seen. Scream 2 calls out the trope that sequels are almost always known for being bad. Scream 3 talks about the end of a trilogy and calls out creepy producers in Hollywood despite the movie's own sleazy producers. While only supposed to be a trilogy, years later, we get Scream 4, touching on horror remakes, Scream 5 making fun of the new obsession with so-called elevated horror, and Scream 6 implying that the rules no longer apply when a franchise goes on way too long. Making fun of itself, but still, they would go on to make Scream 7, which, to me, is by far the worst film yet.

4 Things I Hate About Scream 7 

The Lack of Ghost Face

When I say this, I don’t mean a lack of kills because they pretty much kill off everyone, and every new character they introduce. I mean, the lack of Ghost Face talking. They can say this was to make the movie scarier, or to give the new characters proper time, or they can even say this was to make this movie's Ghost Faces more methodical, but for a movie that has always been centered around the creepy voice on the phone and Roger L Jackson's iconic voice, why does Ghost Face only speak in the beginning and end? I would accept this if this were the last film, but I seriously doubt it, or if the voice actor had passed away, but Roger L. Jackson is alive and well, so it didn't make any sense to me. 

Someone You Know - Who Is This??

Since Scream 1996, the big fear has always been that the killer is someone you know, like Sidney's boyfriend and friend in the first movie, Billy's mom, and someone Sidney went to college with in the second film. Sidney's half-brother in the 3rd movie, Sidney's niece in the 4th, Sam's boyfriend and Tara's friend in the 5th, and Richie's family in the 6th. So why all of a sudden are the killers these strangers that the viewer doesn't recognize? It took me all the way out of the movie, and while they are going on about why they did it, I simply couldn't find a reason to care.

The Why of the New Cast 

After just getting used to the new cast being less about Sidney and Gale and more about Sam and Tara, we suddenly get a NEW core group. Why? Because the directors fired Sam's actress, Melissa Barrera, for posting her opinion on the Israel-Hamas Conflict. Jenna Ortega would leave the franchise shortly after in support of Melissa. I would act surprised, but the reason Sidney was not in Scream 6 is that they refused to pay Neve Campbell the salary she was worth. This really speaks to the fact that the franchise should have ended with the passing of Wes Craven. 

AI Stu 

As someone who has been hoping for the return of Stu Macher since I was about 10 years old watching the franchise in a movie marathon, even when I was 14 and learned Stu was supposed to return in Scream 3, but someone leaked the script, and as petty as Wes Craven was he changed the script every single day until the movie was done filming. THIS was in no way what anyone wanted at all. Not only is he not physically in the film at all, but his whole role is told through FaceTime videos. On top of them only being facetimes, the majority of the time that we see Stu in the film, they are using AI to make these videos. I'm biased in this matter because I don't support the use of AI in the form of making any kind of art or writing. It also brings me back to the fact that Matthew Lillard is alive and well to have filmed these videos instead of using AI. But he wasn't paid for the use of these videos or his face in the film, which makes me believe that, for the directors, this was once again about the money. For me, this element is even worse than them using adult Billy as some weird ghost lingering over Sam in Scream 5 and 6.

If there ends up being a Scream 8 like rumors say, the only reason I might watch is in the hope of a real-life physical Matthew Lillard getting to play Stu again and hopefully being the killer.