Even Cox has some shade to share with Sidney about missing the franchise’s last jaunt to New York City in “Scream VI:” “You’re lucky you sat that one out. It was brutal.” Preach, sister. We watched it.
“Scream 7” is all about 2026, embracing deepfake videos, trying to absorb a messy past and deal with helicopter parents. It also embraces such interesting ways to kill people as fire extinguishers to the noggin, meat mallets and a slide across a bar into broken shot glass shards.
At one point, Sidney and her daughter make their way into a well-appointed panic room while the killer is furiously hunting them. They spend less than five minutes there, panting a lot, and then they (checks notes) inexplicably leave — the panic room.
“This isn’t going to stop unless I stop it,” Sidney says.
While there are nods to other horror movies — “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” is playing at the local theater and the “Halloween” franchise gets name-checked — “Scream” has always been fun for the way it deconstructs the genre while making a new one. This time, that’s just flat.
There’s a stab — sorry — at dealing with PTSD, but choosing the “Scream” franchise to discuss generational trauma is a weird vehicle to pick when there’s a psychotic, knife-wielding serial killer dropping bodies every few minutes.
Lumbering along while fatally wounded, this is a franchise that doesn’t know it is dead, staggering ever onward without an ending in sight. Perhaps Sidney is right: This isn’t going to stop unless she stops it.
Kennedy reviews movies for The Associated Press.
“Scream 7,” a Paramount Pictures release that hits theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for strong bloody violence, gore and language. Running time: 114 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.