Scream 7

As a huge fan of Scream this was one of my most anticipated films of the year. With the original writer and creator of the franchise Kevin Williamson coming onboard to direct and rewrite the script, and the potential return of Matthew Lillard as the fan-favourite Stu Macher, this was one I wanted to see.

To start off once of the great elements of the Scream franchise is the opening sequences. Scream 7 takes place at Stu Machers house where the first 2 characters we are introduced to drive up to for a quiet night. Obviously with this being a horror film this does not last. Of all of the opening sequences in the franchise you won't top the first movie, because it had the element of surprise on the audience. This opening is good but nothing special, it is great to be back in Stu's house again. Once Ghostface appears it is business as usual, although the death scenes clearly don't hold back. The opening kills are particularly bloody and nasty.

We move back to Sidney who is now living a quiet family life in Pine Grove, with her husband (played by Joel McHale) and her daughter (Isabel May). Once we work our way through introducing the new characters we get out first big plot point, there is another killer on the loose, who may or may not be Stu Macher. This gives Matthew Lillard the opportunity to come back to his iconic role, but is he really alive or is someone using AI to pretend to be Stu, I won't spoil that here.

What follows is the usual slice and dice from a Scream film, but oddly alot of the characters who are the suspects are kept off screen for large chunks of the movie. This removes the guessing game part of a scream film, which is normally one of the franchises greatest strengths. I suspect that this is down to so many rewrite to try and get this script into shape.

The chase sequences on the other hand are as fun and as thrilling as ever, they are action packed, tense and full of scares.

What I didn't like was the Meeks twins, as characters they are great and beloved characters. The problem here is that we all know that these 2 are not going to be the killers, and they take up valuable space and screen time from other characters. The result is that they feel shoe horned into the film and the rest of the supporting cast feel like they are just a cameo due to the lack of screen time to go around.

The film is also littered with alot of logic problems, I found myself rolling my eyes at characters doing foolish things that the franchise used to poke fun at. All of these issues could have been easily resolved with a quick rewrite.

The biggest issues here is the ending, I won't spoil that here, but it is the worst ending to any Scream movie. It didn't make sense, even the explanation and motive the longer it went on, the more downhill things went. If it wasn't for such as bad ending, I think we might be looking at the best sequel along with Scream 2.

Overall this was a fun, yet flawed film. I hope moving forward we can retire the Meeks twins, and move on with new characters. Most importantly, I hope the filmmakers find a way to make up for such as disappointing ending.