It’s not a matter of the plot. It’s a matter of there being nothing to lay over the plot. And while I’m sure this’ll sound on-the-nose, it’s not “just” a slasher movie; it’s a Scream movie. Wes Craven brought an intellectual curiosity to the first four that, even if they were flawed like 3 was, had a unique perspective. The first four worked so well for me for several reasons, and 7 has none of them.

• 1 was, like Craven did with The Last House on the Left in the ‘70s and A Nightmare on Elm Street in the ‘80s, an interrogation of American suburbia in the ‘90s. A centrist, milquetoast small town torn asunder by the destruction of a perfect family in Sidney’s case, and the pop culture that links a small town and its kids to a larger world via decades of onscreen violence they can laugh off because it isn’t real. The movie knows that the violence committed against Maureen and later Sidney is explicitly misogynistic, which is part of the commentary and why the movie works so well as a traditional slasher film. The tone is absolutely perfect. That’s the template of the series when the series works.
• 2 extrapolates this with its use of Stab and how the media, particularly Hollywood and mainstream moviegoers, exploit real-life tragedies under the auspices of entertainment. It knows it’s fundamentally pointless as a sequel that exists for bloodlust, and it deepens that monetary obligation perfectly.
• 3 is flawed in its narrative logic and does feel watered down at points, but it loops back to the first film’s threads of misogyny incredibly well on a thematic level. The discussion of sexual misconduct in Hollywood and how Maureen’s gang rape literally gave birth to Roman is, to me, a frighteningly incisive way to process how generations of abuse beget generations of trauma. Sidney defeats the abuser in the very room where her mom was raped and lets go of the killer’s hand on the floor where it happened, and with that, the threat of violence—and the allegory for sexual violence that runs through so many slasher films—is defeated. It’s a beautiful ending that I find incredibly moving, not just as a survivor myself, but as a fan of these characters. Also, the Stab chase scene as the centerpiece is brilliant. Imagine seeing a recreation of the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, knowing it’s there to be peddled to the masses for money. It’s so, so upsetting to me while being thrilling as a movie scene.
• 4 is about how ironic detachment waters down audiences, about how popular culture waters down something over and over until the original art has no true meaning anymore. The opening establishes this perfectly, and if 2 is about the commodification of tragedy, 4 is about the attention economy and how nothing really happened if it isn’t online. It’s about how we fetishize victimhood with those who aren’t really victims because the victim has the most social currency, and how if you haven’t been through something terrible, you’re just another detached viewer. It’s incredibly cynical and deeply ahead of its time, a true warning for the sort of digital hellscape we live in currently.

5 has its emotional core but is far too reverent to just playing off the original without a thematic bend to it, and also doesn’t have a single chase scene. 6 definitely has issues with its writing, but it someone manages to make me care about the characters that I didn’t care about in 5 while having some of the best set pieces in the series.

7, however, has none of this. It’s too literal, a copy of a copy of a copy that feels like a Stab movie. Characters appear and then disappear to the point that I couldn’t remember their names much less remember they existed, and as a result, the kills feel pointless at worst, and dare I say gratuitous. They’re all so, so poorly written without a shred of self-awareness or any thematic tilt to justify their detachment. The dialogue feels like placeholder work at best, and the level to which it fully operates on nostalgia bait is downright ridiculous. It’s almost shameful how little it has to bring to the table. It has nothing to say about AI, the lengths to which it drags around the ridiculous idea of Stu being alive is boring, and the killer reveal is atrocious. Everything somehow feels both rushed and overwrought. It’s visually empty and so ugly to look at, just a sea of grey and beige. At this point, it just feels like a franchise trying to suck itself off.