The original Scream still remains one of the best horror films of all time and in turn gave birth to one of the strongest and most enjoyable horror franchises spanning over three decades, with only one previous instalment ever rubbing me up the wrong way. So, as with all the earlier sequels, going into Scream 7 I was extremely excited. There is something about seeing Ghostface on the big screen that teleports me back to watching a scary film behind my parents’ back for the very first time, and it is that kind of nostalgia that will always have me looking forward to a Scream film. But it is also painfully ironic that the heavy reliance on nostalgia in Scream 7 is ultimately its downfall, helping it go down as the weakest entry in the franchise to date.

The widely publicised production issues, the cast changes, and the costly script rewrites almost made it feel as though the writing was on the wall early on that this would be a relative disaster. And that is despite franchise mainstay Kevin Williamson returning not only to write the film but also to direct. Yet, despite his best efforts, Scream 7 is the first entry in the series not to feel fresh or new, instead coming across as though it has run out of interesting ideas, recycling what we have seen before and this time awkwardly trying to wangle AI into the mix. It does beg the question, what did the original version of Scream 7 look like? Because I am sure it would have had to be much better than this.

For Scream 7, the faithful old guard return with Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) at the helm, now living far away from Woodsboro in Indiana with her police chief husband Mark (Joel McHale) and their three children. Conveniently, two of them are staying with their grandparents, leaving only teenage daughter Tatum (Isabel May) in the mix. Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) is of course a prominent presence, joined by the twins from the Core Four, Mindy and Chad Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding). Their inclusion, while fun, makes the complete exclusion of Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega’s characters, not just from the film but even from being referenced, all the more egregious to the point it becomes a real turn off.

That is not helped by the addition of the wider supporting cast, all of whom are as forgettable as the next. None of them have any substance beyond the most surface level introduction, as though they are deliberately being served up as a nice, tasty meal for Ghostface. The problem, though, is that it becomes incredibly difficult to care about any of the newcomers or feel any real sense of stakes as we have previously, leaving the film feeling as though it is simply going through the motions.

Of course, as an audience we are here to see Ghostface get his or her hands dirty in as much blood as possible, and that is where Scream 7 does excel at times. Some of the kill sequences are among the grisliest and most frightening in the entire franchise, and fans will absolutely adore them. On the flip side, there are also characters who survive the most outrageous bodily damage the series has seen so far, leaving you baffled as to how any of it is remotely supposed to be believable.

The meta elements that the Scream franchise has handled so well in almost every entry to date are, sadly, largely absent in Scream 7. The genre discussion is still present, as it has always been, but it is nowhere near as clever as we have grown accustomed to. Perhaps, as fans of the series, we have been spoilt by just how good it has been, which is why expectations remain so high and why that aspect of Scream 7 feels particularly disappointing.

But worst of all, Scream 7 does not muster a conclusion in the same stratosphere as its predecessors. Audiences will hold out hope for the same ludicrous but incredibly entertaining unmasking of Ghostface, but it simply is not there, with the finale perhaps being the most deflating across the three decade long franchise. Which begs the question, has the magic finally run out? And is it time for this to be Ghostface’s last lap of honour before he retires as one of the biggest horror icons of all time, before the legacy is well and truly ruined?