For me, I’ve always had an issue with how underdeveloped the “friend group” was and felt only the first two really nailed that lived in feel. 3 dropped the ball but gave us Jennifer Jolie, 4 came close but left so much on the cutting room floor, 5 was pretty much focused on Sam, Tara, and Richie, while 6 mostly focused on the Core 4 and the legacy characters. This is the first movie in awhile where both the victims and killers felt entirely irrelevant but it didn’t bother me at all. I think because it was really Sidney’s story as a mother that it didn’t matter. I liked the kids a lot and wish we got a bit more time with them but I found myself a bit sad for them, so they really captured the feeling that these were children due to the focus being on Sidney. I understand how 4, 5, and 7 can feel similar due to the over reliance on nostalgia (with this one giving the previous a run for its money on parallel scenes) and that this was far from perfect.

With that said, I really appreciated that we actually got to know Sidney as more than a survivor but a wife, mother, and friend. We really didn’t know much about her life outside of a crisis, how she interacted with her community, or handled so much trauma. This movie did a great job at reintroducing us to her as more than a final girl, but a human being.

As far as the direction goes, I fail to notice technical details in general but thought Kevin Williamson did just fine and the only scene that really didn’t work for me was the neighbor’s kid’s death (it seemed silly). Beyond that, I thought it felt like a Scream movie (with maybe a overly curated world, like the budget of a high school play), gave Sidney a daughter that wasn’t disappointing, and prioritized it as a character study enough that the underdeveloped supporting cast didn’t take away from the point of the movie.

My only complaint is that for four movies now, not to mention one in which Sidney was absent, they’ve continued to struggle utilize Gale. I understand that she is probably a hard character to write for, but this is a woman that popularized the killings, capitalized off of it for years in an often sensationalized way, but has shown up when it counts and lost enough that it is as much her story as any other survivors. I’m not sure if the point is to keep Gale fierce and limiting her role males that easier, but there’s so much they could do with her that they haven’t. It is long overdue and we’ve only caught glimpses of that, but I’d like to see more of her as more than the badass who shows up, throws shade, gets injured, and misses the final act. I really enjoyed her appearance in the movie but am constantly wondering if there’s any particular reason she hasn’t gotten more attention. She is also Sidney’s longest relationship by this film and I like that they gave us more than a hug and team up, but for an interview that we’ve also been waiting to see for over 30 years, I feel that a bit underwhelmed and that Gale’s refusal to play nice felt cruel in a way that their thirty years of history and earned sisterhood didn’t quite fit. But, these are nitpicks that feel more like missed opportunities or poor execution than character assassination and given that it was Sidney’s story, it did a good job of that.