Scream 7

It’s really been thirty years since my old buddy and I went to see Scream at a weekday evening show. We both loved it and then we unwisely went on a bar hop. The next day I had a ferocious hangover at work.

Notwithstanding the hangover, it’s a great memory. I feel a lot of nostalgia for the nineties.

In the nineties I felt nostalgia for the early slasher days and, even further back, my boyhood fascination with black and white horror movies.

One day, if I live long enough, I will feel the same about the past year of movies. I discovered a great little theater on a Navy base a few miles from my house. Admission is a mere five bucks, and when I go to an early show in the middle of the week, I often have the auditorium to myself.

I saw a lot of movies since February 2025. Thanks to my movie journal, I can name them all:

The Monkey
Opus
The Woman in the Yard
Until Dawn
Clown in a Cornfield
Final Destination: Bloodline
Together
Weapons
The Long Walk
Good Boy
The Smashing Machine
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Dream Eater
The Black Phone 2
Shelby Oaks
Back to the Future
Keeper
The Running Man
Eternity
Silent Night, Deadly Night
Ella McKay
Marty Supreme
The Housemaid
Send Help
Scream 7

I certainly didn’t love all these movies, but I loved seeing them all.

Nostalgia. It’s a powerful force and one that is particularly felt by horror fans. We look back to the good old days, often blind to the times we currently experience.


The theme of Scream 7 is nostalgia. The Scream franchise is beloved by a lot of people. It’s probably the most popular slasher series at the moment.

Scream DVDs fly off my vendor tables. Teenagers relate to the young characters and the ironic humor.

I was at my doctor for a recent checkup. I’m doing well, and afterward we talked for a few minutes. She told me, somewhat baffled by, that her daughter is obsessed with this…Ghostface. The Scream movies. I smiled, thinking of a young slasher fan causing mental health worries from her befuddled parents. I said to tell her daughter that a sixty-five-year-old patient loves Scream and is living proof you can be a slasher fan forever. The doctor seemed skeptical. I wonder if the message was delivered. Probably not. You wouldn’t want to encourage such dubious behavior.

I wasn’t expecting much from Scream 7. The production was troubled and there were delays, firings, and departures. It’s a miracle they were able to cobble it all together.

There was talk of the improbable return of Matthew Lillard, despite his death in the first movie. Quentin Tarantino be damned, I liked Lillard ever since I first saw him in Serial Mom.

I hate that they killed off the best character, reliably nerdy Deputy Dewey, but no one is safe in a slasher, right?

Say what you want about the Friday the 13th series. As bad as some of the movies are, at least they tried to do different things. Scream is the same-old, same-old. They must be having trouble coming up with new motivations and characters to don the mask.

It’s always good to see Sidney. Neve Campbell is still excellent in the role. Gale, however, isn’t so enjoyable anymore. Her once endearing tough-as-nails attitude has become ugly. Plus it’s hard to witness her facial reconstructions. Courtney Cox is starting to look like Martin Landau. When will people realize there is dignity, grace, and beauty in aging?

Scream 7 is competently made. The murders are well executed. I like the new young cast more than the parts 5 and 6 legacy characters. The way Jasmine Savoy Brown endless spouts cliches is simply annoying.

I mostly enjoyed Scream 7. I certainly don’t regret paying to see it and I am pretty sure we haven’t seen the last of Ghostface. While this one isn’t the most successful Scream movie, It’s making a nice profit.

I’ve paid to see them all and I won’t be stopping anytime soon. As long as I am able to make the drive down the highway to the theater, I plan to see Scream 8 and most other horror movies that get released. This is what I do. This is who I am. I like scary movies.

And one day, when I am really old, and movies have changed beyond recognition, I will look back with longing nostalgia to the days when I could go to a theater and see a new Scream.

Written by Mark Sieber