‘Scream 7’ Review – AI Is the Sum of All Fears
Yep, I held off on this one too, until I couldn’t help but give in to the ubiquity of the new Scream sequel. So, here I am – yet again – with mixed feelings.
Let’s start with the triumph: the return of Neve Campbell. After the salary dispute that sidelined her for the last entry, seeing her back in the frame, actually to pass the torch and take a more active role, feels like a restorative act for the series. Her presence still possesses a gravity that the new “Core Four” can’t duplicate.
With Sidney in play, the movie feels less like a generic slasher and seems to remember its roots, for the most part. Campbell portrays Prescott with a weary yet steel-spined grace that keeps the proceedings grounded when she is around. And she is more than an archetypal final girl; Sidney is the curator of a legacy.
So for the first hour, Scream 7 feels like a homecoming for tension and character-driven stakes that Kevin Williamson perfected decades ago. But then we get to the moment the internet has been clamoring for – albeit based on far-fetched noncanonical theories. Yes, Matthew Lillard is back, meaning Stu Macher is as well. Or so we’re led to believe.
Promotion played on the hope that Stu was back to finish what he started, and for a fleeting twenty minutes or so, this card is played well enough. We see the scarred middle-aged man on the video calls and catch wind of an escaped mental patient with amnesia, as Kevin Williamson keeps adding more bait to the hook.
However, it’s fairly obvious he is hoodwinking viewers and not delivering on the feint promise. And soon the sequel collapses under the weight of its contrived nature – and its own cynicism. In the climax, it is revealed that “Stu” was never there, and the “return” was a sophisticated, AI-driven deepfake – a tech-savvy Ghostface imposter orchestrated by a group of disgruntled true-crime buffs that are absurdly right under Sid’s nose.
This twist is disappointing because of what a cop-out it is. By using a digital mask to tease the return of another fan-favorite legacy character, Williamson commits the ultimate meta-sin: trolling the audience to mask a lack of creative courage he mistook for subverting expectations, as the whole Scream series is wont to do every time, no matter how convoluted things get.
Nothing could be more convoluted than going with a deepfake on top of the usual red herrings over a literal resurrection. It feels like a desperate move to cajole nostalgia-bait engagement without having to do the heavy lifting of writing a plausible explanation for how a guy survives death by idiot box and lies in wait undetected for so many years.
They can justify Lillard’s paycheck, but not why we don’t get the real Stu. When the masks come off, all the anticipation is sucked out the window, and the focus shifts to the same old lesson about “toxic fandom” we got the last two times. This one comes with more cameos, at least.
Scream 7 is a half-victory. It honors Sidney Prescott while insulting the very fans who held on during her absence. It’s a film that wants to be “clever” about the digital age, but ends up feeling as hollow as the deepfake it employs. Neve is back, but the final reveal will go over like a slap in the AI-generated face.
Scream 7
PROS
- Neve Campbell
- It feels like a '90s slasher should
- A few tense scenes with inventive kills
CONS
- The ultimate twist
- Not having the conviction to go all in on Stu's resurrection
