Anna Camp Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Scream 7,’ starring Neve Campbell, Isabel May, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Anna Camp, Joel McHale and Courteney Cox

February 27, 2026

by Carla Hay

Neve Campbell stars in “Scream 7” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

Directed by Kevin Williamson

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional cities of Pine Grove, Indiana (and briefly in Woodsboro, California), the horror film “Scream 7” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Sidney Prescott, the “final girl” in 1996’s “Scream” movie, is now married to a police chief and is the mother of a 17-year-old daughter, who feels overshadowed by Sidney’s fame as a rare survivor of the Ghostface Killer, as Sidney’s family and others become the targets of another Ghostface Killer murder spree.

Culture Audience: “Scream 7” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the “Scream” franchise and horror movie sequels that make several references to its preceding movies.

Mckenna Grace, Celeste O’Connor and Isabel May in “Scream 7” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

The “Scream” horror movie franchise built its reputation on poking fun at itself and other slasher movies. With “Scream 7,” this franchise invites ridicule, but in a way where people are more likely to groan than laugh. The welcome return of the Sidney Prescott character is surrounded by a bunch of recycled ideas and plot holes. The good news: Unlike some other previous “Scream” sequels, viewers who are new to the franchise won’t feel too lost if they haven’t seen any of the previous “Scream” movies. The bad news: The reason why is because “Scream 7” gets bogged down in so many horror clichés, the movie becomes redundant and utterly predictable.

Directed by Kevin Williamson (who co-wrote the “Scream 7” screenplay with Guy Busick), “Scream 7” reunites Williamson with Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox, two of the stars of the first movie in the “Scream” franchise: 1996’s “Scream.” Williamson also wrote 1996’s “Scream,” 1997’s “Scream 2,” 2000’s “Scream 3” and 2011’s “Scream 4,” which were all directed by Wes Craven, who died in 2015. Williamson has spent most of his career on TV series, with writer/executive producer credits for series such as “Dawson’s Creek” and “The Vampire Diaries.”

The “Scream” franchise had a reboot with 2022’s “Scream” and 2024’s “Scream VI,” from co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and co-writers James Vanderbilt and Busick, the filmmaking team that ramped up the satirical comedy in both movies. “Scream 7” goes back to basics in a way that makes the movie a little too basic. Even though “Scream 7” has modern technology references, such as the use of artificial intelligence for deepfake videos, everything in “Scream 7” is an inferior and outdated rehash of other “Scream” movies.

By now, most people who watch a “Scream” movie already know that Sidney Prescott (played by Campbell) was the sole survivor of the Ghostface Killer serial murders in her hometown of Woodsboro, California. In the world of “Scream,” this murder spree got a lot of media coverage and was the basis of a popular horror movie series called “Stab.” It’s also common knowledge that each “Scream” movie has a different Ghostface Killer, who wears a ghost face mask and who could be one or more people.

In “Scream 7,” Sidney (whose last name is now Evans) is now living in Pine Grove, Indiana, where she owns a small business called the Little Latte Coffee Shop. (“Scream 7” was actually filmed in the Atlanta area.) Sidney’s loving and supportive husband Mark Evans (played by Joel McHale) is the police chief of Pine Grove. Sidney and Mark have a 17-year-old daughter named Tatum Evans (played by Isabel May), who wants more independence from overprotective Sidney. Sidney and Mark have kindergarten-aged twin daughters named Emma Evans (played by Maggie Toomey) and Rebecca Evans (played by Annabelle Toomey), but the twins are not part of the main story in “Scream 7” because the twins are spending time with Mark’s mother.

“Scream 7” begins with a 15-minute sequence of a couple named Scott (played by Jimmy Tatro) and Madison (played by Michelle Randolph), who are in their late 20s to early 30s, in Woodsboro. Scott and Madison have signed up for a Monster House Experience to stay overnight at a replica of the house where Sidney lived in the first “Scream” movie. It’s nighttime when Scott and Madison have arrived at the house. Unrealistically, there are no employees in sight.

Inside the house is a lot of “Stab” memorabilia, including a life-sized animatronic robot of the Ghostface Killer. Scott is the horror aficionado in this couple, while Madison is jittery and doesn’t really want to be there. This entire sequence is just an elaborate “jump scare” setup to let viewers know that the Ghostface Killer murder spree is about to begin again. Unfortunately, this long sequence didn’t need to be in “Scream 7” at all, based on what happens in the rest of movie.

All the new characters in “Scream 7” are quite bland and generic. Tatum, who wants to be an actress, is insecure because she’s living in the shadow of Sidney’s notorious fame. Sidney doesn’t trust Tatum’s boyfriend Ben Brown (played by Sam Rechner), a classmate of Tatum’s, who is first seen sneaking into Tatum’s bedroom at night. Ben is a stereotypical good-looking teenage guy who excels in sports and academics. He is very skilled in computer technology and is respectful to Tatum and her family. And that’s all that viewers will learn about Ben in “Scream 7.”

Tatum’s closest female friends are classmates Hannah Thurman (played by Mckenna Grace) and Chloe Parker (played by Celeste O’Connor), who are part of a school play with Tatum and other students. Hannah has diva-like ways, while Chloe has a down-to-earth personality. The play’s theater director George Williams (played by Tim Simons) rudely critiques Tatum’s acting skills and her personality, by telling Tatum that she’s not as confident and brave as her mother Sidney.

Another classmate of Tatum’s is true crime fanatic Lucas Bowden (played by Asa Germann), who wants to interview Sidney for a true crime podcast that he plans to start. Lucas and his divorced mother Jessica Bowden (played by Anna Camp) live next door to the Evans family. Jessica is embarrassed that Lucas is star-struck by Sidney, who is polite but emotionally closed-off when Lucas asks Sidney about her Ghostface Killer experiences. Lucas’ father is not involved in his life. Jessica bitterly tells Sidney that Jessica’s ex-husband/Lucas’ father is a deadbeat dad who abandoned the family.

The “Scream 7” terror begins for Sidney and others when one of these teenagers gets murdered by a Ghostface Killer. Sidney also starts getting video phone calls from someone who claims to be Stu Macher (played by Matthew Lillard), one of the Ghostface Killers who died in the first “Scream” movie. Whoever is calling has put Sidney on notice that Sidney, her family members and other people in Pine Grove are going to be the next murder victims.

Sidney and other people suspect that someone is using deepfake technology to impersonate Stu. However, certain things happen that make Sidney wonder if Stu could really be alive. Sidney does some investigating at a place called Fallbrook Psychiatric Hospital, where a hospital orderly named Marco (played by Ethan Embry) gives her some information.

Whenever the Ghostface Killer murder spree starts again, ambitious TV news journalist Gale Weathers (played by Cox) is on the scene to report what happens. Gale has made a career out of Ghostface Killer reporting, including writing a best-selling book about the Ghostface Killer murder spree that happened in Woodsboro. In “Scream 7,” Gale has gone back to being a freelance reporter, after her high-profile TV talk show was canceled. Her current job is considered a “step down” for Gale in her career.

In “Scream 7,” Gale has arrived in Pine Grove from New York City. She is accompanied by often-bickering twins Chad Meeks-Martin (played by Mason Gooding) and Mindy Meeks-Martin (played by Jasmin Savoy Brown), who first appeared in “Scream VI” as New York City college students who experienced Ghostface Killer violence. Chad and Mindy are now Gale’s interns. The uncle of Mindy and Chad was Randy Meeks (played by Jamie Kennedy), whose fate is shown in “Scream 2.” A local Pine Grove TV reporter named Robbie Rivers (played by Mark Consuelos) gets competitive with Gale over the Ghostface Killer story in Pine Grove.

“Scream 7” has a sufficient amount of suspense in its chase scenes and kill scenes. The best of these scenes is when Sidney and Tatum are trying to escape in between a house’s walls while the Ghostface Killer is stabbing through the walls. However, “Scream 7” has some plot holes and disjointed scenes that are too big to ignore. And pity the residents of Pine Grove, which has one of the most incompetent police departments you could ever see in a slasher horror movie. When “Scream 7” reveals the killer or killers toward the end of the movie, it’s underwhelming and nonsensical.

In order for the “Scream” franchise to thrive, it needs to have above-average stories and new characters who seem authentic and interesting. Sidney, Chad and Mindy are the only characters in “Scream 7” who are written fairly well. Gale in “Scream 7” is a lesser version of her famously acerbic self. “Scream 7” will satisfy horror fans who want a formulaic slasher flick, but the movie wastes a lot of potential to be clever and genuinely self-deprecating, which are characteristics of the best “Scream” movies.

Paramount Pictures will release “Scream 7” in U.S. cinemas on February 27, 2026.

Review: ‘Desperados,’ starring Nasim Pedrad, Lamorne Morris, Anna Camp, Sarah Burns, Robbie Amell and Heather Graham

July 3, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Desperados”

Directed by LP

Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles and Mexico, the romantic comedy “Desperados” features a racially diverse cast (white, African American, Latino) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A desperate-to-be-married woman is convinced her new boyfriend will break up with her after sending him a hateful email over a misunderstanding, so she enlists two of her female friends to go with her to Mexico, where he’s on vacation, in order to delete the email before he sees it.

Culture Audience: “Desperados” will appeal primarily to people who like predictable and often unrealistic romantic comedies.

Nasim Pedrad and Lamorne Morris in “Desperados” (Photo by Cate Cameron/Netflix)

As long as the messy and very fake reality TV franchise “The Bachelor” continues to attract millions of viewers, there will always be a big-enough audience for messy and very fake romantic comedies like “Desperados.” This movie is as formulaic and predictable as you might expect. But worst of all, “Desperados” wants to pretend that it’s feminist and edgy, when it’s really not. “Desperados”—directed by LP (the work alias for Lauren Palmigiano) and written by Ellen Rapaport—might have all the appearances of a contemporary film. But at its core, the film’s message about how women should act and how women should be rewarded when looking for love is as old-fashioned as a Doris Day movie.

In “Desperados,” the central character is Wesley “Wes” Darya (played by Nasim Pedrad), a divorced, childless woman in her late 30s who’s living in Los Angeles and experiencing an early mid-life crisis. After ditching a career in corporate finance, Wes has decided to become a high-school guidance counselor. She’s been struggling to find a job (mostly because she ruins her interviews by being a vulgar motormouth), and she’s having a hard time paying her bills. Things have gotten so bad for Wes that when she gets an occasional babysitting job from a friend, she steals food from the family’s refrigerator.

Wes’ love life isn’t going so well either, since she isn’t seeing anyone special, and her recent dates have been duds. Wes also has a serious case of social-media envy, since she’s obsessed with comparing her life to the seemingly wonderful lives of her friends and other peers. Wes is also starting to feel her biological clock ticking, since she’s contemplating freezing her eggs when she has the money to do that procedure.

Wes’ two best friends—Brooke Barnes (played by Anna Camp) and Kaylie Mills (played by Sarah Burns)—are the same age as Wes. Brooke and her husband have a baby son together. Kaylie and her husband have been unsuccessfully trying to conceive a child. Wes envies Brooke and Kaylie, just because Brooke and Kaylie are married and don’t seem to have any money problems.

One day, while Wes and Kaylie are over at Brooke’s place, Wes begins complaining about her life. They advise her that it’s not healthy to compare her life to other people’s lives on social media, because people always hide their problems. Brooke tells Wes that marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, while Kaylie says that infertility can put a big strain on a relationship where two people desperately want to have a child. But Wes doesn’t want to hear about how her two best friends feel about their marriages. In Wes’ mind, she’s gotten the rawest deal out of the three of them, because she has no man, no job and no children.

Something that sets Wes over the edge while she wallows in self-pity is hearing that her ex-husband Erik has gotten engaged. Wes finds out when Erik leaves her a voicemail message to tell her the news. And by the way, as Erik says in his message, he and his fiancée are featured in a romantic photo spread in the latest issue of Brides magazine. Of course, Wes rushes to a magazine stand to look at the article, and her jealousy goes into overdrive when she finds out that Erik’s fiancée is younger, prettier and more accomplished than Wes is.

Wes is even more desperate to find a new man, now that she knows her ex-husband is getting married. Wes goes on a blind date that was set up by a mutual friend. The friend (whose name is Tad and who’s never seen in the movie) has set Wes up with a widower named Sean McGuire (played by Lamorne Morris), who texts and calls her in a friendly conversation before the date. (Jason Mitchell was originally cast in the Sean McGuire role, before he was fired in 2019 over a #MeToo scandal on the Showtime series “The Chi,” and he lost other jobs as a result.) Sean and Wes agree that if their blind date goes badly for either of them, they should use the code word “no” to end the date right there, with no hard feelings.

Wes’ date with Sean at a casual restaurant starts off pretty well—until she starts blabbering about how all of her friends have great jobs and great relationships and that her ex-husband is getting married. At this point in her life, Wes is old enough to know that sounding like a whiny and jealous shrew is not the way to make a good impression on a first date. But she’s so self-absorbed that she doesn’t realize that she’s turning off Sean, until he tells her the code word “no.”

At first, Wes doesn’t understand that Sean wants to end the date. But when she finally realizes that he’s done with the date and wants to leave, she rips into him about how hard her life is and how hard it is to find a good man in Los Angeles. Okay, well, that rant is just going to confirm that he made the right decision to end the date. Sean is a gentleman, and he lets Wes leave in a huff.

As an angry Wes storms out of the restaurant, she trips on one of the steps and falls flat on her face. And lo and behold, she’s helped up by a handsome stranger named Jared Sterling (played by Robbie Amell), who invites her over to his place that night. And when Wes gets a look at Jared’s home, it’s obvious that Jared is doing very well financially.

Wes is flustered, partly because Jared seems like her dream man, but also because her fall outside the restaurant has left her a little dazed. She half-jokingly tells Jared that her brain might not be working correctly because of the fall. And he responds by telling her that it’s okay, because he doesn’t want her to think too hard—as in, he doesn’t want her to be too smart for him. This demeaning comment would be a red flag to any self-respecting person, but Wes is too dazzled by Jared’s good looks and apparent wealth to notice that he wants a dumb, submissive girlfriend who’ll go along with whatever he wants.

Wes makes the same mistake that many women do in banal romantic comedies like this one: She pretends to be someone she’s not in order to “get the guy.” Wes pretends to like the same things that Jared does, which is shown in a montage that’s kind of cringeworthy and not very funny. Wes and Jared eventually become lovers, and the first time they have sex together, she’s already imagining them married with children.

Shortly after they’ve started sleeping together, Jared suddenly “ghosts” Wes. And, of course, after she calls and texts and still doesn’t hear from Jared, she assumes that this is his way of breaking up with her. Once again, Wes goes on a “poor me” diatribe about her love life when she’s hanging out with Brooke and Kaylie. In a drunken rage, Wes decides to send a hateful email to Jared from her laptop, by calling him all kinds of names and even mentioning his dead father as a way to hurt Jared. Brooke and Kaylie get caught up in it too, and they help Wes write some other things in the hate mail.

Wes has been stealing Wi-Fi service from a neighbor, so sending the email takes longer than expected. While Brooke and Kaylie oversee the laptop to send the email, Wes gets a phone call and takes the call in another room. The caller is Jared, who is calling from a hospital in Mexico. It turns out he’s been in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where he got into a terrible car accident and was in a coma for several days.

When she realizes that this is the reason why she didn’t hear from Jared, Wes frantically tries to stop Brooke and Kaylie from sending the email before it’s too late. But, of course, it is too late. The email was already sent.

Wes is terrified that Jared will read the email and break up with her. She rejects the idea of sending a follow-up apology email, because she doesn’t want Jared to get any hint that she’s a psycho you-know-what. And so, because Jared mentioned that because of the car accident, all of his belongings (including his phone) are still at his hotel in Cabo San Lucas, Wes comes up with the extremely dumb idea of going to Mexico to find Jared’s cell phone, hack into it, and delete the email before he can see it. Jared is expected to be discharged from the hospital in a few days, so of course there’s a “race against time” to find his phone.

Brooke, who is the most cautious and level-headed of the three friends, thinks it’s a bad idea. Kaylie, who’s the type of friend who believes that a Mexican shaman can help her become fertile, thinks it’s a great idea. Ultimately, Brooke is convinced to go on the trip because she thinks it’s a good excuse to go on a vacation to Mexico.

And so, off the three friends go with no real plan to find and hack into Jared’s phone, except for Wes’ vague notion that they can walk around the resort where he’s staying and keep calling his phone, in the hope that they’ll hear his ringtone somewhere in this big resort. Never mind that they have no idea what room he’s staying at in the resort. (Hotels don’t give out that information for privacy reasons.)

You know exactly how this movie is going to end as soon as (surprise, surprise) Wes sees that Sean is staying at the exact same resort too. Before the inevitable happens, there are some repetitive pedophilia jokes involving an adolescent boy named Nolan Ryan Phillippe (played by Toby Grey), who’s about 12 or 13 years old, and staying with his protective mother Debbie (played by Jessica Chaffin) at the resort. Nolan develops a crush on Wes, who (through a series of slapstick circumstances to get to Jared’s room) ends up in the same room as Nolan wearing nothing but a towel, and Debbie catches Wes with her precious little boy.

It doesn’t help that Debbie’s horrified first impression of Wes was when Wes arrived at the resort, and Wes’ vibrator accidentally dropped out of her purse in front of Nolan. Of course, Nolan picked up the vibrator and asked his mother what kind of toy it is. This type of vibrator joke has been done before in so many other movies (such as in 2019’s “Good Boys”) that it’s an example of how unoriginal and uninspired “Desperados” is in when it comes to sight gags.

Heather Graham has a small role in the movie as Angel de la Paz, the “healer” whom Kaylie has hired to give her guidance about her fertility issues. The way this scene ends is very predictable, considering that Angel makes it obvious with her touchy-feely ways that she’s more interested in spending time with Brooke than she is with Kaylie. And the resort’s native Mexican workers Ramon (played by Rodrigo Franco) and Quintano (played by Izzy Diaz) are vaguely written characters that are treated as gullible idiots by the self-centered Wes when she needs to con or trick them into doing something for her.

Although Pedrad is a charismatic comedian in other projects, she’s saddled with playing a loathsome, less-than-smart character in “Desperados.” The derivative screenwriting is difficult to overcome for any actors looking to do something unique with their roles in this movie. Morris’ Sean character is literally the straight man to Wes’ insufferable antics, and he doesn’t have much to do, except to play the “nice guy,” who’s a lot more patient with Wes than he should be. (Pedrad and Morris played love interests in the sitcom “New Girl,” so at least they look comfortable working together.) The rest of the cast members are serviceable in their roles, with no particular standouts.

The main character in a romantic comedy doesn’t have to be “likable,” but audiences should expect the character to be believable. The reason why Wes (and most of this movie) is a big emotional fraud is because she tries to act like she’s an independent woman who can think and do things for herself, when the whole story revolves around her thinking that her life will be “ruined,” based on one angry email that she wrote to a boyfriend. This is how teenagers feel, not women in their 30s who are supposed to be emotionally mature.

In fact, almost everything that Wes does is based on what she wants other people to think about her, not what will actually make her happy. Later in the film, Sean does a big favor for Wes that causes a significant change in her life, but she couldn’t even accomplish that change on her own. The essential message of “Desperados” is that Wes needs a man to “rescue” her. It’s a very outdated mindset for a movie that tries to pass itself off as “modern” or “feminist.”

“Desperados” throws in a lot of cursing and raunchy humor to make it look like it isn’t mawkish and sentimental. But in the end, this often-dull movie is just as sappy and unrealistic as the trite romantic comedies that are on the Hallmark Channel.

Netflix premiered “Desperados” on July 3, 2020