Scream 7 Proves The Big 'Ghostface Reveal' Moment Is Officially Dead

Do you like scary spoilers? This article contains plenty of them, so turn back if you haven't seen "Scream 7."

Let's go out on a limb and propose that maybe the "Scream" movies weren't supposed to span three full decades. There's something to be said for franchises that are inherently built to last. Despite working perfectly well as one standalone movie in 1977, "Star Wars" birthed an entire universe that naturally lends itself to expanded stories, multiple generations of fans, and no shortage of corners to explore. More relevantly, "Halloween" proves that clever writing can go a long way — with or without Jamie Lee Curtis' franchise icon Laurie Strode. Whether "Scream" has the same kind of juice to simply go on perpetually remains an open question, although it's one that "Scream 7" seems to answer definitively in the negative.

It's asking a lot for a franchise that's seven full movies into its run to feel as fresh and new as it once did. Maybe that's downright impossible. But more than most, a series like "Scream" all but demands originality and creativity to succeed. Director Wes Craven's 1996 classic helped flip the genre on its head and dissect exactly what the appeal behind slashers truly is. His subsequent sequels further explored our societal obsession with watching bloodthirsty killers prey upon final girls. By the time 2022's "Scream" and 2023's "Scream 6" arrived, well, the only place to go was further down the meta rabbit hole into legacy sequels and navel-gazing fixations on lore.

That probably explains why "Scream 7" struggles where the franchise has always counted most: the Ghostface killer reveal. Even the most disappointing entries have made a meal out of the "Scooby Doo"-like moment when our heroes finally discover who's been tormenting them all along. This time, it falls absurdly flat.

Remember that recurring "Arrested Development" gag when Jason Bateman's Michael Bluth keeps heartlessly referring to his son's girlfriend Ann (Mae Whitman) as "Her?" That kind of comes close to approximating the experience of watching "Scream 7" finally unveil the identity of its main Ghostface killer(s) with an attempted flourish. After spending an inordinate amount of time trying to convince audiences that the main villain is somehow Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) miraculously back from the dead, the script finally drops the pretense behind these AI deepfake videos and admits that Ghostface (one of them, at least) is none other than Anna Camp's Jessica Bowden — the next-door neighbor who's only appeared on the fringes of the story for a grand total of, what, two or three brief scenes?

If the moment itself feels rather anticlimactic, it's made even worse by the fact that it hardly comes across as all that shocking, either. Like any other movie in the franchise, "Scream 7" pads out its cast with an assortment of red herrings ... but are any of them actually convincing in the least? The constant suspicion pointed towards Tatum's (Isabel May) boyfriend Ben Brown (Sam Rechner) basically rules him out from the start. (Yes, even in spite of that bizarre fake-out moment where he has the AI deepfake video running on his laptop for no particular reason.) Other suspects like Celeste O'Connor's Chloe and Asa Germann's Lucas aren't around enough to make an impression in the first place. And let's not even bother with Tim Simons' theatre professor George Willis, whose entire suspicion mostly stems from being a little rude to Tatum early in the film.

But Ghostface rarely works alone, and the others are just as uninspired.

You know that old screenwriting saying that third act problems are actually first act problems? That holds true here and the ultimate ending of "Scream 7" is a perfect demonstration of why. To their credit, writer/director Kevin Williamson and co-writer Guy Busick (from a story by Busick and James Vanderbilt) at least switch things up by having the first Ghostface killed and unmasked relatively early in the film. This turns out to be a troubled mental patient named Karl Gibbs (Kraig Drake), whom none of our characters are actually familiar with at all. Naturally, that means there's at least another Ghostface or two running around, and it isn't long before we have another minor character to instantly raise all sorts of doubts.

This newest suspect shows up when Sidney (Neve Campbell) and Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) follow the breadcrumbs back to the mental institute that Karl escaped from, overseen by Ethan Embry's Marco. He steers our main characters towards believing that Stu is actually still alive and resided at that facility for some time, palling around with Karl and filling his head with ideas about the Woodsboro murders. This is the first and only time we see him before the climax, and the reveal that Marco is a Ghostface only raises more questions. What makes him want to join up with Karl and Jessica in the first place? Why does he bicker with Jessica as if they were an old married couple? Does his presence actually add anything to the story whatsoever?

Whatever the case may be, it's worth facing the facts: If the Ghostface reveal isn't enough to give this movie any juice at all, what hope does any other sequel have down the line? "Scream 7" is now playing in theaters.