| Paramount Pictures | Release Date: February 27, 2026 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
3
Mixed:
22
Negative:
17
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Critic Reviews
Feb 26, 2026
Scream 7 packs in plenty of satisfying slasher action, and may even bring some lapsed fans back into the fold by focusing down the scope of that action after Scream 6, but the new ideas it does bring to the table are either too thin to fully explore or ill-advised enough to detract from the success the movie does find in playing the hits, the deep cuts, and the killer tracks.
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Feb 26, 2026
What follows is a reasonably ingenious meld of new-generational tomfoolery and the unearthing of ancient characters whose identities we shan’t spoil. There is little original here, but, as has always been the case in this treatise on repeated tropes, that is precisely the point. They can have that get-out clause on me.
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NMEFeb 26, 2026
When Campbell, Cox or both are on screen, Scream 7 is at its best. Campbell now is as indefatigable a scream queen as Jamie Lee Curtis in the Halloween series, while Weathers is probably Cox’s greatest role, even if the Friends faithful prefer Monica Geller. So, even an average Scream film is worth seeing for the dark thrills and bloody spills we can depend on. Just don’t expect to be wowed.
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Feb 26, 2026
The seventh and supposedly final Scream is never as sharp or as smart as the series' best, but it still has a few neat tricks up its billowing sleeve. Enjoyably self-aware and satisfyingly bloody, this may be imitation Craven, but it proves Scream's slasher-whodunnit formula is still potent enough to thrill.
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PolygonFeb 26, 2026
Maybe the most baffling thing about Scream 7 is that it’s not an off-the-rails franchise-ending disaster. It’s entertaining enough, with a few fun side performances and the easy prickliness of Sidney and Gale’s friendship. But it’s missing the giddy carnival-ride audience-movie thrills and clever meta-humor of previous entries, and the more serious material simply isn’t insightful enough to take its place (or distract from its craven origins as a corporate patch-job).
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SlashfilmFeb 26, 2026
All of this is emblematic of a film that suffers from self-inflicted wounds at practically every turn. Lacking the cleverness of the original, the undeniable flair of the best of Wes Craven's sequels, and the crowd-pleasing thrills of the recent revivals, "Scream 7" is more or less dead on arrival. Maybe it should stay that way.
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Next Best PictureFeb 26, 2026
The film’s refusal to engage with its own material and its franchise’s legacy may not be the only problem with “Scream 7,“but it’s certainly the biggest. For every good element, there’s an equally bad one. The performances are either good (Campbell has always been great as Sidney, but this may be her best performance in the franchise to date) or barely functional (Courtney Cox looks and sounds like she’s sleepwalking through playing Gale Weathers despite getting an all-timer entrance).
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Feb 26, 2026
And that’s the major problem here. When the first Scream hit, it had a ball deconstructing ’80s and ’90s horror movie tropes. Six movies and three decades on, it’s become the very thing it was built to deconstruct, trapped in its own lore and fumbling about for its old smarts. The genre has moved on. Scream needs to get with the times.
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The TimesFeb 26, 2026
Worst of all, and quite baffling for a film that was directed and cowritten by the franchise creator, Kevin Williamson, this isn’t even about articulate teens deconstructing horror films any more. There are a handful of limp references to AI deepfakes but otherwise all the sharp culture awareness, and certainly all the irony, has been removed. It’s as if nobody realised that a Scream movie without the irony is just a bad horror movie. Roll on Scream 8?
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The Daily BeastFeb 26, 2026
Worst of all, Scream 7 doesn’t concoct the sort of ludicrous denouement that has always been these movies’ signature, instead delivering perhaps the most deflating conclusion in the series’ three-decade history. That alone should indicate that Ghostface has lost his luster and should withdraw to the Horror Hall of Fame where he deserves to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Freddy, Jason, and the rest of the genre’s genuine icons.
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IndieWireFeb 26, 2026
Marketed as a triumphant return to form and positioned as a nostalgic corrective move for Paramount after a year of public controversy, director Kevin Williamson’s latest lands like a corporate gesture that misunderstands both the franchise he created and the horror landscape it inhabits now.
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Feb 26, 2026The Travers TakeFeb 27, 2026
Feb 27, 2026
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