30 years ago, master of horror Wes Craven decided to have a little fun at his own expense and create an original work based on unoriginality. The first Scream mixed the horror genre's tropes on their heads with a simple meta-acknowledgement of their existence. It then tossed in a couple of decent characters, and a lot of tension-building uncertainty, and the resulting film was a massive financial success that spawned one marginally watchable sequel and a never-ending series of unintentionally ironic derivative cash-grabs that inexplicably continue to make huge sums of money—ensuring that the original's aging fans will die before Ghostface does.

In 2022, with the franchise's core audience firmly ensconced in middle age, Spyglass Entertainment (The 6th Sense, Bruce Almighty) acquired the rights and relaunched the IP with Scream. The intentions were clear enough: let the remaining old guard, who hadn't yet been killed off in previous entries, pass the bloody torch to a new, diverse cast of millennials who would carry Scream roaring into the 20s and appeal to "modern audiences."

It almost worked. Scream (2022) was a massive box office success, and the sequel, Scream VI, despite being unspeakably bad, set a franchise record, grossing $164m. However, success or no, it was surrounded by controversy thanks to the loud and vile anti-Israel screed(s) of its would-be DEI replacement for Neve Campbell, Melissa Barrera, who was not invited to complete a hat trick with Scream 7.

With Neve Campbell returning to the captain's chair, many hoped it meant Scream 7 would return to the franchise's roots. Afterall, even with She-Hulk's Tatiana Maslany attempted boycott, the early box-office results have been astounding, but while the film might have already reached profitability in its opening weekend, the reality is that Scream 7 is a narrative nightmare.

As the 52-year-old Campbell and Courtney Cox's melting face and animated corpse occasionally pop up on screen, one thing is clear: the powers that be are still desperate to find a new, much younger face to continue beating the Scream franchise to death. This time, it's Isabel May, who plays Campbell's character's teenage daughter, Tatum. May, who some might recognize from numerous TV roles, from Young Sheldon to Taylor Sheridan's 1883 and 1923, is in the unenviable position of not only being the second fresh face meant to take over for Campbell, but to have been given a stagnant and lifeless character with which to do it.

May probably does as well as anyone would with the nothing-burger of a character, but it's difficult to tell if her inability to connect with the material is due to her shortcomings as an actress, the unremarkable horror outline posing as the film's script, or director Kevin Williams's almost total lack of experience behind the camera.

Williams, who has written every entry in the franchise and appears to have exhausted his ideas decades ago, can’t decide whose story this is. The film frames Sydney as the emotional center, yet structures its arc around Tatum — her desire to understand her mother’s trauma and her supposed transformation from insecure wallflower to empowered survivor.

The problem is that Tatum’s “weakness” exists almost entirely in dialogue. We’re told she’s unsure of herself, but nothing in her behavior supports it. She’s confident, socially integrated, active in extracurriculars, and surrounded by loyal friends. Aside from a few lines of scripted self-doubt and a trip down a short set of stairs, there’s no evidence she’s lacking anything, which makes her eventual “growth” fall flat.

The pacing mostly holds, not because the film is inventive, but because the kills arrive with dependable regularity. Each set piece dutifully retraces the franchise’s familiar footprints, and while the formula is predictable, it at least keeps what story there is moving.

The momentum collapses whenever the film pauses to focus on its secondary characters. They’re sketched so thinly that the movie can’t generate real investment in them, leaving entire stretches feeling like time-fillers before the next stabbing.

Thirty years on, the franchise still invokes the names of legacy characters because they were once sharply defined and memorable. Now, new characters exist largely as interchangeable bodies — introduced quickly, developed minimally, and dispatched just as fast.

All of that said, Scream 7 ultimately collapses under its own structural weakness. Beneath the familiar beats and steady body count, there’s remarkably little story. The narrative is thin and telegraphed, dutifully moving from setup to payoff without ever generating real suspense.

And then there’s the finale. Without spoiling it, what should land as a shocking reveal instead registers as a shrug. The unmasking inspires not disbelief or dread, but a thunderous "why should I care?"

The original Scream worked because it understood both its genre and its audience. Scream 7 feels like a franchise going through motions it no longer believes in, clinging to legacy while hesitating to build anything new. Ghostface may go on, but the spark that once made him dangerous has been extinguished.