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The Release of the New Scream Movie: Scream 7

Photo from Oz Magazine / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

!Spoilers Ahead!

As a fan favorite franchise, “Scream” has been the most popular American horror movie series since the first movie came out in 1996. Since that year, creator and writer Kevin Williamson has continued to shock and wow fans as each new Scream movie is released, adding new characters, but also continuing on the legacy of original characters. 

Since the beginning, the franchise has followed the character Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) as she is targeted by many different ghostface killers. As the movies continued, new characters have been introduced and became targets, but they always connect to a larger theme. For example, in “Scream 5”, Smanatha Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) was introduced as a new main character and targeted by the killers. However, the character’s significance came from her connection to the original Ghostface killer, Billy Loomis, being his biological daughter. Additionally, every Ghostface killer is connected, with the killer in “Scream 2” being Billy’s mother or in “Scream 4” Sidney’s cousin. 

With the new “Scream” being released on February 27, fans were excited for their favorite horror franchise to be brought back to theatres, wondering which new plot line or connection they will see this year. For the first time, a killer was revealed in the first thirty minutes of the movie, this had fans shocked and confused with the significance of the character. The first Ghostface, was a character that got less than 10 seconds of show time, having been someone who came into Sidney's work to buy something then leave. Moreover, this character never got the chance to reveal their motive behind targeting Sidney’s family. Towards the end of the movie, it is revealed that the other two killers were a worker in the mental hospital they visited and Sidney's neighbor. Fans were confused and annoyed by this since both characters were only shown for a minute before the big reveal, and were cast aside as being side characters. These killers had no connection to past movies, with just the background of being crazy to support their killing, which enraged fans with an anti-climatic reveal. 

Even though these killers were not that impressive during the reveal, they definitely raised the scare factor that the “Scream” franchise is known for. The movie included many different jumpscares and ominous shadows lingering around that have been characteristics of the Ghostface killers since the first movie. This movie is also known for having some of the most gruesome kills in the whole franchise, leaving fans having to pick their jaw up off the ground. 

Though we followed Sidney around throughout many movies, this is also the first movie where we are focused on her direct family: her daughter and husband. Her daughter became a main target for killing, but we later find out that the killers did not necessarily want to kill her off, but wanted to make her the new “it” girl when they finally took out Sidney. Throughout the whole movie, fans were baited with the return of the original killer, Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard). Sidney kept getting facetime calls from what was supposed to be Stu to convince her that he never died and was back to finish what he started. While we find out that the story of his life after supposedly dying was all made up, we never are truly told the story behind how the calls were made or why they brought him back in the first place. The audience was left to assume that it was all AI and just to make a better plot, but the facts were never stated. 

While the movie had amazing new characters and the return of past loved ones, the movie has been frequently reviewed as the least favorite of the franchise, with many questions left unanswered. Fans were seen saying that the movie did not live up to the hype of the trailer or was very anti-climactic with the killers, which just cannot be looked past. Make sure to go see the movie in theatres to make your own opinion. Now I have one last question, what is your favorite scary movie? 

<Star Ratings>

Killers: ★★★★★

Scare Factor: ★★★★★

Plot: ★★★★★

Overall: ★★★★★