So…I’ve watched all of the Scream movies, and while I was a bit hesitant about watching Scream 7, I felt like I had to, if only because the first Scream movie was such an iconic movie for the horror genre.
Sidney was always such an interesting character in the first few movies, and I was looking forward to seeing how the second generation…her own daughter…would handle the darkness of her mother’s past. And, well, the answer…was disappointing.
Sidney never struck me as the kind of person who would hide what she went through from her family. I mean, I get the whole overprotective mother thing…but keeping everything a secret from her daughter just didn’t feel like it fit with her previously established character. I would have liked the conflict between Sidney and Tatum (her daughter) a lot more if it had felt more true to Sidney’s character as a survivor of multiple massacres.
The first spree of killings was…very anticlimactic, to be honest. I think because the movie didn’t spend enough time setting up the characters before starting to kill them off. The identity of the first unmasked killer wasn’t a surprise…because there was really only one person who’d earlier been acting suspicious. The fact that he wasn’t known by any of the characters made it obvious that there was going to be another killer (or another two killers), even if the runtime hadn’t already made that obvious.
The whole thing with Stu supposedly not being dead might have been an interesting angle, if it wasn’t obvious (at least to me) that Stu couldn’t have actually been alive. I mean, don’t get me wrong; it was pretty awesome to see Matthew Lillard make an appearance. But it was pretty obvious that it wasn’t going to be him.
As to who the killers actually were…well, that was just as anticlimactic as the first killer, to be honest. Unfortunately, I feel like the killers (and their motives) are just getting worse and worse the more Scream movies there actually are.
I did like the appearance of Chad and Mindy, but it was disappointing that they didn’t get much screen time…and I felt that Mindy especially was toned down quite a bit. It would have been great to see them both get more room to shine.
Unfortunately, on the whole, I didn’t really enjoy this movie. It didn’t have anything that made previous movies good, and while the Scream murder house being turned into an airbnb was an interesting idea, the two characters at the beginning had nothing to do with the other victims…and honestly, most of what happened during that initial scene (and the rest of the movie) was really predictable…and pretty boring. I can’t really say I’d recommend watching this movie even if you have enjoyed previous Scream movies, as I do think Sidney’s character is somewhat ruined…and it doesn’t really have much to do with the most recent movies in the franchise, apart from Chad and Mindy making an appearance…and a brief conversation towards the end between Sidney and Gale about the events of the previous movie, which didn’t have Sidney in it at all.
Ink of Blood 