Parents' Guide to Scream 7

It's strong on nostalgia and has a few good jump scares, but this sequel sadly lacks both the meta quality that made the original movie great and the freshness of the previous "requel" entries. Kevin Williamson, the creator of the original Scream and the writer of the superior sequels Scream 2 and Scream 4 (director Wes Craven's final movie) returned to the franchise to co-write and direct Scream 7. He clearly has a fondness for Sidney and is interested in her relationship with her daughter, but, truthfully, he's not much of a director. This is only his second time behind the camera (and the first was Teaching Mrs. Tingle, a dud of a horror-comedy that no one remembers fondly).

The best scenes here involve Sidney handling the challenges and traumas of her life—and Campbell gives a very strong performance—while the worst involve the final reveal, a huge stretch of logic that will leave most viewers shaking their heads. For the most part, the filmmaking is functional. The Ghostface stalking sequences are fine, somewhat rudimentary and owing a great deal to the late Craven, but sometimes rather silly, as when Sidney and Tatum are shimmying through a narrow crawl space, clearly susceptible to the knives being plunged through the drywall. But the biggest flaw in the movie is the absence of horror movie knowledge that allows the characters to stay on an even playing field with the killers. That has turned into fandom, knowledge with no practical use. Maybe that's what Scream 7 is ultimately trying to say, but its lackluster presentation feels mismatched.