Apologies for the late arrival of this newsletter. Travel delays and review embargoes meant that I had to delay this one by a little bit. But here now, at long last, are some thoughts on new(-ish) film and TV on offer this week. 

Scream 7 (in theaters)

It is a pleasure to have series star Neve Campbell back after her break from the franchise. (She sat out for one film because of unsatisfactory pay, a stand that seems to have worked: she was reportedly paid a fitting $7 million for this one.) Though, were I a denizen of the Scream world, I would probably not be happy to see Campbell’s Sidney Prescott anywhere near me. People in her orbit tend to get killed, as a masked killer or killers hacks and slashes their way toward their ultimate target. Were Sidney to move to my town, I might take some sort of civic action to get her expelled to a remote island. Or, I dunno, I might just tie her to a tree and say, “Have at it, Ghostface,” lest half of the local high school’s junior class be murdered for her sake. 

But the people of Scream 7 are instead sort of enamored of Sidney’s dark celebrity, welcoming her into their quaint hamlet (in Indiana, I believe) and mostly sticking by her when the killings start again. There are some really gruesome deaths in Kevin Williamson’s film: disembowelment, a head impaled on a makeshift spike, an immolation. It’s surprisingly gnarly for the usually grim-but-not-too-gory franchise, all compounded by the fact that most of the folks being dispatched were born in like 2009. When I went to see Scream 4, I realized quite suddenly that I’d lost my taste for watching teenagers be murdered (these young lives! Their poor parents!) and that queasiness has not dissipated. But Scream 7 manages to keep things fun enough despite that hideous tragedy, relying on Campbell’s compelling star presence and delicately strumming the strings of nostalgia. 

There is an interesting, amusing idea at the heart of the movie that could be better teased out, but at least there is an idea! That’s more than can be said for many seventh installments. Scream 7’s meta conceit—as there must be a meta conceit in these films—concerns Campbell’s absence from the last movie and what, if anything, is owed to fans who have stuck by something for so long. Williamson seems to be defending Campbell’s decision-making, though one could read something a little uglier into Scream 7’s insistence that fans have become too demanding.