435: Scream 7 (2026)

This week we're returning to Woodsboro as we check out Scream 7 (2026). We discuss the franchise's return to Sidney Prescott, debate the brutality of Ghostface's kills, and unpack the film's divisive third act. This episode contains spoilers, beginning at 41:27.

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Mentioned in the Episode

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Scream 7 (2026)

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Music Credits

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Not a red flag, just a deal breaker.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Oh my god. Speak your truth though, don't fake it because Chris will catch you in the act, lying, through your teeth.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

In 1995, a young intern at a production company was handed a spec script from a then unknown writer. After reading the first few pages, he went straight to his supervisor's office and said, You have to buy this. The intern was Christopher Landon, and the script was penned by Ken Williamson. When that script was brought to life ultimately with Wes Craven and Miramax, it's Archer franchise that has endured as a cornerstone of horror for 30 years. And both of those men were sent on separate paths through Hollywood. Their careers ran in parallel, shaped by the same foundational moment, but never quite converging. At least not until 2023 when Landon was eventually hired to direct the franchise's 7th entry. Landon said it felt like fate. It was a full-circle moment until it all fell apart. Lead actress Melissa Barrera was controversially fired by Spyglass Media Group and Geno Ortega departed shortly after. Landon was blamed by fans for a firing he had no part in, and he even began receiving death threats. He eventually exited the project in December 2023, calling it a dream job that turned into a nightmare. With the cast and creative team gone, the studio went back to the beginning. Back to Sidney Prescott, back to Kevin Williamson even, the man whose Christopher Landon had once begged his boss to buy. Nev Campbell returned to the film on her own terms, and it was she who convinced Williamson to take a stab at helping the franchise he helped create. The resulting film finds Sidney facing Ghostface once again, but this time, it's in the town where she's tried to build a quiet life removed from the shadow of Woodsboro, and her daughter is now in the killer sights. But the question for many remains whether a film born from so much turbulence in its production can rise from the ashes and return to the glory of its predecessors. This week we're talking about Scream 7. Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hacker Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We're a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack, a total joke, a waste of time, or a slash. Totally killer, pun intended. We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rate of these movies with a perspective we've gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of your we fancy most. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the classic horror connoisseur Sean.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

I just wanted you to see me as more than just a sex slave.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

And the paranormal paramour, Binx. What, my favorite homicidal teenager? Neither.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

You're tuning in for Scream 7, but if you support the show, you'll also get to hear our B-side at the end of this episode where we dive into where this franchise could have gone and where it might be headed.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

You know, I think it's a fair question that we've all been asking ourselves since Scream 6, but for now, what were you both expecting going into this?

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Oh my gosh. Well, we're bringing the franchise back to being centered around our original final girl, Sidney Prescott. We know that there's gonna be some kind of ties to older films. I mean, the original creator is now directing for the first time, and this could be a pretty big deal, or directing a Scream film for the first time, Kevin Williamson, right, who wrote the original Scream 1996 as well as the second and fourth, I believe, is at the helm. And so, really, just expecting stronger connections to the original themes, maybe stronger connections in tone of the early installments in this franchise. Really, just as a huge fan of the franchise itself, I'm looking for similar camera framing, similar lines of dialogue, maybe similar character archetypes, and even maybe even some direct callbacks, right? And I think that maybe the biggest thing that everyone is expecting is to see some form of a return of the beloved Stuumacher, the only ghost face whose death was kind of always borderline.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

That's fair, yeah. And although I did find that odd when they kind of teed that up in the previous film, because I was convinced that that was set in stone. So I was a little skeptical about how that was gonna get addressed, considering the obvious shit show that happened with production in terms of this film. I figured, well, the only remnants of that disaster is this Stu Mocker thing, right? So where are they gonna go with that? But aside, I'll be honest, I thought this was gonna be an absolute disaster. I don't know if there was gonna be a Phoenix rising from these kinds of ashes, folks, because it was going to be tough to beat out the allegations of a money grab and a PR rebrand.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

You know, it's really tough. And Sean, you mentioned the stew of it all. Are you a steuther? You know, a stew truther? Because for me, it has never been an inkling or an ounce of a question that that man was anything but exceptionally dead.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Listen, I think that there's been hints at it and controversy over it in interviews and all kinds of shit. So over the years, you kind of you kind of think like, okay, is there a way they can bring this person back? Did I think there was gonna be a real logical way that this could have happened? Not necessarily, but I did kind of expect something to happen because there were so many rumors about it.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

It seems like a wish, a prayer, wishful thinking, a hope, even. It really feels more like people wanted Stu to come back because people love Matthew Lithard.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah, I mean, to quote the movie itself, I am kind of a stew head.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Fair, but here's what I think really happened, the origin story of this all is that when these movies came out and they pulled out the Force Ghost Skeet Ulrich, they thought, man, we love him being back, so bring back Matthew Lillard. Because growing up, unless I live under a rock, I never heard that this was a question in terms of him potentially being alive or dead, or I don't know, like he was dead. I thought that that was pretty certain. If anything, it's more like, what have you been doing this whole time, buddy?

SPEAKER_00 6:28

So well, they never showed the actual like deceased body. You see the TV falling on his head, but it's one of the only ghost faces where you don't actually come back to see the body like completely dead.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Listen, back in my day, a TV was enough to kill you.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

And in the Scream franchise, that's enough to make somebody alive. Motherfuckers come back on fire. Motherfuckers be coming back for an absolutely no reason at all.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Yeah, a lot of wild nonsense here. But steothers aside, I was not optimistic going into this movie because obviously Binks, you can't you mentioned the entire mess that was the production of this film, but it felt almost as if the franchise was tainted in a little bit of bad faith at that point. And that's where things just get a little bit messy. We are not here to unpack all the logistics of what went on, but rather to assess the film as it is. And the more that we got Nev Campbell, Kevin Williamson, Matthew Lizard attached to the film, the more that all these things come out, the more it makes you think, huh, okay, is this actually gonna be good though? Because here's the thing: the Scream franchise hasn't really had a bad movie. It ended on a less than great note in Scream 6. I wasn't a fan of the ghost face reveal in that film. But as a whole, this is a pretty rock solid franchise. A much better clip than some of the other slasher staples that we have out there. The closer we got to this film releasing, the more I thought, you know what, I'm gonna go into this with goodwill. I'm gonna go into this with good faith, and I'm just gonna hope for the best because how bad can it really be if you got Nev Campbell, Courtney Cox, and Kevin Williamson?

SPEAKER_00 8:10

It's completely fair. And I think as a fan of the Scream franchise, this one really had me feeling the nostalgia that was dishing out for sure in this one. There were Easter eggs all over the place, both visual and a little more subtle as well. I think Kevin Williamson definitely gave a little something to the fans, but wasn't it wasn't all so obvious. There was little things hidden here and there in the background. If you really pay attention, like me and happen to watch a bunch of fucking scream movies on the way to this movie, there's just a lot of like even songs that they play, scenes they recreate. There's a lot of nostalgia that plays with this movie. Also, the violence felt a little bit amped up in this one as well. I feel like this one definitely felt like a more brutal scream film as far as the kills go, which I'm sure we're gonna dive into a lot more in the second half, but I have to say, definitely more violent.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Yeah, listen, man. I went into this at the convention with some goodwill, and I was encouraged by the violence that we get. This movie was really, really good for a while. The opening even was this meta self-aware energy that the franchise has become really so famous for. And there's a lot of callbacks. Sean, you mentioned if you go back and watch all the screen movies leading up to this, you're gonna have plenty to sink your teeth into. And in the beginning, it feels like direct echoes that feel intentional rather than lazy. But the more this movie went on, it it pivoted from feeling like Kevin Williamson and Nev Campbell were giving me a nice warm hug to holy shit, what did we do to land this plane?

SPEAKER_00 9:59

It gets a little rough in the third act for sure. It definitely does.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

That's one way to put it. I mean, I was bracing myself for impact, and I definitely got hit with a punch. One that I couldn't have even expected. But there's something that stuck with me while I was watching the film, and it was something that you had mentioned to me, Chris, when I had asked you, like, hey, what did you think of the movie? And the word is safe. I really felt that safety to an extent while watching it. The what could have, what should have continued to repeat itself in my brain as I was watching it. And although, yes, entertaining, the brutality was amped up, and I really did enjoy that. Wasn't expecting it. So that was you know something that I'm glad that they didn't feel safe about and restrained in. Everything else felt very generic. And there were even some moments that felt like an extreme reach, even for a Scream franchise film. So despite having a good time with the kills and just the overall look, because you can never get enough of that. I mean, the look of Ghostface will always, forever and ever until the day I die, be one of my favorite things in terms of horror. But everything else was like, eh, okay. It didn't really feel believable, didn't really feel earned, it was all right. And to your point, Chris, like, is there really a bad scream movie? No, there isn't. But I don't know, I was hoping that maybe this was going to be a miracle, and it certainly didn't feel like it. It felt like exactly the kind of film that you would expect out of the disaster that it came from.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Yeah, well, I think that's also something to remember going into this one, even though we're not here to touch on the disaster that led to this film's creation. We are here to talk about this film, but we also have to keep in mind that after, like what, some $500,000 rewrite and having to recast and redo this whole vision for this whole franchise, which they probably already had a fucking plan for, they had to recreate a whole new movie and just do a whole new, you know, legacy fucking sequel of some kind to make this rise from the ashes, so to speak. So I think we have to keep that in mind when we think of like, did this play it a little safe? Did it do this? Did it do that in the time frame that it had to kind of recreate this?

SPEAKER_02 12:31

You know, I'm so conflicted because I'm sitting here, even thinking back to that comment I made to you, Binx, about this movie feeling safe. And I want to dig in because there are some things in here that really pleasantly surprise me. One, you think about the Blumhouse Halloween trilogy, and you think about the dynamic between Lori and her daughter. And it was one that was executed in a direction, and I think it really earns its place in Halloween Kills. But what I love in this movie, and it's not really a spoiler, this movie sets up the premise of Sydney and her daughter Tatum from the trailer. I love their dynamic. I was so encouraged by their relationship and feeling the tension and the stress of their relationship. And then I was also encouraged by the introduction of some really genuinely promising concepts. There are modern and fresh ideas in here that feel like they belong in a 2026 horror movie. But what's disappointing is that it's almost as if this team didn't trust themselves enough to fully commit to the bit because it doesn't do enough of anything with any of that subject matter. It doesn't do enough on all fronts. It's like a lack of commitment that echoes through the entire movie. All the best parts of it just kind of lead up to a little bit of nothing.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

I'm with you on that. I think it has shockingly good bones in essence, and taking it back to the beginning to what really is Scream, and that is Sidney Prescott. But now she's much older, you know, and we're exploring that dynamic with her daughter. That was something that was really working for me for a while there. And uh, something that came to me was this idea that damn, how sad is it that we could have maybe had this story, this movie, a little bit earlier in the franchise. I think if it had been, it would have really felt more cohesive, a little bit more believable, I think just stronger overall. Because to an extent, it almost feels like what they're trying to explore can't be explored to its full extent because so many other things have happened in this timeline, I guess we can call it, right? And then we're introducing so many other people that maybe take up time where we could have really dug in a little bit more and bigger themes have to be explored and resolved in 30 seconds flat in an action scene, you know? So I would have really liked to maybe have a smaller ensemble to an extent to dig a little bit deeper into god damn, Sidney Prescott's life sucks.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

You know, listen, we we talk about this in a few movies, right? The was the ensemble ensembling. This ensemble was not ensembling.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

At all, was not at all, and you could feel it. You could feel it.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah, I think it's a tough one, right? We've been talking about it. I think the controversy surrounding the film, the retconning the franchise, taking it in a new direction. We knew a lot going into this one once we started getting snippets of the film and trailers and who was in it, right? We specifically knew who could be returning, what the premise was shaping up to be with Sydney and her family. But aside from all of that, I think, you know, the things that they did to kind of do some of the uh you can call it fanfare, you can call it meta, you can call it tiebacks, callbacks, Easter eggs, whatever. I think the way that they kind of played into some of that stuff, especially early on in the first act, the opening of the film, those things really surprised me a lot. The tone, the way that it was handled really started shaping up to be like a really solid installment in the franchise, got you really excited. But what I can tell you is that definitely, as we're kind of talking through this, I was slightly disappointed with the third act of the film and the way they basically landed the plane with this one all the way to the very bitter end. I just think there was a lot that happened here that just didn't feel like an earned scream ending. And I think that's what disappoints you the most when watching this, or it disappointed me the most while watching this one.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

You know, the premise of walking into this movie, restructuring it all. And I want to really just take a note here, right? Because this movie had to be substantially reworked. With General Ortega Gon, with Melissa Barrera Gon, their movie did not exist anymore. So to be able to conceptualize a direction to go in, I don't envy the position that they're in. But it's also hard not to wonder whether the scenes are showing in the final product that we get. And that is a really tough pill to swallow. In fact, the biggest thing I thought watching this movie, look how they massacred my boy. Like that that's actually the scariest part of this movie. It's just what they did to the reputation.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Damn. I'm sorry, I can't but laugh because wow, aren't you right? And I think it really just hit me now that you said it. Yeah, it does feel like they ruined our boy. They ruined our boy. Ah, ruin's a strong word. But I think I I will always be hung up on the what could have been in a way. And it's odd because when I think of just reboots in general, this is something that I'm sure so many people were curious, concerned about when it was announced for Scream 5, Scream 6, like what was that really gonna look like? And was it gonna still have the same charm and edge, you know, especially with at the at that point, West Craven, you know, had passed for some time, and it's like, what's it gonna be? And so one thing I will say is at the very least, the intimidation factor's still there, right? That's not entirely ruined to an extent. I thought that ghost face had a couple of moments of fright and scare and intimidation that wasn't entirely ruined.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Here's the thing, and uh we'll unpack this more in the second half of this episode where we can get into spoilers. This ghost face is brutal, and there's is some intimidation that comes with that. Sean, you mentioned the gore in this movie, the kills in this movie. You're pretty fucking great. However, when you look closer at it, and then you think what are the actual stakes in this movie? Did anything of a lot of consequence really happen?

SPEAKER_00 19:13

It's an interesting one. I think there are a handful of little jump scares that you would expect from a slasher film, especially a scream film. I don't know that any scream film is really a frightening, frightening film. I think it's more of a self-aware, obviously meta slasher that I think adds a little bit of comedic undertones in there. I think it's something that horror fans really enjoy specifically about Scream that kind of separates it from the rest of the slasher genre. And I think overall this one also isn't really all that scary. I think in a lot of Scream films, including maybe this one, you're too caught up in the whodunit of it all, I think. I think that's at least how it was for me. So there's some moments where you get some classic little jump scare action, but for the most part, yeah, the violence is is an uptick in this one, but Ghostface for me is less about jump scares and really giving like thrills and chills, and it's really just about fun carnage, you know, and I think that's just kind of what it is, and maybe just figuring out where the pieces are going in this game of chess.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Listen, let me tell you exactly what I needed to like this movie. I needed Tatum to say, bam, bitch went down, and I didn't get a single one, I didn't get a single bam, bitch, or went down. I I wish I had it. But in comparison to the rest of the franchise, and I really want to circle this, I know the points that I've been making about this movie do not sound great yet. However, Scream at its worst is still significantly better than a lot of movies at maybe even their best. Like, let's just be real about that. This movie has the unfortunate task of rising to the occasion of so many other movies that came before it that are really good movies. And even the worst in its litter before, at least what is socially considered to be the worst, is what, Scream 3? Scream 3 was ahead of its time and Scream 3 was bold. Scream Scream 3 was campy, but uh in retrospect, that is not a bad movie, is one that I've always like loved and had a lot of fun with. But what this movie sets out to do is deviate from the prior two films. So Scream and then Scream Six, return to its roots, carve its own path while still paying homage to the past. And what is dangerous here is that this movie is all about the danger of living in the past, but it refuses to let itself move forward because it's too stuck in the past. It's it's really disappointing. I felt like a lot of other scream movies, even in their most problematic or shaky points, you could draw a Line through the original intimate and horrific violence of the first film. And you follow how society changes and evolves over the decades and how we respond to trauma, how we respond in media. And it just feels like this movie arrived at the idea of okay, yeah, this is what I guess that would look like in 2026, but it still doesn't stick the lining quite enough to feel distinct from the other films.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Yeah, well, I think you touched on something pretty interesting, right? Like it's the fact that this one is definitely heavily playing into the callbacks to the original films. It's almost trying to recreate, you know, almost like timelines and things like that. You're getting a lot of things that are happening in this film that are intentionally going to remind you a lot of specifically the original Scream, some Scream 2 in there, things like that, right? So I think, yeah, it's interesting. I don't know that they really reinvented the wheel here, especially for a Scream movie, but I think that the way that they kind of told this story, introduced new characters while still making these callbacks, you got to give a little bit of credit to it, especially with what they had to work with. So yeah, it's not gonna be the most original, but I think it definitely did, you know, at least at least a decent job being entertaining.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Well, and that's why I I feel like I would be down to watch these movies in a different order and place this one before Scream 5 and 6 to an extent, because it just feels like its tone follows those earlier films almost too much at times. And it really just doesn't make sense in terms of the actions that take place, the dialogue, the way that they react, the reveals, everything. It feels like guys, what are you even talking about? Like if this had been maybe a few years since the original scream, fine, but it's been a hot minute, folks. And so when I lean too much that way, it's hard for me to perceive this as original because it really gives off like Kevin Williamson had a story that he wanted to tell, but the studio really needed some saving. And so who's gonna battle it out and win? The story that he wanted to tell, or the fact that we need to kind of really pull in all of our tricks from the hat, bring back everybody and its mother, pay them whatever they want to be paid and do whatever they want to do to be able to get the fans back in and curious enough to go to the theater and watch it. And I can't shake that feeling off in terms of this story. It feels too palpable.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

Hey, listen, call me a sucker, but I did love the AMC Scream Cup. So I bought my merch. I bought my merch, but I also bought my in consideration of an iconic villain born from Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven and who has like I I got this cup specifically because it doesn't feel distinctly this is Scream 7, like no, this is just fucking ghost face, which I love. However, I want to circle the drain a little bit here on the ending of this movie because the experience of this ending is in a word deflating. It's giving big womp womp energy, and I hate that so much because the motivations of this film are conceptually on paper, super interesting. If we commit it to the bit, I think we could have really said something with meaning here, but the execution does not deserve the emotional weight that we are being asked to give and to hold for the characters and the story in this. And I hate it because it feels like you're on a journey with Sydney and Tatum, and it feels like the more bold Tatum got, the less bold the movie got, which is so fucking unfortunate.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Yes. Holy shit, you just nailed it right there. That's it. That is it. Because I'm like, what is happening? I thought the whole point was to kind of build up her daughter in a particular way. And again, exploring that dynamic, it works, it works, it works until what the fuck? I feel like I got hit with an ice box. Like I almost embarrassed myself thinking that I was giving the movie credit for a reveal a potential reveal, rather, of Ghostface and being like, wow, could it really be? Did they like really go in this direction? Maybe I'm wrong about this whole movie. No, I'm a clown. I will I walked out of that theater with a red nose clown makeup on. How dare I even think that that could have possibly happened?

SPEAKER_00 27:10

It's a tough one. I think what is rough with the ending and what happened and how it all unfolded is that you know, you have without giving anything away, right? Because we can't do that yet, but you have what ended up happening, you have the motive and what's happening with that, and then you also have the character development between Sydney and Tatum, her daughter, and I think it was trying to juggle two different things that didn't really work to make the perfect ending, and I think it actually worked against each other in what they were trying to land with, and so it'll make sense as we talk about it a little bit more in the second half. The ending is definitely one of my least favorite parts of this film. I think, you know, we have to understand that this film it has a lot of common themes because of the motive and because of what they were trying to accomplish that they reveal at the end of the movie. And so it makes sense that a lot of the themes are very similar to early installments and how it brought it all back to that, but it's just not the strongest in the franchise by any means. I think the reveal and the motives and everything, it just ended up feeling a little bit lackluster, in my opinion. I think that you know the film also it felt very with the times with the technology angle that they played into with this one. I think you gotta give it credit for being really current with some of the shit that we see on social media and things like that right now. But other than that, yeah, it wasn't the strongest ending by any means.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

I want to not mince any words here. This is the worst fucking ending in the franchise.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

It could be, yeah. It's definitely one of the weakest. The thing is, is that the last two endings, five and six, were also completely detached in the same way that these were detached, because they don't necessarily, they just don't relate to, they don't tie back to Sydney from like personal standpoint. They either tie back six ties back to the family that is tied back to then that one and five was tied back to the stab movies that just wanted to recreate stab movies. So it's just not no one's directly connected to Sydney anymore once we get out of four. And so when you look at the endings of five, six, and seven, they're all kind of weak.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

We're gonna have to get back to that. We're gonna have to circle back because I have two thoughts on that, and that's a statement. I disagree. I will say that I disagree. And one thing that I would hope from this ending that maybe we can all unpack definitely in the spoiler zone is I sure hope is the conclusion to everything. I'll say it here, I'll say it now loud and proud. I really hope this is the end. And if there's another movie after this, let it be brand new.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

There's an eight already, I think, in the works.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Jesus God, why? Why? Please stop this suffering. Please. I beg of you. I love Ghostface to be very clear. I want to make that disclaimer. I really do. I mean, what's behind me on the floor and a lot of paraphernalia in my house is ghostface everywhere. So trust, I don't want it to end, but I feel like it should be. I feel like this should be the end for spyglass's sake, specifically, if they know what's good for them. Just don't take any just stop gambling, brother. Please do.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

I'm gonna read you a headline, Binx. Nev Campbell already has a great idea for Scream A, but only if the fans respond well to Scream 7. Quote, if they want it, we'll certainly give it to them. Nev, we're gonna have to have a chat.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

I can't. I can't do this.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Well, future of the franchise aside, it's time to get to our ratings. Now, while we mull over exactly how we want to score this film, Sean, how would you describe the gore score?

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Well, we've already been talking about it. I think this one definitely is one of the more brutal entries in the franchise. There's no doubt about that. I think the gore is definitely elevated, it's more vicious than usual. Ghostface feels more physically cruel and sadistic, and the effects overall outside of maybe one or two moments looked pretty fucking good. So I would say that this isn't prestige horror gore. This is legacy gore. I think if the original scream was about shock, then scream seven is about escalation, and I think it earns itself like a medium high gore score.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

And what about the animal report? We are all safe here. Let's go ahead and get into our ratings. Scream 7 from 2026. Was it a hack or a slash?

SPEAKER_00 31:40

I think Scream 7 understands at least the first rule of Legacy Horror. If you're going to pick up the knife again, you better make the audience feel it. For the first two acts of this movie, it absolutely does just that. It makes you feel it. I think the opening scene and kill is a vicious reminder that Ghostface hasn't dulled with age. He's been sharpened by it. The brutality hits harder, the tension lingers a little bit longer in this one, and I think the film confidently rebuilds the kind of dread that made Sidney Prescott a survivor and the rest of us nervous to answer unknown callers. But then the third act kicks in, the moment where every Scream film has to pull off its literally its most dangerous trick, right? The big reveal. And like a shaky hand holding the knife, this is kind of where Scream 7 slightly misses the mark. And don't get me wrong, the motive itself, in essence, is clever in theory. It's a commentary on legacy, mythology, and the dangerous need to keep horror franchises alive, but the emotional impact doesn't quite cut deep enough in the ending and where they landed with this one. I think it's less of a shocking stab and more of like this knowing poke. And it's the kind where you admire the intent behind it, even if you don't feel the wound itself. And that being said, I think it still understands what makes this franchise immortal. I think with what it had to work with, I think it knows that Ghostface isn't just a killer, Ghostface is an idea. And even when the final twist doesn't land with the same devastating precision as Billy Loomis or Jill Roberts, I think the journey there to the end is tense. I think it's brutal. I still think that the movie was entertaining. And so even if the final cut isn't the deepest in the franchise, I think it still leaves a mark that horror fans can still sink their teeth into, or maybe their knife into. I don't know, but I give it a slash.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

Well, I want to start by saying that Spyglass Media Group is um absolute garbage for what they did. I'll make that clear. I'm not afraid of that because ultimately it's a little hard to shake off the aftermath of what could have been and what's unfortunate, you know, what happened to Melissa Barreira, you know, Jenna Ortega, Christopher Lance. And I think there was a lot of promise there. I think even with the two original directors of Scream 5 and 6, like there was something that was building up, you know, and maybe I wasn't the biggest fan of Five and Six, certainly was not the biggest fan of Melissa Barrera, I'll admit to that, but I was getting a little bought into where this was gonna go, you know, especially with Scream Six. I actually liked that one a lot, and I thought, okay, you know, I'm I'm down for this ending, I'm down to see where this is gonna go, rebuilding, remaking this franchise with our own new Sydney Prescott. Maybe she wasn't giving, you know, as much of a final grow energy as I had wanted, and those are you know, that's a high bar to meet, but I was looking forward to it. But nonetheless, with Scream 7 coming back to Sydney Prescott, I thought even then, well, it feels like this is not gonna be good, but I had that small, small bit of hope that if we went back to the beginning, back to the root of what Scream is, maybe we can see something through. And it had those bones. I think what this movie could have been doing and saying had it been a little bit earlier in time, or if it had the guts to go there where it needed to go, it really could have been a movie that had people saying, damn, it did rise from the ashes. I actually thought this movie was great. But what a train wreck towards the end. And I just I can't, I can't not think of that. It was insanely safe, restrained, robotic at times. The dialogue felt like there was no emotion, there was no connection to the ensemble. Even when we think of what makes Scream Scream, the Who Done It, the following the methodology of horror, that was barely explored here. There was a moment where I realized, oh, this is the scene where they talk about these things, and it kind of got lost on me for a moment there. I had zero care, and that's really unfortunate. I think that maybe with some time, if I were to re-watch this movie in the future and watch it in the way that I talked about, in terms of a timeline, like splicing it up with the other films, maybe I'll feel differently. But all in all, this movie is just what I expected for me. A hack.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

You know, I've been very torn on this movie because, again, for all the negatives I've given, it was still something that I had fun with watching in the theater. Just not the same level of fun as I've had with this entire franchise, which in itself is is honestly saying a lot. This is not a movie where I walked out feeling like I did when watching In a Violent Nature. We didn't review We Bury the Dead, but I also felt way better about this movie than We Bury the Dead. This isn't a bad movie in a vacuum. It really isn't. It's still more fun and better than a lot of other movies out there. But this movie doesn't exist within a vacuum, and the more I sat with it, the hollower it felt. And that's so disappointing for a scream movie specifically. Because the franchise as a whole just means that much to the genre. I felt not entirely dissimilarly about Halloween ends. Halloween Ends had enough going in it for me that still pushed it over into a better score, but at the end of the day, this movie doesn't feel worthy of its leading lady. This movie doesn't feel worthy of the franchise that it's in. And it operates with the same level of shy and timid it accuses Tatum of representing in the first act of the film. And unlike Tatum, it never has its transform it never has its transformative moment. Kevin Williamson even said that he was terrified stepping into this role, partly out of reverence for Wes Craven. And you can feel that caution on screen. But the problem is that in a screen movie, caution is rarely a virtue and not something you really want to have. This movie is watchable, it's occasionally fun for sure, but ultimately it's hollow. And I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed. And we can sit here and think about the what-ifs. But I think I would like to decide a reading from the book of Little Texas sang in the song What Might Have Been. I try not to think about what might have been, because that was then, and we have taken different roads. We can't go back again. There's no use giving in, and there's no way to know what might have been. Well, I know it might have been a slash, but for now, it's a hack. And I feel so bad saying that a ghost base movie is a hack. But for now, there you have it. Scream seven has earned two hacks and one slash. You can check this out in theaters if you decide to, but either way, join us in the second half so we can unpack these orders together.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

This episode of Hacker Splash is brought to you by Hack or Hostel, the world's first horror-themed house rental experience where the only thing getting checked out is you. That's right. Why stay at a boring Airbnb when you can book a weekend in a fully immersive horror house curated by your favorite frightful force of? Because at Hacker Hostel, every room is to die for. Literally. You have Chris's slasher sanctum. Love long walks on the dock? You'll love them even more when you realize you're not alone. Chris has designed a room so slasher forward it comes with mood lighting set permanently to third act thunderstorm, a closet that definitely doesn't have a masked figure inside. And complimentary running upstairs when you shouldn't survival training. Then you have Sean's classic horror hideaway, for those who prefer their terror in black and white, and morally repressed. With gothic arches, hype organ that only plays in minor keys, and a portrait whose eyes definitely follow you. Yeah, we paid extra for that. There's a fog rolling in from nowhere. Villagers forming an angry mob outside for no clear reason, and a mysterious count who insists he's just invited himself. It's old Hollywood horror, baby. We've got you to check out my new. Then check out Binx's paranormal paradise. This room includes a rocking chair that moves on its own, cold spots in very specific corners. So whether you're a slasher survivor, a gothic ghoul, or a paranormal investigator, book your stay today at Hacker Hostel. You can check in anytime you like, but you may never splash out. And remember, if the house calls and the voice says, What's your favorite scary movie? Hang up, then leave a five-star review.

SPEAKER_02 41:39

But Sean, let's go through that sleigh by sleigh.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

Well, we have already been hinting at it, but these kills definitely feel elevated in this one. It's not just your average stab for stab, your sleigh by slay. Don't get me wrong, there are some classic stabbing action, some brutal ones at that. I think there are a couple of kills in this one that really stand out and will probably go down in the ghost face hall of hurt for sure. And I'm sure we're gonna talk about them very quickly on as we go through these kills. So with all the stabbing, slashing, slicing, slitting, and spill your guts out carnage, we get in the 10 kills that this movie dishes out. I gotta know which one of these kills had you making a ghost face at the screen.

SPEAKER_02 42:22

Okay, so I felt as though Hannah's death sliced open, guts spilled out, suspended, swinging in mid-air. It felt as if Mid-Samar, Silence of the Lambs, and Art the Clown got together and made a scene and a horror movie together.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

It was beautiful with that light just shining on her. But let's also talk about how McKenna Grace stays getting killed early on in these movies.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

Yeah, Rita, Five Nights at Freddy's 2.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

That's what I thought. I was like, man, she gets into these franchises. Good for her because she's in like every single one at this point, but she doesn't stay long, which is a little sad.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

It's okay. We got her in the music video that played before the movie. Oh, true, true, true. True.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

When you're good at dying, you're good at dying, you know? That's just the way it goes.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

Imagine that being on your resume. Skilled in dying.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

I can die in the first act. Let's go. Oh man. It was a good kill. The visually, it was beautiful. I I 100% agree with you, Binx. Visually, one of the coolest shots.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

It's gorgeous. Like very ballerina-esque, you know. And R.I.P. to our buddy that was uh pulling the rig there for her because I mean he just got cooked. But I'm surprised, Chris, that you didn't lead with Podcast Boy with the beer coming out of his mouth.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Yeah, so that was actually my favorite, favorite kill. But one, I thought we might have the same, and I wanted I wanted Hannah to get in there. Two, I think Lucas getting impaled to the back of the head on a beer tap is even funnier if you consider. His mom may have been the one to do it.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

I know. Wild. Also convenient that that beer tap was literally a spike, you know. Not many beer taps are that pointy, to be honest, you know.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

It was kind of giving Cannibal Holocaust for a second.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Oh gosh. It was good though. It was the scene itself, once he's impaled onto that beer tap and then the beer is foaming out of his mouth. It reminded me of an older slash. Is it my bloody valentine? What's the movie where they put the person on a like ceiling sprinkler and the water sputes out of her mouth?

SPEAKER_02 44:36

That is my bloody valentine.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. It reminded me of that, which also was a very cool kill, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Brilliant. That connection with it potentially being his mom is absolutely crazy. But I had a good time with it because Lucas already was kind of weird, as it is, buddy. I was like, you gotta go whether you're the killer or you're not. I hope that you get got because you're weird, man. And he's just like a actor that I can see is going to get typecasted into these kinds of things because he's also just as weird in Gen V, I think it's called the boys spin-off show. If y'all don't watch it, he plays a very fascinatingly weird and creepy character in that show, too.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

I don't know if I've seen that. But listen, I think the first ghost face kill we get is just fucking hilarious because who expects for ghost for for a ghost face to just literally just get ran over by a car by none other than Gail Weathers, by the way, which is fucking legit as fuck. She just comes in and just nails that dude with her car.

SPEAKER_02 45:48

I personally loved it, but also look at them pulling a scream six and just killing a ghost face so early in the movie.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Well, at this point, they've got a lot of practice, you know. They're like, let's get one out of the way now because fuck this shit. When you got more than one roaming around, you gotta look front, back, side to side. You never know who's coming for you.

SPEAKER_01 46:10

Be ready at all times. Absolutely. I mean, that's certainly what I would expect at this point, that's for sure. But I thought the same thing. And also when it was revealed that it was some random guy, I was like, oh, this is definitely also from the more recent, like Scream 5 and 6, or Scream 6 specifically with a stranger that we don't even know. Yeah. But it also was reminding me of scary movie in general, just like that kind of comedy level, just ramming Ghostface with a car is just like, where did that come from? Although I was feeling like, man, you also have killed so many frickin' people at this point. They're always trying to get you. You don't want to run over there and check who the fuck it is first. That's not the first thought that you have by now, after like the 20th ghost face that you've killed.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Go over there, double tap, and pull the mask off. That's that's what we're instantly.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Here's why it especially pissed me off because we have gotten so many at this point references and callbacks to Scream 2. What happened in Scream 2? Sydney climbed over the body, went away from the car, then said, nah, I gotta know. Bam, he's no longer there, bam, her roommate gets killed. No. What I was waiting for the most in that moment, quite frankly, was for that body to disappear from the ground while everyone happens to not be looking at it.

SPEAKER_00 47:33

I for sure thought that was gonna happen too. I wasn't ready for the ghost space to be dead. Let's just rewind a little bit to the beginning because Madison's death, by the way, was really what set the tone for this movie and the enhanced brutality that we got, right? Because you know, you have the whole sequence of like fighting up the stairs and all this shit. And you saw the clip in the trailer, right? We know that she's falling down from the top of the stairs, and ghost face turns over and just holds a knife up so that she can fall on the knife. We knew something like that was gonna happen, and it did happen, but what we weren't ready for was that Ghostface was just like taking it to the next level, douse that bitch with gasoline, and fucking set her on fire. What in the holy shit was this? When that happened, I was like, this is different. Yeah, this is different.

SPEAKER_02 48:24

Well, it was also alluded to when Madison said that she would hate to die that way after she was reflecting on the fact that Amber was burning to death with the torch being passed.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

There is that little reference for sure. I mean, also setting the house on fire. So it was just like, okay, let's go it. What was that? It's like we're gonna burn her down and then we're gonna burn the house down, and this is just representing that this is like the this is the new age ghost face. Like we're tying it back, but we're recreating our own path now.

SPEAKER_02 48:53

I'm telling you, it's the Halloween 2018 and Halloween kills pipeline.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

You're not wrong. You're not wrong.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

That's even more reason why I was thinking, like, okay, at this point, if the motive is to just really start fresh in terms of Tatum is gonna be the new Sydney Prescott, and we're gonna start a new timeline of Final Girl type shit. We gotta start from scratch, and that means burning down everything else. Then I'm like, let the movie just end already, right? Because now you're killing a set piece that is essential to the Scream franchise. Granted, how it still exists and is even available for people to stay is something that is specific to Woodsboro psychology and just madness of that town. Because anyone, anyone else and anywhere else would I be like, they would never fucking allow people to stay there, they wouldn't let them do that, nothing. But in Woodsboro, nah, son.

SPEAKER_02 49:54

Doug, hold on a second. Let me introduce you to the Lizzie Borden bed and breakfast. You can stay in the room where it happened.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

People like a good fright, the thrill of it all. I mean, I would stay at the at the Stewaker house.

SPEAKER_02 50:07

It's also great because you can actually rent the Stewaker house. Well, you could have. I don't know if it's still available for rent, but when the last cream movies came out, that's cool. It was like a big promotional thing. So it was like the meta of this was actually an Airbnb as well.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 50:21

I just feel like Lizzie Borden, one thing. We're talking about multiple, multiple, multiple killings with the same mask, even in the same house. Like at some point, would they not just shut it the fuck down? The answer is no, folks, because I know Woodsboro is built different and the stab franchise must live on. So I get it. I get it. But all that to say, speaking of just the motives and the weird motives at that. The only good thing about Jessica is that they shot her face until it fell off. That was the best part of that character as a whole. I feel like that reveal was such garbage and that I was like, oh, I really was hoping that Anna Camp was casted because maybe they're trying to give her something like to do that isn't just always playing a crazy bitch. No, actually, that's exactly why they casted her because she's capable of being a crazy bitch. I should have known. I had too much faith. I should I had too much faith.

SPEAKER_02 51:29

Yeah, yeah. It's it's so disappointing that this is what became of her. I do like the potential of there being the whole parasocial relationship angle. I thought that was really interesting. So going from the beginnings of what happened to Sydney and Maureen Prescott, the events of the Scream franchise, the Hollywoodification of it all, Sydney becoming a survivor, writing her book, then going back into hiding in kind of like this privacy and reclaiming her own narrative, only for then people to grow even more attached and obsessed with her and the real person, and seen as an icon, as a hero, as a legend, unlike Richie, who clung to the meta of the stab movies and less about the real story. I thought that was a really interesting dynamic. Unfortunately, it was just a whole lot of nothing on the execution.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

Yeah, it's it's tough because the motive that we had in this movie isn't the thing that I'm most mad at. The whole, like, I need to recreate the final girl, like I need to make Tatum the new final girl and take over because I'm pissed that Sydney's trying to live this quiet life. That motive I'm not necessarily mad at. It still feels pretty meta. The characters themselves don't tie to Sydney strong enough for me to actually buy into it, which is why I have a problem, which is why I also lump it with the other two previous films. They don't tie to Sydney that well. When you look at five, right, Sydney still appears in five. And so you try to pass the torch, cool, but still I just don't feel like the tie there was strong enough. And so this one may be the worst for sure. This one may be the worst offender, but I think when we start going down the trajectory of just not really tying the way that the other scream films do to the past, it kind of loses its weight. And in this one, the motive actually was kind of clever. I just didn't feel the emotional weight behind it, which is tough.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

Yeah, the other tough thing about this motive is when we see Ethan Embry and we meet Marco's character. I need you to know that the only thing going through my fucking mind was the liars in pretty little liars going to the fucking hospital and he was radiating big A energy. If you know, you know pretty little liars fans out there. But you clocked it fucking immediately.

SPEAKER_01 53:53

Immediately, dude. Immediately, first of all, I saw him and I was like, whoa, buddy, you're in this movie? That's already you gave it away. You gave it away too quick. You needed to do a lot of work to kind of red herring that if it wasn't gonna be you, buddy, because you you've got it just plastered on you in terms of that energy. But I gotta say, it's like the motive was fine. I I agree with both of you on that front, but where I disagree with you, Sean, is like I was okay with it no longer tying back to Sydney, shockingly enough. Because if the whole point was to kind of reboot, remake, whatever, pave a new path of this franchise, eventually it does need to deviate from it being completely just about Sydney. However, here it's almost like it is a direct tie to her to an extent through the parasocial lens. But the chemistry between the two of them was hollow. They did not seem like friends to me. It was weird. The scene of them in the coffee shop.

SPEAKER_00 55:06

She was just a regular at the coffee shop. That's basically all that was.

SPEAKER_01 55:10

Yeah, or like her, just okay, fine. Suddenly you're her neighbor. That didn't read like you guys were neighbors originally. Like that's odd, but fine. Regardless, Sydney does not come off like the kind of woman that would be going to this other lady to talk about kids and how to handle tough conversation. They didn't have that kind of chemistry, they didn't seem like they had that kind of relationship. It felt very stale. So it's almost like when it's revealed that this is your supposed neighborhood best friend is actually your killer, it's like, oh okay, I guess. Like I don't feel I I don't feel sad for Sydney. I don't feel shocked even. I'm almost like, well, I already knew that other guy from the psychiatric ward was definitely it, but I was almost hoping that the Stu thing was actually real.

SPEAKER_00 56:01

I Okay, so that's now that's my question is knowing all of the shit that just happened in this movie, now doesn't the angle of Stu being alive and being behind the mask this time feel a lot better? God, uh is this a hot take?

SPEAKER_01 56:19

Because I'll say it, I think I would have preferred it at this point.

SPEAKER_00 56:23

Yeah, I think it would have been great.

SPEAKER_01 56:25

The stretch between explaining how Stu is alive was already big, but the insane use of deepfakes and AI that suddenly everyone is a master at and can suddenly use via FaceTime or whatever, and all of these other reaches that they were going to kind of make it seem like Stu is alive. I I don't know what's what gap is bigger. I really don't know yet.

SPEAKER_02 56:51

Yeah, it's tough. I mean, I I could have gotten into Stu being alive. If Matthew Lillard had enough fun with it, I'm sure it would have been wonderful. But the problem for me is that the deep fake and the AI of it all could have been so much more interesting and so much more problematic if the movie took it just a little bit more seriously. It felt like an accessory to everything that was happening instead of being the critical tech that was powering all of this. Like in Scream 3, the voice changer that was also imitating Cotton Weary's voice, etc. That felt like such a massive deal. And with AI being what it is right now, and our relationship to AI being what it is right now, when you think of how AI is being used to dissuade and misinform and spread disinformation on top of that. This moment was ripe for Scream to have a fucking field day with it. And it's almost like oh my gosh. Okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna say something that I I hope it makes sense to you. This movie feel like it feels like it employed AI in its execution of AI. And I'm not accusing Kevin Williamson of actually using AI to write this film. I'm not saying that at all. But what I am saying is that this is the most watered down bullet point explanation and wielding of AI, and it just feels like Kevin Williamson is better than that. It feels like this whole production team was better than that, it feels like the Scream franchise is better than that. We could have leaned in more and done something more meaningful with this.

SPEAKER_01 58:36

I just don't know if they even know how deep fakes work in that regard, but I whatever.

SPEAKER_02 58:42

Bro, you got people out here deepfaking the fucking Mandalorian. Like what? Like, this is so doable. It's so doable. It's so doable. You could have gone on Reddit and gotten anybody to make something for this movie at this point. But the other part of this is that the way that they end up using AI, think about how much more emotionally manipulative this could have been if they went back and used some of the Scream 3 tech and Gail or Sydney takes a call from Dewey instead of David Arquette just being in the ghost face hall of fucking hurt, like Sean said. It was like Ghostface's greatest hits. Yeah. It's like the band's back together. The only ensemble in here was the ghost of Ghostface Fast.

SPEAKER_00 59:25

Well, they needed to commit a little bit harder with it, I think. And they needed to like they used it as a as what should have been, or I think what they intended to be a very large theme of the movie, but I don't think that it actually ended up being a large enough theme of the movie, I think is the problem.

unknown 59:42

Right.

SPEAKER_02 59:42

Again, they fail to commit to the bit.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

And it's unfortunate because overall, that really could have been maybe like my favorite production element if they had gotten a little bit creative with it overall, in terms of even how the look of Matthew Leard or Stu Mocker in some of these videos, but I can tell you one thing, that certainly was not my favorite production element because it looked hella green screen. And I mean, when he was on FaceTime, I was like, maybe he's on the set of Five Night at Freddy's, and this is the only way they can get him into the movie, was just record yourself on your phone, buddy. Put some makeup on and figure it out. I digress. My actual favorite part though was certainly again Ghostface's look, because it will never not be. I think that when he was emerging from the dark entryway at the beginning of Stu's house, that was sick, really clean, very cool. When he showed up behind the plastic, I was like, man, again, the intimidation, tall energy, the fact that it's actually Jessica, whatever, the height thing doesn't track. I don't care anymore. What I do care is that ghost face will always look cool as shit with that mask and that all black cape.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:06

Yeah. I mean, fuck right off with taking the one great thing that I had to say about this movie visually, because the moment that he emerges from the darkness is reminiscent of Michael Myers, the 1978 Halloween. They just used a dimmer switch to subtly reveal the white of his mask. That's what that movement was. And then again, you talk about him within the plastic, it's reminiscent of not only the 1974 Black Christmas with Billy lunging it, Claire, but also Problem Knight, the remake. That was something. That was a time and a place and also a thing in the early aughts. But there was a lot of intention. And Ramsey Nicol, who was a DP for this movie, had so much deliberate framing, a lot of thoughtful blocking. And I really appreciate it. But I also want to give a shout-out to the score because among all the heroes that have come back for this film, we haven't mentioned Marco Beltrame.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:03

That's real. And the score was also it. You're right, we didn't talk enough about that. This it just I think the music overall and the score sometimes gets lost on this franchise when we're too caught up with everything else and just the image of Ghostface. But there were some moments there that I thought was like actually effectively tense with his look because the music just pairs so well. It's like subtle and just overall creepy and real nice. There are some great needle drops though, but I'm gonna talk about that at the end because that almost had me on my ass.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:35

Listen, the score was good for sure, but and I listen, I don't know if this was me just doing a fucking scream-a-thon going into this one, but for me, what I loved a lot about this movie was actually all the little callbacks that we got throughout the entire film because we sure got a fuck ton of them. We got everything from Stu Maker's house, which was absolutely a great way to open the film, to Sydney's famous leather jacket from Scream 2. This one was pulling shit, I think, out of every single angle, and I think it was really fun to watch as a fan of the franchise. I think we recreated scenes as callbacks like Ben sneaking into Tatum's bedroom window, just like Billy did to Sydney's window. Speaking of Tatum, a callback just naming your daughter after your dead best friend, super fun. The return of stab memorabilia in the background, really loved to see all the different stab posters and things in the background. The ghost face horror quiz was also a great callback. The even just the do you like scary movies line, not just what's your favorite scary movie, but do you like scary movies? All of that shit was super, super good. There's even more. I mean, there's the dialogue of I've always had a thing for you, Sid. There's the whole infamous ghost face knife wipe, it's Tatum tied up like Casey's boyfriend as the callback, like super, super good. Even and Chris, you're talking about the score recreating the lockdown scene, including Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, red right hand. Like, you don't get a better callback than that. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:13

You don't, you don't. I was also really happy that the quiz from Ghostface started with films directed by Wes Craven.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:22

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So the callbacks is what I had a really good time with in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:28

Especially people under the stairs, because that one's a sleeper at times, it feels like. So that was nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:34

Talk about those callbacks, and I want to go back to what was my favorite scene in the movie, which was the very beginning. Not to say it was all downhill from there, but it was a pretty fucking great scene because the moment the movie starts and you have this car driving down the road, it really does feel reminiscent of Casey Becker's parents driving on that long winding road, and you just know the police will never make it there on time. But leaning into this, the Airbnb of it all, the meta of that property actually having been rentable as an Airbnb, to now see it as not only a stab memorabilia, but also like the actual house, Stu Mocker's house, and to have all the plaques of everyone who has died all throughout the house, the ghost face animatronic, the body outlines on the floor was absolutely wild. But what I love the most about this was Scott and Madison's dynamic. And it was actually a little infuriating because I'm fucking sorry if I had a girlfriend who said she was down to go to this big old thing and was and she was anything less than pleasant within the first 10 minutes of it. And I felt like I was like, Oh, maybe we'll sh we'll cancel, we'll just go home. No, fuck that. We're breaking up. Like that's not cool. This is such an experience for this guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:54

Well, it feels like why would you even like get to that point, you know? If I would imagine that you would know your girlfriend or partner enough to know that they would probably not be into it or not. But let's say they're faking it until they arrive and then they're just not good at faking it anymore. Well, you just probably don't have things in common, friends.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:14

Yeah, there are bigger issues here than the fact that you're in a fucking Airbnb like that. But let it be known, as I go through the dating life in the future, one of my favorite things is gonna be, hey, I plan on going to the Lizzie Board and bed and breakfast. Do you have an issue with that? And if you do, hey.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:33

Deal breaker.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:34

Deal breaker. Not a red flag, just a deal breaker.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:38

Oh my god. Speak your truth though. Don't fake it because Chris will catch you in the act lying through your teeth.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:45

Yeah, if you're not down to clown with a Ouija board in a haunted house, fuck that. Sorry, Banks. This is why we'll never date.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:52

Yeah, sorry. It's okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:55

That's the fucking reason. Not the dick of it all, yeah. Not the dick of it all. Yeah. But this movie starts off with this incredible scene. It's so fun, it's dangerous, it's brutal. Ghost face is really ominous in this moment. Sneaking around the house. I really, really enjoyed this. It felt as though it set me up to love this movie. Which actually, now that I think about it, makes the rest of the movie harder to forgive. There it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:24

There it is. And Jimmy Tatro, listen, I love that guy. I think he's hilarious. So his little bit in the movie, although already kind of revealed in the trailer, I was like, you know, this seems like the kind of guy, the perfect casted actor, to pull off a kooky, super excited fan to be staying in that kind of place. So hats off to him.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:46

But I I think the real question here is do you have a Scott in your life who, if you showed up in Airbnb, can answer a horror movie quiz? If you don't, you check yourself. You may be the one. But I hope you're ready.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

Yeah. I don't do well under pressure, so I need to I need to start compiling that list for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:09

Don't worry, I'll answer the phone calls for us. Thank God.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:14

Thank God. Well, it's hard for me to kind of pick a favorite scene because well, for obvious reasons, but I feel like there were a few moments that I appreciated, but I don't know if they were full-on standouts. If I had to pick one, I'd say that the Gail and Sydney interview was really interesting. I think that finally getting that interview was a nice touch and just having the moment for the two of them to sit down and talk about things for once in so long was interesting. And I wish it had gone a little bit further. You know, and and you see Gail pushing the buttons, which is true to her character. I'm glad that she did. Borderline disrespectful because that's bringing classic Gail back, really. Exactly, exactly. I really liked that a lot. But I almost felt like, man, I wish it wasn't cut as short as it was, because I think that was the moment to really bring a bit more of the themes and the plot out, you know, just really digging your claws into Sydney and how she is deflecting a lot of what she's been through, maybe overprotecting her daughter, I mean, to a fault at some point, obviously. I thought that there was like a really cool thing to kind of hash out there. And it started to, most certainly, and using it as a way to kind of lure Ghostface in, it was giving a bit like, I don't know, it reminded me of Gone Girl, I know, roll your eyes, but there's a scene in Gone Girl where something similar is used to that degree where you're trying to lure your killer in to catch them in the act. So it was a good scene.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:54

Yeah, it was definitely good. And the opening scene, probably by far the best scene in the movie, but there's a lot of little things that I really enjoyed with different scenes in this movie. I loved the scene where Sydney and Tatum are in their house and they have like the panic room that they just for what you know. Then you have Sydney's behind the walls little sneak, sneak like pathway, which I thought was super clever. Which what I didn't get was that this motherfucker figured it out so easily. Maybe he heard them behind the walls, but I feel like, man, I wasn't expecting him to catch on or her whoever, whichever version of Ghostface was in the house at that moment. Like, didn't expect Ghostface to figure it out that quickly, but I thought it was just very clever to have that kind of setup in your home, which is kind of cool. I I did like that touch. Also, there was little moments like the Tatum Chase scene in the town, and everything was kind of closed down, and you have that moment where you see the shadow of Ghostface getting up against the building with the lighting. I thought that was a really, really cool shot. And I even the fun of Ben's like murder at that point where you think like because she hits the the ghost face over the head with the two by four or whatever it was, and then all of a sudden Ben shows up with a with a messed up forehead, so you're like almost led to believe, like, okay, was was this could this have been it's too obvious? And then he gets like stabbed viciously to death. So you know, okay, well, that goes out the window.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:24

Well, to be fair, he had a head wound because she knocked the he shocked him the fuck out inside the car, and like he immediately had that visible injury. The other part of this, her running around the town, and then obviously Ben's horrific death. I just want to throw it back again. Not unlike Allison running around on lockdown night in Halloween 2018 as Michael Myers was there with Oscar's dead body. I'm just saying, it was right there, it was right there. They really are just following this whole thing. And I just I'm even thinking about this now. Dev Campbell, the star, the final girl, the anchor of this franchise, wants to do it, but then calls back Kevin Williamson and says, like, hey, you're the guy for this, even if he's reluctant. Not unlike, and this is 30 years after the original, not unlike Jamie Lee Curtis getting the band back together to thank the fans with H2O. But her pitch was that John Carpenter and Deborah Hill had to be involved.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:28

History is poetry and it rhymes.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:30

Yeah. Well, we couldn't have Wes, unfortunately, so yikes.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:35

Ain't that true?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:36

Because uh that just wasn't a possibility. I mean, the part where where Sydney's like coaching Tatum over the phone in the coffee shop was also a little bit fun. Just like having kind of coaching her on like what to do. The only problem is that classic horror trope of just like not going over there to kill him fast enough. Come on, come on, you know, and Sydney knows too better. Go over there and double tap that motherfucker in the head. Like, you know this, you know this. You can't wait too long.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:07

She figured it out as a teenager, she got him. And yet her daughter cannot be bothered. But did your theater also have the emotional emotional response to Tatum putting the gun down and then a sigh of relief when she picked the gun back up?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:27

I went late, so I thought I don't I only had like maybe eight people in the theater, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:33

Oh, I went for a showing opening night, and it was Yeah, I didn't go to an opening showing.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:38

I went to a late night showing.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:40

And I just went too late. I watched it hours before we started recording this episode, so it was a little too empty in my theater, probably for the best. But let's talk about Tatum if we can, because alright. Well, she's a Leo, if anyone's curious. Clocked that. And fascinating because I'm a little conflicted about this meekness that they are trying to portray about Tatum. Not just the astrology of it all. I mean, forget that. It's like it is interesting because naturally living in the shadow of your mother is already something that is universal in terms of a mother-daughter relationship or just a parent relationship, right? So that is a really great baseline. Then we have the trauma, right, of it all, which I think is valid and warranted for sure. I mean, what mother would not be insanely overprotective of their daughter considering what they've been through? The part that I thought was just a little bit poorly executed and a little bit wobbly, I guess we can say, is the word that comes to mind right now. It's just that we're in the age of deep fakes and AI. You are a smart, competent girl, I can imagine as such. She even says this to kind of explain like, you want to know so much about me, there's movies. I wrote a whole ass book. I've you can do all of this, but I still have questions. Yeah, okay. But girl, you do know a lot about your mother, though. You can't sit here and tell me that you don't know a lot about your mother when at this point there's like six stab movies about her. That she even wrote an entire autobiography. She wrote a book herself, her exact words, and you've never, if you've really been that curious about your mom's past, you would look into those things and then the questions and the pushback maybe would have been a little bit stronger. I think I would have liked to have seen her clap back with some things that she read about her mom when her mom wouldn't say something, right? Or talk about Tatum, or let's say, or the or the leather jacket or something to that effect, right? I think that would have been a little bit interesting. I don't know if that would have made sense for how meek they made Tatum to be, but I I don't know. It felt like the believability there was a little bit lost on me in terms of you really don't know a damn thing about your mother, but everyone else does. Seems a little odd.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:20

Well, I didn't actually have an issue with this. One, we know that the Hollywood effect can sensationalize a lot of different things. And I think there's something more specific here that's really important to drill into, which is the very last thing that you just said. You really don't know that much about your mom when the whole world knows about your mom. When the whole world knows exactly the same information that you know, doesn't that feel less intimate? Doesn't that feel like less of a connection? If I were I would for sure feel less connected to Sydney, which is where I think the actual root of this issue is there's like a craving to know and to have like more intimate knowledge, maybe less about what was happening and more about the ramifications of that. Her thirst is quote is quenched by just knowing a little bit about Tatum and who Tatum was, and not just that she was a dead girl who died in a garage door. So I actually really love the dynamic between Tatum and Sydney. I love Tatum's journey. I think she is described as timid and lacking presence, but I never felt that she lacked that presence. What I did think was interesting would be damn, what if she was a killer? That would have been more fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:43

Yes, that would have been wild, actually. That would have been wild.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:46

Listen, when she was in the coffee shop for a moment there, I was like, what if this is about to take a big turn? And that's where I started to paint the clown makeup on my face. Because I'm like, oh no, this couldn't possibly be. But I'm with you on that because absolutely that's the lack of intimacy that I think I would have wanted in terms of the direction of the story and the dynamic. I it didn't read such to me personally. It was more also the lines of like, okay, you know that like you're even your dad's a cop, and like you've just been around this sense of like violence or or the aftermath of violence. You've been raised in the aftermath of violence. And so it's so interesting to see what that actually looks like. Do you really not know the essentials? And I mean, clearly you don't because she doesn't even like know how to operate a gun or anything. And it's so it's just fascinating to me. I feel like on the one hand, I would have imagined Sydney like training her kids to fucking be out here like snipers or some shit, you know, just in case. But on the other, you just want to forget that that's your life so bad that you are in insane denial and you have you run a coffee shop instead. I think that that is really interesting. I think I I guess I was kind of where do I land in the middle? What would the middle look like?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:07

Okay, here's what you're looking for. You're looking for again Halloween 2018 when Lori lost custody of her child because she taught her how to fire weapons. But well, there's a lot more than that. That's not why Lori lost her child. But you're looking for that dynamic, you're looking for what is quite honestly the expected outcome and the expected behavior of generational trauma. But let me pose a different uh argument here. And I'm thinking about this, you know, Binx, you and I share well, you more so than me, a Cuban heritage. My father is Cuban, my mother's Puerto Rican, my father came to this country on the heels of the revolution, flew in the freedom fights. Your family is you're Cuban on both sides of your family, a lot of rich and deep history there. You grew up far more connected to your culture than I did. Because with my father coming over here, there became like this being Americanized. And I I think about all the things I never learned how to do because my my father didn't want that life for us. I think about the life they didn't want us to have. So for me, that is a direct parallel with Sydney. Sure, she learned how to do all of these things. She had to survive, she doesn't want that life for her daughter. And so I think that's a really interesting thing when you think about the parallels of okay, being even the children of immigrants and what your experience is growing up and how connected you are, the things that you know and the things that you don't know. I only know so much about stuff from my dad's side of the family because I ask. But there's still a lot that I don't know. So I don't know. I just thought it was an interesting parallel. You just made me think of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:59

Yeah, that's a really good one. Yeah, I guess I hadn't thought of it that way because ultimately it really is a matter of like, even with Tatum's dad, what does that look like? I mean, he's just a her partner, but what what that dynamic looks, even from a marriage standpoint. Like he checks Sydney at times when maybe, you know, she's in the wrong and needs to kind of really exercise some level of vulnerability to educate her daughter enough to understand things. It's also just like a change of dynamics. Her daughter is no longer like a kid, she's a grown adult who is the same age that she was when all of this started. And maybe that's something that you want to accept or you don't, right? The fear of your boyfriend potentially being, you know, just like the boyfriend experience that you had, not a fucking great one. I thought those kinds of things were really interesting, but it really is a matter of like how you want to exercise that parenting because you could either just be in denial and just hope for the best without sharing too much information and putting up those walls, as many, you know, parents do with their own things. They don't want to like subject their kids to that kind of stuff, or maybe they overdo it too. There's also that potential possibility. They're like almost trauma dumping on their kids.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:14

Can we acknowledge that Mark should have fucking died then?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:17

Absolutely. Why what? Why was he alive? There was no need for that. I mean, uh happy family, I guess, at the end, sure. But let's be real, folks. The whole argument that Sydney has had enough, no shit, she's had enough, but this is a scream movie after all. We know that she's had enough, but like, okay, so we're not gonna kill her kid, but someone's gotta go.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:40

Yeah, the way I mean the way that I looked at the dynamic between Tatum and Sydney was the like it I can explain it best in the way I related to it was the relationship that I had with my father, who was a Vietnam War, like Navy SEAL. And so I knew that he went to Vietnam. I knew from looking at shit that happened in Vietnam that some fucking crazy shit happened. Like he likely killed a bunch of people, he probably saw a lot of people that he knew and was close to die right in front of him, and this guy never talked about it. I could ask him questions and he would not give me real answers, like very beating around the bush. And so I feel like it was that dynamic of their relationship was super relatable just from that standpoint, where I think that where I think that Tatum's character became a weaker addition is not the idea of Tatum. I think I think even if they continue this franchise and Tatum continues to be this driving force of a character, it could still work. What I think that it was weaker in is because Tatum was used as someone that just was not strong until the very bitter end. Like there, there it just felt like every time Tatum was around conveniently, never touched, like it just felt like there wasn't a lot of danger happening with Tatum. Everyone else there felt like there was danger, but there wasn't a lot of danger surrounding Tatum. For most of the movie, it felt like conveniently she was just in the right place at the right time, or whatever happened, the timing was right. So I don't know. Which also leads you to believe that she could have been the killer, but somewhere in this movie, there's a better movie. Yeah, it is interesting for sure. I mean, listen, Sydney and Gail both brought much-needed emotional weight to the film that would have otherwise been probably paper thin for sure, with a lot of the other characters that we got. And I just want to highlight no matter what version of Scream Sydney's in, Sydney has definitely got to be at the top of one of the best Final Girls of all time at this point, though, for sure. Like hands down, depend that doesn't matter where the story goes in any movie. I think basically Sydney has arguably some of the best survival instincts in horror fucking history at this point.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:09

So absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:11

I think we gotta acknowledge that. So no matter what happened to bring Sydney back, Sydney's back, and I think she, you know, you just you just gotta acknowledge that for sure. I think there was this cool little passing of the torch that ended up happening with Sydney to her daughter. I also think there was that, you know, with the little end that we got in the credits, there was a cool little maybe hinting to a passing of the torch between Gail and Mindy, you know, so I think that was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:38

Which ultimately I appreciated because otherwise it felt like why are Mindy and Chad here, really? Because of this. They're already under contract. We love Mindy.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:54

We love Mindy. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:56

Yeah, I love both of them. But the core four is no more. The core four is no more. You just said it right now. Like they're supposed to be the new Randy, but they were barely, barely randying here. Yeah, it was very minimal in this one. So minimal. That's when I was like, wait a minute, I think I missed the famous bit where they're doing their Randy thing because it was either so lame or so little or not really relevant. They had that one line where it was like, it's never a stranger, where I was like, okay, so this is the angle now because we really don't know how we're gonna do this. Is that is that it? Is that the bit? It just felt really random. It felt random. So if it's gonna be the full passing of the torch, I'm here for it. I mean, Tatum at this point has zero friends, all of them are gone, cooked, completely severed in many different ways. So she's gonna have to really start fresh, however, that looks.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:50

You know, I am totally open to Chad and Mindy, but I really wish that they didn't have like how how many times has Chad been stabbed now at this point. He continues to survive, which I love for him, good for him, but also just points out they are stronger than their uncle. And Mindy is well, sliced again. I just want them to catch a break. They're great comedic relief. I do love them as characters. If this franchise continues, I hope they continue to be in it. But the passing of the torch from Mindy to Gail reminds me that there's another character that was horrifically underutilized, and that was Mark Ansuelos as the local news anchor because he also would have been a great option to be a killer.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:37

Very true. Trying to get his big break.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:39

Yeah, trying to get his big break. And Mark Consuelos has a feeling like that. Listen, if you've seen Riverdale, you already know he's got the chops. He's got the potential.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:49

Yeah. And the potential really honestly is the best part of this movie. There is so much potential with Sydney and Tatum, but with Gail coming back. Can you see how traumatized she is post New York and post Dewey's death? You have so much potential in the idea of deepfake technology or AI technology to suade and just amplify Ghostface's reach. There is so much here. It's just such a a damn shame that it can't commit to it and live up to its own potential.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:23

I'm with you on that. But the other best part for me personally was the back-to-back needle drops that were very personal. That was a Binks message, and that was Turnstyle and Moby. I couldn't even believe it. I thought I was hallucinating. I thought my phone went off. My Spotify started playing because Turnstyle is my number one favorite artist of like the last like two or three years. I was very shocked that they made it to a scream, so that's good on them. But Moby is always going to be a special one for me. And that off that album, specifically First Cool Hive, it's a great song. And that album has been finding its way in the last couple of things that I've been watching recently, whether it was like a movie or Stranger Things or whatever. And I was like, all right, Kevin, I see you. I see what's going on here. You're trying to win me over at the last hour. And it almost would have worked if what followed after the fact wasn't so abysmal.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:25

Man, it was those definitely the songs in the movie great choices. I think the worst part, there's not much more to say. The worst part is definitely just the way they handled the ending. I'm okay with the motive, the theme as a whole. It's very meta for sure. I just don't think the characters themselves made a ton of sense. They were, like I said, not heavily tied to Sydney's past or anything like that. Just didn't feel right. So for me, definitely the worst part.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:49

Yeah, that being said, I am down to rewatch this movie. But probably only in the context of a franchise rewatch. I don't know that this has the same cut potential as the Halloween franchise, where I've talked about doing a crisp cut where it's like all the best parts to connect all the timelines together. I don't know that it has exactly that because I think this will like at least we'll give the Scream franchise this. The continuity is continuous, and there isn't a lot of retconning to have to go back and really do, but I would watch this again for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:27

Yeah, like I said, I feel like I would just dare to try and do a crisp cut of this out of curiosity a bit, but it will of course would not flow exact because there is the gale and the Mindian chat of it all and whatnot, but I would re-watch it. I really watch it. I think, like we said at the beginning, ultimately there is no real bad scream movie, but there is a ranking, you know? And although this is not high up there, it's still something that has its charm, it has its kills for sure, it's curiosity elements to it that will have me wanting to do a whole franchise binge and include it in there.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:13

Yeah, 100%. I think it's definitely worth a rewatch, if nothing, not at least with that kind of marathon of the whole franchise. And I think Scream is just a great franchise to do a marathon, take it from someone that basically just did the whole Scream-a-thon. I think it's just fun to watch them back to back. There's a, to your point, Chris, a lot of continuity. The timeline doesn't really break up that much, if at all. And so for that, when you watch them back to back, it actually makes for a really fun watch.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:42

Well, only time will tell if our hearts tend to favor and sweeten and soften a little bit on this film. But for now, there you have it, folks. Scream 7 has earned two hacks and one slash. Now we certainly had a robust discussion here, but the conversation doesn't end here by any means.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:58

Yeah, if you want to find out what's behind the mask of our show, consider supporting us by visiting patreon.com/slash hackerslash. This is where you can enjoy even more of the show, including bonus content with early access, extended episodes with our B sides, movie nominations, and live shows.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:16

We'll see you next time, folks, and remember, you need to channel some of your mother's fight.