I am a fan of the Scream franchise. I enjoyed the first four movies as a teenager and got back on board with the fifth and sixth film. While in retrospect Scream 6 had some issues, I was still looking forward to the conclusion of the new trilogy to see how the Carpenter sisters’ story would end. Then Melissa Barrera was unjustly fired for her comments on Palestine. Then Jenna Ortega also dropped out. The director bailed and the script for the seventh film was thrown out. Needless to say, these events had me extremely worried for Scream 7’s quality. Unfortunately, these concerns were justified because, after seeing the seventh film, I can say that the Scream franchise has finally had a bad film.
Ghostface walking away from torching the Scream franchise.
Before this, the weakest film in the series was Scream 3, but even that had its fun with campy moments and good characterization. The seventh film has none of that, with an extremely boring and forgettable cast overall, twists that are somehow both predictable and completely stupid, and an eye-rolling amount of callbacks. The story once again follows Sidney Prescott, as her daughter Tatum (Isabel May) and husband Mark (Joel McHale) are threatened by the return of Ghostface. With a cast of boring suspects, she must stop the killer before it is too late, all the while trying to determine if Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) has really returned. Neve Campbell is back as Sidney and, while it is good to see her return, after a pay dispute caused her to leave Scream 6, her character does no have much meaningful development.
Although Neve Campbell does a good job, as expected.
Her character’s husband and daughter also feel bland, and the latter is supposed to be the secondary main character. Sidney is not the only returning character however because Gale (Courtney Cox), Mindy (Jasmin Savoy-Brown) and Chad (Mason Gooding) also return but, for the life of me, I cannot understand why. I mean, I get why Gale would try to pursue the story of another Ghostface killer, but she does not have enough presence in the film to warrant a return. Neither do Chad and Mindy, since the two could have been absent and nothing about the story would change.
It feels really weird that the Meeks siblings are back but not Sam and Tara.
So, the characters are a bust, but what about the mystery? It is always fun to watch a Scream movie and guess who the killers are before the big reveal. Well, not this time. The hints towards the killers are so blindingly obvious, I guessed it from their first appearances. What makes it worse is that in practically every Scream movie, there is a killer with a deep connection to our main cast. Either that or their motive ties into the themes. Not this movie. No, instead the characters playing the Ghost Face killers are barely in the movie before the reveal, and their motivations make zero sense. In my opinion, these are the worst Ghost Face killers of the entire series. They have so little screen presence, their plans are dumb and I cannot for the life of me even remember their names.
The killers who got murdered at the beginning of Scream 6 were better characters than these clowns.
The only memorable thing about this film’s killers is their frequent nostalgia baiting, but that is not the kind of thing I want to remember. The callbacks to prior films made my eyes roll so far to the back of my head, I was worried they would get stuck there forever. The only redeeming qualities to this film are that the performances are admittedly decent, some of the action is well-done, and the gore made me wince.
If you are a fan of gory horror movies, you might get some enjoyment from the horror. Some.
Other than these few positives, Scream 7 is a disaster. The new characters are dull, most of the old ones do not have a reason to be here beside nostalgia, said nostalgia is handled in an extremely annoying way, and, to top it all off, the film has the worst killers of the franchise. Scream 7 is the worst Scream film and it is not even close. They should have gone with the original plan for this movie and never fired Melissa Barrera. It would probably have been good and not… whatever this was. If I were to rewatch the Scream movies, thisis one I will undoubtedly skip.
I got back into the Scream franchise a few months after the fifth installment released. Ever since then, I had been eagerly anticipating Scream 6, to the point that I did not watch any trailers, except for the first one, so I would be going in blind. However, despite my excitement, I was still prepared for disappointment, considering this would be the first Scream film without Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott. Her absence in this movie is because of a pay dispute and to that I say she should have been paid what shewas owed as the face of this franchise. Although, as Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) says in this movie, Sidney deserves a happy ending. So, if the last we ever see of Sidney Prescott is her surviving in Scream 5, then I will be satisfied with her story.
Sidney’s absence is also explained well enough.
As for Scream6‘s story, it follows the sisters Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) who have moved to New York following the events of Scream 5, along with siblings Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown). However, when a new series of Ghostface killings begin, the four are left wondering who to trust, with numerous suspects including the returning Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere), Detective Wayne Bailey (Dermot Mulroney), his daughter and the Carpenter’s roommate Quinn (Lianna Liberato), their neighbour Danny (Josh Sergerra), Mindy’s girlfriend Anika (Devyn Nekoda), and Chad’s roommate Ethan (Jack Champion). Alongside this large cast comes an even larger body count, with this Ghostface being the scariest in the entire franchise.
Ghostface is absolutley brutal in this movie.
I am so glad that I did not watch any of the trailers after the first because it made for more terrifying surprises. Speaking of surprises, Scream 6 has by far the best opening scene, since the first one. It was such a shocking opening and left me wondering just where this film was going. The film builds from adrenaline rushing scene to anxiety inducing scene, until we finally reach the big third act, which has plenty of great reveals and character development. I especially enjoyed the development of the Carpenter sisters with Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega doing an excellent job as the characters.
The resolutions to Sam and Tara’s arcs in this movie was great.
As for flaws, there is one very obvious red herring that made me roll my eyes a bit. Also, the film does stretch believability at times with how many characters survive what should be fatal wounds. More importantly though, I was not really a fan of Gale’s role in this movie. She does have some awesome moments but it the way she is presented here went entirely against her ending in Scream 5. Along with this, it kind of felt like her ending in this movie may have been rewritten, although that’s just a suspicion.
The way Gale is presented as a character in this movie really bothered me.
Other than those few issues, however, Scream 6 is a great time. It has solid character development and callbacks, as well as some incredibly intense scenes with what has to be the scariest Ghostface of the franchise. I am already eagerly anticipating Scream 7.
I really enjoyed Insomniac’s 2018 Spider-Man game, which offered some fantastic gameplay, along with a compelling, emotional story and a brand new take on Peter Parker (Yuri Lowenthal). So, I was pretty excited to get into the next installment, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which sees players take control of Peter’s up and coming protégé, Miles (Nadji Jeter), as he has to save the city on his own when Peter goes on vacation, in what is a shorter experience than the first game but still an enjoyable one. Now, I really enjoyed Miles as a character in my favourite movie of 2018, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, so I was interested to see how Insomniac would depict him there. Thankfully, Miles is just as relatable as Peter was in the previous game, offering a completely different arc from his, as Miles has to prove himself as worthy of the Spider-Man title to the rest of New York.
Miles trying to impress the city as their new hero is an engaging journey.
Not that his efforts will impress J. Jonah Jameson (Darin de Paul), whose hilarious podcasts can still be listened to throughout. As for the actual story, it is a good time, although nothing new. The main antagonist of the Tinkerer (Jasmin Savoy Brown) is interesting and has understandable motivations and a great ending to boot. However, the second antagonist, Simon Krieger (Troy Baker), is a very different story, being generic as they come.
Krieger is an incredibly bland antagonist but the Tinkerer thankfully makes up for him.
The gameplay is just as fun as it was in the first Spider-Man game, with enjoyable combat and stealth sequences and some great boss fights. As for the web swinging mechanics, they are complemented by the improved graphics. Speaking of graphics, unfortunately, this is where I have to get into my one problem with the graphics update, which is the new face model for Peter Parker. I thought the one in the original game was perfect because of how it accurately reflected not only an older version of Peter but also one who we had never seen before. The new face model, however, claims neither title. It makes Peter look way too young and, even worse, look exactly like Tom Holland. Not that there’s anything wrong with Tom Holland. I do like his portrayal of Spider-Man, but this redesign takes the unique approach to Peter’s look in the first game and replaces it with what feels like an attempt to pander to fans of the MCU.
The redesign was definitely a bad idea because the original look suited this version of Peter better.
It’s like if they went back to the older Spider-Man films and digitally replaced Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield with Tom Holland, it just wouldn’t work because all three actors made the character their own and neither one could take over their exact interpretation. Thankfully, though, Peter’s new face isn’t shown much and, even if it was, it wouldn’t be bad enough to take away from the overall experience too much because of how enjoyable the rest of the game is. Overall, Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a fun experience that gets you acquainted with another great interpretation of Miles and sets up some interesting events in the next game, if the post credits scene is anything to go by.
THE REVIEW MONSTER 