Scream 7 Is Dead Wrong About Neve Campbell’s Absence From Scream VI

Scream VI doesn’t often find itself towards the top of franchise rankings, but it isn’t quite fair to say it’s a lambasted or dismissed installment. It’s not on par with Radio Silence’s debut entry of the franchise, but it’s a consistently tense, frightening slasher film with a few top-tier set pieces, most notably the ladder between apartments scene and the subway showstopper. It knew how to be scary, and that’s something Scream 7 doesn’t really know how to do. It feels played out, with little to say about the franchise’s past or the horror genre or slasher subgenre at large.

It also has what is by far the weakest Ghostface reveal scene of the franchise. And, along with several other factors, the big problem with the reveal is its assumption about the audience’s feelings towards its immediate predecessor.

Spoilers for Scream 7 follow.

How Does Scream 7 Try to Incorporate Scream VI and Why Does It Land With a Thud?

There are three killers in Scream 7, but only one of them really even matters. Anna Camp’s Jessica Bowden is the mastermind, and her motive for orchestrating all of this is composed of three elements, and none of them really work.

For one, she’s an obsessed fan of Sidney Prescott and her book, Out of Darkness, the press tour for which got her in on the action of Scream 4. That in and of itself is a nice way to tie Scream 7 into the previous Kevin Williamson-involved franchise, but it’s hard to fully buy that Jessica would read it and get the message that the only way to feel better about one’s own life is to murder those who are bringing your life down. Sidney killed Billy, Stu, etc. to survive. But, fine, we can buy this chunk of the motive just enough to make it the best of the three.

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The second part of the motive is that Jessica wants to make Sidney’s daughter, Tatum, the new final girl. But the aforementioned Scream 4 already did this a much more interesting way by having Sidney’s niece, Jill, want the same and prove it by orchestrating her murder spree to get fans. That’s a lot more thought provoking than the direction Scream 7 goes, which feels both repetitive and like a pale, bland imitation.

Then we get to the third motive, which is why Jessica feels the need to bring Sidney out of retirement (never mind the fact that she’s barely retired…she went through another Ghostface attack just four years prior to this movie). Specifically, Jessica isn’t happy that Sid sat out New York aka Jessica isn’t happy Neve Campbell sat out Scream VI.

The assumption there is that the vast majority of the audience is agreed that the lack of Campbell in the sixth movie was its downfall. But, for one, it didn’t have a downfall. It’s a bit too humorless, but at least it did a few things to take the franchise in a new direction. It had the fake-out Ghostface opening, the change in locale, the further development of the Carpenter sisters’ arcs, it’s not an installment with no reason to exist. And, while it was disappointing at first that Campbell wouldn’t be in a Scream movie, that’s not the reason the movie didn’t work for a portion of the fandom.

Scream 7 is playing it safe all throughout. And, in the process, it brings absolutely nothing new to the table. Not only did Scream VI advance the franchise, it also served as a culmination. For one, the three killers are wearing the masks from all five previous installments and leaving them at the scenes. That reads culmination. Two, at the end of it, the Carpenter sisters have had their narratives wrapped up in a satisfying manner.

And, three, it does a fine job of making Sidney’s absence logical. After the staged attack on Quinn Bailey, Gale Weathers enters the narrative and approaches the Carpenter sisters. After some tension she says, “I talked to Sidney.” Tara replies, “She’s not coming here, is she?” Gale says, “No. She sends her love but she’s taking Mark and the kids to someplace safe. She deserves to have her happy ending.” Sam concludes this portion of the exchange with “On that much we agree.”

That was really all we needed to say goodbye to Sidney. She’s a beloved character, and what better way is there for fans to see her sent off than by learning that she’s safe. She’s survived five separate Ghostface murder sprees, why would she again put herself in the middle of one just because she’s met the Carpenter sisters? She got in on the action in the fifth because someone she’s known all her life, Dewey, was killed. It made full sense why she would enter the line of fire. Now, Scream VI says she’s married and has kids (which we knew from the fifth movie) and wants to stay alive with and for them. Fans like Sidney, so they really should be fine with that. Only someone like Jessica would want otherwise, so it doesn’t quite register as a reason to make another movie to assume the fans agree with her.

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