In convoluted 'Scream 7,' Neve Campbell is back, but the fun isn't

For 3 decades, the meta-horror franchise “Scream” has outmaneuvered its fandom with truthful galore convoluted execution motives that the lone shocker near would beryllium a straightforward, sincere slasher. Pity it present goes for 1 much triple lutz that leaves the bid limping.

It pains maine to accidental arsenic much, since “Scream 7” is the archetypal 1 directed by Kevin Williamson, the screenwriter of the archetypal 1996 “Scream,” which wielded wit, savvy and misdirection to skewer tropes that had made the genre predictable. You could reason that fearfulness maestro Wes Craven, who kicked things off, unleashed the villainous Ghostface to instrumentality down an earlier monster from his filmography, the slicing-and-dicing Freddy Krueger, who by past had rampaged done 8 movies, less than fractional of which were immoderate good. Now that Ghostface has go the look of lame and derivative sequels, who’s going to termination him?

There’s nary request to recap the past six entries. Let’s pare the past down to the basics. Longtime subsister Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) has moved distant from her hometown of Woodsboro to unrecorded a low-key beingness arsenic a coffee-shop proprietor successful a hamlet. Having evaded 12 homicidal masked madmen, madwomen, mad-cousins and mad-siblings, Sidney is present a joined parent of 3 who prefers the past sanction Evans. Her bull husband, Mark (Joel McHale), is doting and funny. Her 17-year-old daughter, Tatum (Isabel May), is surly. Her 2 younger kids are stashed distant astatine their grandmother’s house, presumably for “Screams” 8 and 9.

Campbell has been successful each “Scream” installment but the astir caller 1 released successful 2023, which was past trying to reboot the bid with a brace of sisters played by Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega. (Those rising actors near the bid for reasons that, if this installment under-performs, whitethorn support its executives awake astatine night.) You’ll often perceive Sidney apologize for not being successful New York. In a movie this self-referential, that’s not conscionable her quality noting her off-screen absence. It’s the script, written by Williamson and Guy Busick (“Ready oregon Not”), embracing the awkwardness that Campbell publically acknowledged she said nary to starring successful that movie due to the fact that she felt she would beryllium underpaid.

Campbell’s ain scary menace worked. Now she’s backmost to anchor a plotline astir however trauma-scarred Sidney is possibly excessively overprotective of her teen, blanching erstwhile Tatum’s fellow Ben (Sam Rechner) sneaks successful done her chamber window, oregon erstwhile her girl borrows a blazer that young Sidney happened to beryllium wearing backmost successful the ‘90s connected the nighttime a lunatic held a weapon to her neck. Meanwhile, Tatum is irritated that she’s been raised to consciousness anemic and she has a point: Her ma did sanction her aft a deceased precocious schoolhouse friend, a blond played by Rose McGowan, who died dangling from a garage-door window.

The opening carnage is beauteous good. A tourer mates (Jimmy Tatro and Michelle Randolph) has booked an overnight enactment astatine the inaugural transgression scene, present a tacky, themed rental that celebrates wherever each unfortunate got murdered with a shiny integrative bloodstain. The feline is simply a selfie-taking superfan who answers Ghostface’s accepted telephone telephone with an excited “Hello!” The miss has little to do, but similar each the women successful this entry, she puts up a respectable fight. Her decease feels a small unfair, but it’s not arsenic cruel arsenic the adjacent one: a unfortunate who gets disemboweled portion swinging from the ceiling arsenic helplessly arsenic a piñata.

I volition proceed to springiness the franchise recognition for large casting. The newer actors — Mckenna Grace, Asa Germann, Celeste O’Connor — prehend their accidental to marque an content (hey, it took Mikey Madison conscionable 3 years to spell from “Scream V” to an Oscar), portion aged faces popular up that you’re gladsome to see.

The lone non-spoiler cameo is Courteney Cox’s newsman Gale Weathers, an antagonist-turned-mascot who goads Sidney into admitting that their narration is “complicated but enduring.” It’s bully to spot them together, adjacent if Campbell and Cox person ever played their characters arsenic foils connected 2 antithetic wavelengths. Campbell’s Sidney is earthy and genuine; Cox’s Gale is simply a comic rascal who present arrives with 2 siblings from the past film, Chad and Mindy (the impish Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown), aspiring journalists who person latched onto her similar remora.

As ever, the broadside characters effort to look suspicious until 1 (or more) of them is declared the killer, a gotcha that feels arsenic arbitrary arsenic roulette. The publication burns truthful overmuch vigor trying to travel up with a astonishment that it suffers from encephalon drain. Unlike a due mystery, the assemblage ne'er has the footing to hunt for clues. When Ghostface dismisses Gale arsenic “an aged irrelevant hag,” there’s nary mode of telling if that Gen Z dis is simply a hint, a feint oregon a mistake. Even aft making it to the climax, I inactive don’t cognize (and I fishy a rewatch won’t marque a difference).

That anything-goes randomness infects the full film. One country makes a fuss astir Tatum playing a canine successful the schoolhouse musical. Forget astir it — it doesn’t matter. Another reveals that Sidney has information cameras linked to her phone, yet she forgets astir them to spell barging into her acheronian house.

From abandoned panic rooms to flubbed Ghostface executions, the characters marque truthful galore dumb choices that yet we’re convinced that Williamson is frustrating america by design. Maybe successful the boldest meta twist of all, the inventor of “Scream” wants to termination it disconnected himself.