Sorry, Scream 7, But Making Scream 6 Without Sidney Wasn’t The Mistake

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It’s a really interesting time to be a Scream fan! Scream 6, which came out last year, did amazingly well – it had the biggest opening weekend and made the most money domestically of any film in the series, bringing in $108 million in the US and $169 million worldwide. (Though the original Scream directed by Wes Craven still holds the overall box office record with $173 million from 1996.) And now, the newest film is looking like it’s going to break even that opening weekend record – it’s really exciting!

Rather than continuing the story directly from Scream 6, the new film, Scream 7, feels like a reset. It brings back Sidney, who wasn’t in the previous movie due to a disagreement with Neve Campbell, after the planned leads, Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, left the project. The film completely drops the plotline involving the Carpenter sisters and is built around the idea that Scream 6 – a Scream movie without Sidney – didn’t work.

Unfortunately for this new movie, though, they’ve got it the wrong way around.

Scream 6 Was Right To Move On From Sidney, No Matter How Much Scream 7 Apologizes For It

Be warned: the following contains potential spoilers for Scream 7. It’s common for long-running movie series, particularly those known for self-awareness, to playfully acknowledge past decisions that didn’t pan out. The Deadpool movies, for instance, have successfully made fun of Ryan Reynolds’ earlier portrayal of the character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. However, it’s rare to see a franchise openly joke about one of its successful films.

The latest Scream movie, Scream 7, repeatedly references the Ghostface attacks in New York, but these references felt forced and didn’t quite work. The film goes to great lengths to explain Sidney’s absence from the previous movie, Scream 6, almost as if it were trying to appease Neve Campbell’s character. However, the ending reveals that the new Ghostface’s actions were also motivated by this, suggesting a much bigger issue. It felt like the filmmakers weren’t just assuming the audience felt the series had lost its way and was now fixed—they were actively trying to convince us of that.

I completely disagree with that viewpoint. While the 2022 Scream was enjoyable, it tried too hard to both recapture the feeling of the original and offer something new. Scream 6 still had some of those tendencies, but it did a much better job of forging its own path and moving beyond the self-aware style that has defined every Scream sequel since the first film. The development of the Carpenter sisters and the main group of characters made it feel like the series was finally looking toward the future instead of constantly referencing the past.

Scream 7 unfortunately reverses the positive direction the series was heading, essentially becoming a rehash of Halloween (2018) and even boasting about it. It’s no surprise that this film has the lowest ratings of any in the Scream franchise, and I expect box office numbers to drop significantly after its opening weekend. I went from being enthusiastic about the future of Scream to completely losing interest, and I believe that’s a major misstep that this movie fails to address.

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2026-02-28 19:58