“Scream 7” begins with a return to the iconic Macher house, now an Airbnb for horror junkies to stay at. Cue the entrance of horror enthusiast Scott (Jimmy Tartro “Theater Camp,” “Home Economics”) and his reluctant girlfriend Madison (Michelle Randolph “1923,” “Landman”).

Scott booked the Macher house, which has been decked out in Stab merchandise, including a creepy, motion-sensor animatronic of Ghostface. Scott is stoked for the stay, while Madison is less than thrilled as she finds the whole thing cheesy. She isn’t wrong; the house plays into the campy feel of the “Scream” franchise, along with the capitalistic greed of the film-within-a-film, “Stab,” that profits off the trauma of real people. The motion-sense animatronic, which feels like a too-obvious red herring, turns out to be the real Ghostface, who is crashing this not-so-romantic weekend.
Ghostface kills the couple brutally and burns down the Macher house—a symbolic end of an era.

This film is all about nostalgia; the final girl who started it all is back. Sidney Evans (Neve Campbell “Scream,” “Wild Things”), better known to fans as Sidney Prescott, returns as a small business owner and mother of three who lives in Pine Grove, Indiana, with her husband, police chief Mark Evans (Joel McHale “Community,” “The Happy Time Murders”). Here she is trying to make a fresh start, free from the ghosts of her past. Her solution to this is to deflect when anyone asks any questions, including her own daughter.

Tatum (Isabel May “1883,” “I Want You Back”), Sidney’s eldest daughter, opted to stay home when her younger sisters went off to visit their grandma in Colorado. While Tatum is named after Sidney’s best friend, who tragically died in the first installment, tensions run high between the mother-daughter duo.

Sidney is overprotective of Tatum, refusing to allow her to go out and being extra wary of anyone that gets close to her—especially her boyfriend, Ben (Sam Rechner “The Fabelmans,” “Heartbreak High”). Given her trauma, this is understandable, but it is overbearing to a 17-year-old girl. Tatum is constantly trying to start a deeper dialogue with her mother. But instead of bonding and preparing Tatum for potential attacks, Sidney shuts her down again and again.

No matter how hard Sidney tries to outrun her past, she can’t seem to escape it. From neighbor boys who are obsessed with her story to prank phone calls from Ghostface impersonators, the trials of Woodsboro never seem far behind. But what happens when the prank phone call seemingly is from someone who was killed 30 years ago? That’s right, Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard “Scooby Doo,” “The Descendants”) appears to have jumped from one screen to another, facetiming Sidney and threatening her daughter. Ghostface is back and hunting a new set of teens, and you know the rules—everyone’s a suspect.

While this isn’t the “Scream 7” many hoped for, there are some familiar faces from the last two installments. Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown “Missing,” “YellowJackets”) and Chad (Mason Gooding “Fall,” “Heart Eyes”) are back. They now work with Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox “Friends,” “Scream”), who is returning to her true-crime journalism roots after her talk show was canceled. When she isn’t pushing for Gale’s spotlight, Mindy provides homage to her Uncle Randy by providing the horror movie rules for a nostalgic return.

“Scream 7” was originally planned as a continuation of the Carpenter sisters’ story, Sam (Melissa Barrera “In the Heights,” “Abigail”) and Tara (Jenna Ortega “Wednesday,” “The Fallout”). The original storyline was scrapped due to Barrera being fired from the film for “hate speech” following her 2023 Instagram post addressing the Israel-Gaza conflict. Her post included the following: “Gaza is currently being treated like a concentration camp. Cornering everyone together, with nowhere to go, no electricity, no water … People have learnt nothing from our histories. And just like our histories, people are still silently watching it all happen. THIS IS GENOCIDE & ETHNIC CLEANSING.” Spyglass Media Group, the production company behind the Scream franchise, responded to this, claiming Barrera’s post was antisemitic and that the company has a zero-tolerance policy on this.

Jenna Ortega was also notably absent from the seventh installment. This was due to the actress leaving the production a day after Barrera’s firing. Ortega originally stated that she left due to scheduling conflicts with “Wednesday.” She has since come forward and refuted this in an interview with The Cut, “The Melissa stuff was happening, and it was all kind of falling apart. If ‘Scream VII’ wasn’t going to be with that team of directors and those people I fell in love with, then it didn’t seem like the right move for me in my career at the time.” Ortega was not alone in following Barrera’s exit from the franchise. Director Christopher Landon posted on X a month later that he would be leaving the franchise. His since-deleted post read: “Everything sucks. Stop yelling. This was not my decision to make.”

Barrera continues to receive support from many fans for remaining outspoken regarding the Palestinian conflict. When “Scream 7” premiered on Feb. 25, fans and activists alike gathered outside the Paramount Studios lot in L.A. to call for a boycott of the film and the cancellation of Paramount.

Frankly, with the franchise choosing to stand in support of the genocide occurring in Palestine, avoid spending your money on going to see this mediocre movie that represents the only things that Hollywood seems to be able to do these days: nostalgia and sequel-farming. The film itself relies on increasingly aesthetic, gruesome deaths and manufacturing sentiment in its viewers rather than a solid plot built on good storytelling. Seven installments are enough and truly too many for this franchise. After 30 years, let Sidney Prescott rest and let Ghostface finally die for good.

“Scream 7” is currently playing in theaters and is rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, and language.