Somebody Turn the Lights On

"The Scream series emerged during the age of the New Irony, survived the ensuing New Sincerity, and made it through several other civilizational cycles of earnestness and self-awareness before landing here in today's era of Nothing Matters and Everything Sucks. And what was once the most inspired, introspective, and indeed liberating of horror flicks has now become the turgid, crowded, via dolorosa of modern genre: a predetermined visitation of endless franchise touchpoints."

"Here comes the opening kill; here come the killer's tedious questions about 'scary movies'; here comes the meta-textual explanation for why someone new has decided to dress up as Ghostface and start stabbing people; here come the homages to previous installments; here comes the return of some (presumed dead) characters from the original; here come the tiresome, wink-wink self-justifications for why the new film is replaying every single stupid trope from the earlier installments."

"The opening scene involves a young couple visiting the suburban house from the first movie, which has now been turned into a kind of tourist attraction, complete with crime-scene outlines of where all the original teens were killed. In the corner is an animatronic Ghostface that raises its (plastic) knife when prompted by a motion sensor. It's an appropriate metaphor for the film itself: robotic, predictable, and not very scary."

The Scream series has become a repetitive cycle of predictable horror elements: opening kills, Ghostface's movie trivia questions, meta-textual explanations for new killers, homages to previous films, and returning characters. Once innovative and liberating, the franchise now feels like a robotic visitation of predetermined touchpoints. Scream 7 exemplifies this decline, opening with a suburban house turned tourist attraction featuring an animatronic Ghostface. Even the elaborate opening sequence—involving a housefire, chandelier, and knife—demonstrates how the film substitutes elaborateness for genuine inventiveness, making every plot point anticipatable rather than surprising.

Read at Vulture