The Real Villain of Scream 7 Isn’t Ghostface. It’s the Police

Let's be fair to Scream 7 before anything else: the movie doesn't pretend to be something it's not. It promises blood, running, scares, and Ghostface chasing people who make the worst possible decisions inside a house with ten unlocked doors — and it delivers exactly that, without wasting much time. The proof comes within the first few minutes, when a blonde is brutally dispatched with all the delicacy of someone simply following standard procedure. There is absolutely nothing subtle about the choice, and that's almost what makes it respectable: the movie knows you already know how this story begins, so it doesn't bother pretending otherwise. It's basically the production saying, "Take your seats, because the chaos is already starting" — and then following through.

The problem is that once the initial scares are over, you can finally sit back, take a breath, and realize that Woodsboro might have the worst public-safety administration in the history of American cinema.

This time, there are three killers wearing the same black robe, which is already an interesting narrative choice. But what really steals the show isn't the fact that there are three of them. It's what happens to each one. The first Ghostface goes down far too early, almost as if he had signed a temporary employment contract with no job security clause. He gets in, causes some damage, and disappears from the story before anyone has a chance to remember his name. Let's just call it a cameo appearance in his own conspiracy.

The second Ghostface is the real phenomenon of the night. This guy takes enough bullets to end the matter according to virtually every basic law of physics and biology — and then just keeps running. He doesn't stumble, slow down, or even give us the traditional dramatic pause of "Oh no, I've been shot." He simply carries on, as if every bullet were nothing more than a gentle reminder that the movie still has another fifteen minutes of chase scenes to get through. At some point, you have to wonder how many bullets it actually takes before someone in this universe considers lying down. Apparently, the answer is "more."

Then there's the jealous neighbor who decides to dress up as a serial killer because she suspects Sidney has returned. The reasoning behind this plan is about as solid as everything else happening in Woodsboro's investigative department. When the time finally comes to put an end to her rampage, she apparently refuses to stay down until she takes a bullet to the head, as if the rest of her body had received a memo saying, "Please await further instructions before collapsing." The franchise seems to have quietly established a new rule for its universe: Ghostface doesn't really die. Ghostface simply reconsiders the situation after being shot in the head.

And if that rule works for one side, apparently it has to work for the other. After establishing that industrial quantities of ammunition are basically decorative accessories for Woodsboro's killers, Scream 7 decides to apply the same principle in reverse. The daughter's boyfriend, who spends much of the third act looking about as bullet-riddled as any Ghostface we've seen, suddenly reappears at exactly the right moment to help free Sidney and the girl. It's as though he merely took a short nap after suffering what, by any reasonable standard, should have been enough damage to end his participation in the movie.

And that's where the logic comes full circle. If taking an entire barrage of bullets doesn't stop the villain from chasing everyone around for another twenty minutes, why should it stop the hero from getting back on his feet just in time for the rescue? It's not inconsistency. It's simply the Woodsboro universe being consistent with its own complete lack of consistency. Around here, ammunition is merely a suggestion, and "being dead" always seems to be negotiable — regardless of which side of the mask you're on.

But here is the real villain of Scream 7, and he doesn't even wear a mask: the complete absence of anything resembling recognizable police work.

The moment that sums everything up comes when Gale asks Sidney not to leave because, according to her, they need Sidney to help solve the case. Stop for a second and read that again. A woman who has survived multiple Ghostface attacks and a journalist apparently need to remain in town to help solve a series of murders — not because they volunteered, but because nobody wearing a badge in Woodsboro seems capable of conducting an investigation without them.

And then there's Sidney's husband, who happens to be a police officer. You would think that being married to a cop might mean Sidney could finally stop doing police work herself. Apparently not. He's barely around, while Sidney is once again running toward danger, connecting clues, figuring out who the killer might be, and basically doing everything you'd expect the police to do. At this point, I'm starting to think the real mystery of Scream 7 isn't who Ghostface is. It's whether Sidney's marriage is going to survive another movie in which she has to do her husband's job for him. Honestly, forget Ghostface. Somebody get these two a divorce lawyer.

At what exact point did Sidney go from being the survivor to becoming an unofficial consultant for the Woodsboro Police Department? And what about Gale? She's a reporter. Not a detective, not a forensic specialist, not a federal agent. A reporter. Yet the screenplay treats her involvement in the investigation as absolutely essential, almost as if the police are waiting for her and Sidney to arrive with a whiteboard covered in Post-it notes before they can even begin an investigation.

The franchise has always had a rather unconventional relationship with law enforcement, so this isn't exactly new. Nobody watches Scream expecting a documentary about proper police procedure. Part of the genre's charm is that the cops are usually one step behind, somewhat slow, somewhat useless, and largely decorative.

What Scream 7 does is take that tradition and crank it up to eleven. There's a significant difference between "the police are slow" and "the police need the actual targets of the killer to do the fieldwork for them." That's the kind of leap that turns irritation into accidental comedy. And that's precisely where the movie becomes even more entertaining than it probably intended to be.

After seven movies of surviving Ghostface in all his various forms, Sidney should at least have an honorary badge from the department by now. Instead, she continues to be called upon to interpret clues, suspect neighbors, survive attacks, and apparently do the job that the Woodsboro police department stubbornly refuses to do. At this point, Sidney shouldn't be getting chased anymore. She should be sending the department an invoice.

The real trick of Scream 7 is that it never gives you enough time to process one absurdity before piling another one on top of it. You're still trying to process, "Okay, there are three killers," when the movie follows it up with, "And one of them is apparently immune to bullets." You're still wrapping your head around that when you get, "The neighbor only stays down after a headshot," followed by, "The boyfriend is suddenly back just in time for the rescue." And before you can formulate a coherent objection, Gale is asking Sidney to essentially take on the unofficial role of lead investigator.

Individually, each of these things could be dismissed as nothing more than a questionable screenplay decision. Together, however, they create an alternate reality where the rules of Woodsboro simply don't seem to match the rules of the rest of the world. And that's what makes the movie so hilarious to analyze after the credits roll. It's not one isolated mistake. It's the sheer accumulation of them, each one somehow more ridiculous than the last.

Still, none of that should get lost beneath the jokes: Scream 7 works as a piece of entertainment. If you walked into the theater wanting blood, chaos, scares, Ghostface, and a healthy dose of mayhem in Woodsboro, you probably walked out satisfied. "This is ridiculous" and "this isn't fun" are two completely different statements, and the movie unintentionally proves that they can — and probably should — be kept separate.

Scream 7 is a slasher that knows exactly what it wants to be. The problem is that the moment you stop for five seconds and think about the logic of its universe, it becomes painfully obvious that Woodsboro desperately needs a complete overhaul of its police department — or, at the very least, it needs to hire Sidney as a full-time employee.

I had a lot of fun watching this movie. But somebody really needs to call the police.

Or, apparently, Sidney.