Scream 7

Directed by Kevin Williamson, Scream 7 follows Neve Campbell’s Sidney as she’s once again stalked by the masked killer known as Ghostface. Filmmaker Williamson, armed with his and Guy Busick’s screenplay, delivers an erratic yet watchable thriller that gets off to a predictably terrific start, as the movie opens with precisely the sort of self-contained (and very entertaining) pre-credits interlude that’s come to define this ongoing series – with the picture, beyond that point, seguing into an admittedly hit-and-miss midsection. It’s clear, then, that Scream 7 benefits from Campbell’s impressively solid turn as the iconic protagonist and Williamson’s recurring emphasis on tense, satisfying kill sequences, although, by that same token, the impact of certain stretches is dulled by characters making almost aggressively boneheaded decisions (ie the original Scream mocked people like this). And while the picture closes with perhaps the weakest reveal of the killer(s) in the franchise’s history, Scream 7 generally comes off as a decent-enough endeavor that does, in the end, seem as though it might’ve benefited from some streamlining.

**1/2 out of ****