I REALLY didn't care for this. It's about the same quality as Scream 3. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s terrible. It’s bad, but watchable. The screenplay (Guy Busick, Kevin Williamson. Williamson directs as well) is one of the worst in the Scream franchise, the pacing is terrible, the nostalgia-bait only detracts from the film (even though that is the foundation this entire film is built upon), this is one of my least favorite versions of Sidney (She’s back in Scream 3 mode), and the killers are easily the worst in any of the Scream movies. They are uninspired, random, and have zero motivation (That said, I was still able to sus out who they were pretty easily).
Matthew Lillard is fantastic as Stu Macher. He appears in 4 scenes, but only on phone screens or computer screens, so that’s disappointing. The best parts of this outing are Chad, Mindy, and Gale even though they aren’t in it much and are given very little to do. The kills this go-round are fine and get the job done, I suppose. The best scenes are the opening, the bar, and the security camera one.
This flick has no meta commentary or dialogue, instead choosing to half-ass the theme of handing down trauma from parent to child. In better hands, they really could have done something with this idea. Instead, it’s just used to create the illusion of depth in a very shallow and uninspired film. A good deal of this flick is spent apologizing for Scream 6 ( even though 6 is far superior to 7). If all you want is to watch Ghostface kill some people, you definitely get that here. The trade-off though, is you get one of the dumbest Scream films in the franchise. Unfortunately, there is nothing to scream about here.
1.5 STARS