Scream 7: Does Karma Really Exist? A Review of the Horror Saga's Return to Origins

It's not a matter of conspiracy theories or gossip: talking about what Scream 7 is like on the big screen, comparing it to the rest of the saga and especially its predecessor, makes it inevitable, if not imperative, to recount what happened off-set between the sixth and seventh chapters. Which, upon closer inspection, is a perfect closing for a horror franchise entirely built on the relationship between what happens in the lives of protagonists persecuted by bloodthirsty serial killers and the continuous interchange with a meta-cinematic saga that exists in the fiction of the Scream universe and directly influences its fate. Who knows what would have happened within Scream if the protagonist of one of the Stab films had been fired for her political opinions: a starting point rich in potential, but Scream 7 is definitely not the most audacious chapter of the saga, capable of tackling the media debacle that influences it so much.

Keeping politics out of cinema is not only impossible: it's detrimental

This story therefore does not begin with the film's arrival in theaters, guarded by a draconian embargo that expires 24 hours after the release of a feature film promoted to the public almost with an antagonistic attitude towards the press (from US talk shows to Italian newspapers). It begins with the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict three years ago. After the success of Scream 6 in 2023, young protagonists Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega are ready to return as the Carpenter sisters for the anticipated continuation of a film that managed to take risks and refresh the saga. Forgoing the historic scream queen Neve Campbell, Ghostface moved to New York, finding another type of connection to the foundational film: the two protagonist sisters are Billy's daughters and are simultaneously persecuted by a new Ghostface and the growing awareness of their father's killer gene living within them. Scream 6 proved to be a far-sighted and well-cast film, hiring Jenna Ortega and Mickey Madison from relative obscurity and thus being able to count a few years later on the appeal of the planetary success of Netflix's Wednesday Addams and the Oscar for Anora.

Choosing young actors who then became big stars is one of the great hallmarks (and proof of the overall quality) of this saga, which flirted with reality and meta-narratives fifteen years before it became the norm. However, when Melissa Barrera publicly expressed strong criticism of the state of Israel for the attack on the Palestinian population in the first weeks of the conflict, the production severed this dialogue with reality, firing the actress outright, claiming her words were antisemitic. Credit to Barrera, followed by many colleagues and a good part of US public opinion in the subsequent three years, who, however, came forward immediately and spoke of genocide when she knew she risked a great deal (and indeed she did). An equally big applause to Jenna Ortega who, strong in her success, immediately stood in solidarity with her, withdrawing from the project in protest.

Thus, the production found itself managing a sequel without protagonists and a project that suddenly became incredibly politicized: more for the protagonist's statements (which could have remained the first of a very long series) than for the punishment she had to face. Everything had to be redone: as revealed today by Variety in a lengthy reportage, Barrera's firing cost the production almost eight million dollars. Five hundred thousand dollars to rewrite the script almost from scratch, archiving the New York turn as an “apocryphal” Ghostface interlude. The other seven million to convince Neve Campbell to return as the protagonist in the most mercenary operation of all: a return to origins with her Sidney Prescott as a mother who sees her daughter Tatum Evans (Isabel May) tormented by a new serial killer.

Forced Return to Woodsboro

Scream 7 is therefore an abrupt swerve in a familiar direction after the sixth chapter proved to be an exciting but unfeasible detour due to extra-cinematic issues. The premises were not the best from the change of course, and haste is always a bad counselor, but it could still have been done much, much better, even in such an emergency situation. The suspicion is that they didn't even try too hard, starting with the cast. The baton from performers like Barrera, Ortega, and the aforementioned Madison passes to second and third-tier colleagues where no great future stars seem to be glimpsed and to the eternal teenager Mckenna Grace, stuck in the role of a high school student in not exactly unmissable films for at least five years.

So we're back in Woodsboro, there's a serial killer again, Sidney, who now runs a coffee shop, obviously finds herself first avoiding him and then confronting him for her daughter Tatum's sake. A seventeen-year-old girl (like her mother at the time of the first murders) who, being a teenager, is as foolish as necessary to push her to do a series of authentic idiocies that will put her in danger. More irritating is that her father and police officer Mark (Joel McHale) does just as many stupid things that make Ghostface's job much easier, demonstrating how this film does not take into account the acumen of the viewer and its characters, resorting to the most classic suicidal behavior of protagonists to justify the horror scenes. You're the local police chief, married to a survivor of a long series of murderers, there have just been gruesome murders in town, you know your house is targeted, and you've already risked your life: can you really wander through the ongoing work in the garage because you heard a noise without wielding a weapon or turning on all available lights?

With the laziest move of all, what narrative approach does the film choose in setting up the new Ghostface's murderous approach, more "tech-savvy" than in the past? Obviously, that of artificial intelligence, giving Matthew Lillard the bizarre distinction of being the first actor to play a deepfake version of himself: has Stu really returned, or could someone have created an "avatar" of him with artificial intelligence? The idea and the doubt are interesting, but they are never explored beyond what is strictly necessary to move the film and its killings forward, leaving the viewer in doubt. Other characters, like Jimmy Tatro's acting teacher, are abandoned halfway through as soon as the film no longer needs them to keep its cards covered.

The writing of Scream 7 is sometimes offensive to the viewer's intelligence: teenagers and adults continue to present their characters in a specious and clumsy manner, repeatedly explaining that they "are obsessed with true crime and podcasts" rather than somehow showing this passion. If the Scream saga has always had a diabolical inventiveness in staging its murders as a distinguishing feature, here it is often replaced by a certain empty, violent brutality, substituting the amused slasher with an insistent one that is not fun at all. Even the resolution of the new Ghostface is lazy and minor, so much so that Scream 7's only real coup is to make events happen and kill characters while remaining almost exactly where it left off in Scream 5, not allowing anything truly irreversible or relevant to occur.