Pop Culture Happy Hour - Scream 7 and What's Making Us Happy

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

The OG Scream Queen Neve Campbell returns. Scream 7 re-centers the franchise back on Sidney Prescott. She has a new life, a family, and lots of baggage. You know the drill: Someone dressing up as the masked slasher Ghostface comes for her, her family and friends. There’s lots of stabbing and murder and so many red herrings it’s practically a smorgasbord.Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopcultureSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

The OG Scream Queen is back to snatch the crown. Neve Campbell returns to the Scream franchise after taking some time off. More about that in a bit. In Scream 7, Sydney's got a new life, a cop husband, a teenage daughter, and lots of baggage. You know the drill. Someone dressing up as the mass slasher ghost face comes for her, her friends and family. There's lots of stabbing and murder and so many red herrings. It's practically a smorgasbord.

I'm Glenn Weldon, and today we're talking about Scream 7 on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining me today is Jordan Cruciola. She's a writer and producer and the host of the podcast Feeling Scene on Maximum Fun. Hey, Jordan. Hello, wearing my scream tea. Thank you for having me today. In the house. All right.

Also with us is Daisy Rosario. She's the senior supervising producer of audio at Slate, where she works with shows like death, sex, and money. And I see why am I, which I insist on calling Iqunee. I don't think it's catching on. Hey, Daisy. Welcome. You're not completely alone, Glenn, but it's good to see you. It is my fetch.

I'm going to make it happen. So Scream 7 refocuses the franchise back on Sydney Prescott. The last two films starred Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega. Barrera was fired from Scream 7 by the film's production company Spyglass Media Group for speaking out against Israel's bombardment of Gaza. Ortega also dropped out of the film, as did the director Christopher Landon. So now we find Sydney Prescott, badass survivor of multiple ghost face attacks, played once again by Nev Campbell, making a life for herself from the small town of Pine Grove. They clearly met her quote, this time out,

because she did not appear in the last film due to a salary dispute. Sydney's chief of police husband is played by Joel McHale, her teenage daughter, Tatum, by Isabel May. We meet a lot of Tatum's friends, a shifty boyfriend, a creepy neighbor, a party girl, and more. But don't get to attach to any of them because this is a scream film, which means they're either victims or killers or both. And once the blood starts flying, Courtney Cox shows up as Gail Weathers

bringing with her a couple characters from the last two scream films, not Barrera and Ortega as Sam and Tara, as we mentioned, but the twins, Chad and Mindy, played by Mason Gooding and Jasmine Savoy Brown. Kevin Williamson is the director this time out, his first time directing this franchise. He wrote the first Scream movie and a few films in the franchise. Scream 7 is in theaters now. Jordan, the last time we talked about the Scream franchise,

you said it was your favorite horror franchise. You say it's like a stabby hangout with your friends. What do you make of this one? The question of thumbs up, rating, up down middle. I am middle on this one. I know it is getting utterly harangued, but I am parked in the middle. I had a fun time. I think it is an entertaining slasher. I think it is a low tier, perhaps of the lowest tier, scream movie. But if you want to have fun at the movies with the slasher and you don't feel a sense of investment in the screen franchise, definitely on the escalator on the way out, a guy

right behind me was saying that this is the best one since the original. So it was speaking to people in my crowd. It was speaking to people. And then a guy, like, two seats down for me, he was laughing at all the right places. So Century City crowd was behind it. I'm so curious to see how this plays knowing the bifurcation of more online people and less online people with an incredibly entrenched franchise that there's so many dynamics at play. I had a good time. Okay. How about you, Daisy? You know, this is also my favorite horror franchise. And I wasn't here last time, but I did listen to the episode because I like to be prepared. And I really hate it. this on a lot of levels.

Okay. Honestly, actually, hate even feels too strong of a word. It was just kind of like, oh, this is happening. And I wish that it had been worse because then it would at least be funny, but it falls right into that sweet spot for me of true death, which is that it is both not fulfilling its own things that it wants to do, and it's boring. Like, I just was genuinely bored. We did have a lot of laughter in my theater, but it was one of those things where we were

all more laughing at each other as people started realizing that they did not think this was a good movie. It just got rowdier and rowdier. So there was a lot of laughter. It's a fun time when a room collectively turns on a movie together. That's a fun time. It's true. It can be. You know, genuinely, I came home and I was like, well, at least the audience was fun. Okay. All right. I'm here to listen to you guys because I don't have any particular attachment to this franchise. I'm here to represent the casual fan who's maybe seen these movies once all the way through. And I'm here to tell you casual fans, if you're like me, you're going to get home and you're going to hit the Wiki because there's some fan service here.

It does seem to me, though, as a casual viewer of this franchise, that the best thing about it, the funniest things, especially in the first screen film, but maybe in the second or third, were the reveals. And it does seem to me, like, as the series goes on, those reveals get thinner

and thinner and thinner. And this one was wet tissue paper. And look, the hook of this franchise was its recursive nature, its meta nature, the character no other own horror movie. There'd be name, recognizable actors, getting snuffed in the cold open and no shade to Jimmy Taitro and Michelle Randolph. But I don't think they kind of hit the drood level.

See, I really liked, I thought the cold open was that felt like the part that was left over from the oldest script. And I thought was like, if the rest of the movie could have carried through the way the cold open I thought established, I thought it could have built on some good groundwork better than it was. I'd agree with that. It's the only part that to me, outside of the. some of the details that I did feel like they got right. I do think that they get like Sydney's reactions to everything correctly, right? Like it feels like Sydney. But other than that, like the cold open was kind of the only thing that actually felt like a scream movie to me in any way.

And even then it didn't even feel that much like a scream movie. It just felt, I think, a little more ambitious, maybe even than the rest of the movie. Because once the movie proper starts, there is an in-universe reason why they kind of largely dispense with the meta-shenanigans. there's this nostalgia aspect to it. And while I get that there was clearly a sense that the meta stuff is stretching pretty thin by this point, if it's not there, I don't know what I'm watching or why I'm watching it.

There are elements of meta stuff like you miss New York. They say to Sydney and, you know, you're not even necessary. I mean, I think what the movie wants is for me to care because of Sydney, because Sydney's great, Neff Campbell's great. And look, give it. I do. I get it. Didn't carry me all the way through to the end though. Particularly when, and this is a quibble, but the kills in this movie, has this always been true of this franchise that in this franchise the human skull has the tensile strength of like an overripe mango? Only in the recent three.

The recent three trilogy makes us all cartilage. It's things to slide into them that's. It's so noticeable, Glenn, that I also was very distracted by that. It's too fake to be gross, right? It's too fake to be horrifying. But the real question here is this is about the relationship between Sydney and her daughter Tatum. Did you guys invest in Tatum? I mean, the character arc, it's no shade to the actor.

But the character arc, if your character arc is 80 to 85% irritating, this character goes from sulky to snoddy to whiny to whiny to maddeningly clueless in a crisis to redeemable to redeemed. And I'm here for those last two, but for the first part of this movie, she was working my last nerve. What did you guys think of the Tatum of it all? The audience in my screening did not like Tatum. I think that that's actually some of the first things that got people heckling. It was like, come on, girl. It was just, I mean, I didn't feel like they gave us a particular reason to be invested outside of being like, it's Sydney's daughter. I think for me, that's part of the issue overall.

And it's part of the issue in a lot of filmmaking right now or a lot of entertainment right now. It's just that they're like, we said the thing once. Isn't that the connection that you need? That's it. Right? Like, they're like, if we said it. And it's like saying it and earning it are two different things. It's like, no, you actually have to like show me.

Like, yes, I believe that Sydney as a mother would want to like care deeply for her child. If in the moments that I cared, it was only because of caring about Sydney as a character and believing that she would care about her child, but not because they made the child particularly interesting or even really showed us much of an actual dynamic between them. I think the Tatum-Sydney thing, I think demonstrates a greatest strength and a greatest week. of this franchise overall. I actually liked Isabelle Mae as Tatum. I actually did like her. Their relationship did work for me,

but I think it did really well demonstrate what lightning in a bottle, the casting of the first movie was. Oh, man. Because, like, obviously Kevin Williamson, the writer-director now of this movie who wrote the original, like, he was on to something then. And he very much harnessed something fascinating and snappy and poppy and brought this great, gay sensibility and humor to the genre really push forward to its highest heights of success in horror. He's had a great heroine in

Neve Campbell, who's now had 30 years to be Sydney. And I have long maintained an Oscar for Nev Campbell for the way she actually plays. I think Sydney is a tremendous character and tremendously realized. And not necessarily because she's written in the most interesting way. And I think what we see here is actually the limits that Kevin has always had writing his characters for depth when he doesn't necessarily have the most honed actor or most lineage behind him for those characters to be lived in and come to life. Because I felt like Isabel May, as Tatum, was bumping up against the limits of his capabilities as a screenwriter, whereas Nev is Nev, Sidney is Sydney, and she has had all these movies and all these years to have the richest of that character.

I was totally in with Mom, Sydney, and protect the daughter and no, keep the trauma apart from her protector. But I think it was like, oh, yeah. And here's where we see, like, the shield goes back and like the soft belly is exposed. And it didn't allow, I think, Isabel May to flourish as Tatum as much as she could. Even though I actually thought she had a moxie in her that I really liked. And thankfully, thankfully, I did buy into it because that did keep me grounded in court as well as Gail Sidney. One of Gail's great entrances into the franchise I will maintain is in this new scream. We lose Gail for too long in the middle.

Like, okay, well, everybody stops me in the sharpest knife in the bundle at some point. And as much as I was entertained by this, I do think it is a not caching of the check of the fandom of scream and not in a fan service sense. Like, scream demands better and demands more to actually be a good scream movie, which this wasn't a good screen movie, even if I think it was an entertaining slasher. I guess for me, I start to wonder if it's even fan service. Like, this movie really had me, like, thinking about the industry at large and the storyteller because I really came of age with this one as well. And like until this franchise, my favorite franchise of horror had been The Nightmare and Elm Street movies. So I'm also like a really big West Craven fan. But then I also think about like what I do for a living is I edit story structure.

So I think about story structure, right? So for me, it's really genuinely is coming less from a like fan service versus not fan service. And more like, did you actually earn it or are you checking a box? And I think that. Oh, when I say serve in this sense, that's a wrong thing to say connotatively. But I mean like serve in the sense of like you give them about. better movie than you gave them today. No, I understand that.

I just, I mean, more in like a... Just making sure you're like, I didn't get enough Easter eggs is a little, is a thing I would never say. No, no, no. No, I mean, in a larger sense of like, even saying that this movie is full of fan service and it's less even about actually like giving fan service and just going like, this is what we think feels a movie now. And because I know this franchise so well, I think I couldn't help but feel it in the

bones because I've been willing to go with them in a bunch of different directions. And so, yeah, I think just like the flatness of that was what was really prevalent to me, not so much that I don't need it to be a reference to this. I don't need to or even really want to feel like you have to know the lore. More than anything, I want the movies to work on their own without having to know the lore. And it does the complete opposite of that, which I wouldn't call fan service. I think it's just lazy. Well, let's pull back and talk about that direction you mentioned.

I mean, like, this is a different direction. The franchise was going in one direction with Tara and Sam. Do you guys miss that branch? Now that we've kind of come back to the tree, I guess, and to the nostalgia aspect where it's Sydney is the center. Sydney's what this is about. Not horror films writ large, but no, this is about Sydney. Do you guys miss that?

I really liked Sam and Tara. It took all of five for Melissa Brera to get, her hooks in me. And then in the very last part of the movie, I was like, that she is that girl. And then really liked her in six. Jenna worked for me and both. But the nature of being a horror fan, I feel like, is like, I'm ready for a jettison at any moment. So it's like, okay, now we're losing our final girls and we're getting a new final girl. The Jason franchise has like a new final girl, like every installment. Like, it is, I really do not like how we ended up where we are. Christopher Landon was set to direct seven, which I'm very excited about that.

I really like his output things like freaky. He's a real good director. He's a real good director of horror, the Happy Death Day movies, and particularly the horror comedy sensibility that's cream works really well with. But he started feeling too compromised in the landscape and started getting threats to his life and things like that. And he had to really had to all go away.

It is not on principle. I, you know, like, I'm bummed to lose a final girl I like. I'm always happy to see Sydney again, truly. I'm always happy to see Sydney again. I am. But I am really bummed that they felt like they needed to go back to the original well when it was like, hey, reboot with new people and new creatives and new blood. And five and six were really big successes. And it bums me out that the lesson they took

from that was, we need to triage it by leaning on the biggest crutch we have instead of being like, you know what we're great for us this most recent time was being like, let's trust somebody who made something really exciting and successful in the radio silence guys with Ready or Not. And let's, instead of going and like finding a vision, and you end up with an average, entertaining slasher as opposed to any kind of good screen movie. I mean, I'd agree with all of that except for it being average. Like, I'm clearly in the like, uh, camp. Sure.

But, like, I don't like six as much as other people do. It didn't feel very scream to me. I know that you were a big fan of that, Jordan, because of the female dynamics in it, which I appreciated, this movie makes me feel like, man, that is a scream movie. Like, that is how completely divorced from so much of this movie is. and for me it just doesn't work in the mechanics of a movie at a core level. It also isn't set in like reality and what I mean by that. Obviously it's like it's fiction, right?

But like some movies take place in a general sense of reality that we do know and share. Right. Like they have, for example, we don't know who's president or what exact year it is, but they have similar technologies to what we have. And that has always been true of the franchise. So then for them to like get into these other things. that just don't feel connected to reality at all in any meaningful way when like not being set in our literal world, but having the general limitations of our shared reality has been part of the

franchise. Like it really does feel like it's just like so trying to reference itself to death. But like those things are not actual set pieces. They're just like moments. Well, and into what you were before things started recording it in the mentioning the twins of it all, there's a strange divergence from how we've known the twins, particularly Mindy in five and six, where they really did become great new core, core four, the core four, as we know. I don't love the sixth movie, but I think a casting, right? Like, again, like they did a great job with like some of the dynamic between those people, and that's part of what really works, even if the script isn't as strong.

I thought bringing them back really underserved them too much to the point where to me, it actually was like, ah, we actually, if we were going to go full Sydney incarnation of this, I probably would have left them in New York. I don't know when Mindy became an obnoxious content clout chaser, but that's where we're at now with her. And again, that just like, again, with somebody who has, who created the original vision,

I think it's an unfair ask to be like, all right, now get on with the new vision, but lace it to the old vision, but divest yourself of all the ways you know and care about the original vision, even though you created it, and go.

Yeah, I like the characters well enough. This is not how I would want it to be. Yeah. But it does feel like a huge missed opportunity. to not actually give somebody who has an affinity for it and wants to do something a little creative and try to blend those stories. Like you have these options to try to do. And what they did instead was turn away from it. And the thing that really honestly makes me the most mad is they make about like, I don't know, at least seven kind of passing.

Some are jokes. Some are more comments about the last movie and like the fact that Sydney's not in it and like the New York of it all. all of that stuff. It was a little Skywalker saga conclusion. Like, okay, game. I'm sorry someone else made these movies, man. Exactly. It's not as aggressively hateful towards its audience as Rise of Skywalker is.

But it is essentially doing some of that. They make all those comments. And then when it comes to the core conceit of the entire franchise, which is the rules, they make one passing joke about how they're not really doing that much anymore. Yeah. See, that's the thing. I mean, the fact that we are now re-centered and we're doubling down on nostalgia of it all, as opposed to the meta stuff, the franchise. That makes me wonder where the future of this franchise lies.

This movie's going to make a lot of money. But, I mean, like, do what do we look? Do we look to the, you mentioned the Friday of the 13th films. I mean, like, they've already done Jason takes Manhattan. They've already done Ghostface takes Manhattan. I mean, does Ghostface go to space? That's the only thing I can think of. As someone whose favorite Jason is Jason X, I'm not opposed to that.

That's why I'm not like, is Scream Dead? You can't shoot the killer in the head in any horror franchise. Like, you can't, like, it's an amorphous big thing that you can't get the double tap in. Franchises will return. My hope for the future of Scream is that enough time is actually taken to consider another revamped creative vision because horror, a great genre of remix, always allows for you to do that. That is the permission of the genre. There is a proven success in having gone that route with five and six.

It doesn't have to be this way the way it doesn't have it. And I do maintain that you can show up and be entertained by fun kills and like running around Pine Grove. Again, I maintain that I had fun with this as a slasher movie. I would like for this franchise to breathe and then be like, let's find our next visionaries who are going to bring us something where they could maybe carry it into a new trilogy instead of being like, oh, we got to scramble around and find somebody to just bring scream back to life because you don't have to do that. All right. this made me think about this franchise in a way I haven't thought before. So I want listeners to tell us what you think about Scream 7 and also what you think about the future of the franchise. Once you see it, you'll have some questions because I do.

Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash pccatch and on letterbox to letterbox.com slash NPR pop culture. We'll have a link in our episode description. Jordan Cruciola, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I sincerely loved this conversation and the place I've been most looking forward to. talking about a scream is on pop culture happy hour, so I'm really glad that I got to be here for this. We couldn't have done this without you. I will cherish this and it will endure in a way that scream seven, frankly won't. Maybe won't. Okay. Thank you very much. Up next, Daisy and I are going to share what's making us happy this week.

Now it is time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What is making us happy this week? Daisy, what is making you happy this week? So what is making me happy this week has been on YouTube. It is kind of for, related to that way that you're able to find things that, like, you used to love in a different place sometimes on YouTube. So it's not that it's a new creator. It's that I've been going down the rabbit hole of Rick Steve's YouTube channel. Uh, yes, there you go. So it's like scratching the PBS itch. And also it is like just lovely to watch. And really, I feel like I'm thinking so much about how to be a little more analog in my life overall. And it made me want to buy a travel book, like a guide book and then I want to read that guidebook and I want to take it in instead of just experiencing a

list. So it's just been really lovely. I did start watching it because we are planning a trip. And so that's what got me there. But that comfort of being spoken to as someone who is curious and genuinely interested in learning in a nice pace. Like- In cargo shorts and a polo, yep. Yes. I forget that I can find calmness on YouTube sometimes. And I did. So I'm really enjoying the Rick Steve's channel. I love that. Okay, so that's the Rick Steve's channel on YouTube. Great pick.

What's making me happy this week, Hive. H-I-V-E is a two-person board game that came out of yours back. One by one, you and your opponent build a hive out of hexagonal tiles and man, these tiles. They have a great feel to them. They clack together in a really satisfying way. And each tile represents different bugs. So you've got soldier ants, they battle each other. You've got spiders that skitter along the outside of the hive, and grasshoppers can jump across.

the hive and Beatles can climb on top of the hive and onto other tiles and you're trying to surround your opponent's Queen Bee. And look, I'm only just tipping a toe into this thing and I can tell the internet is assuring me that there's all kinds of strategy and game theory that I am absolutely clueless about. But it's fun to kind of figure out the mechanic because it's so simple and yet it can be so there's so much to it. And it's one of those games where you can watch your opponent make a single careless, thoughtless move and just go in for the kill. It all turns on a dime like that. Plus there's no board, right? So you can take the tiles anywhere. It's great. I'm having a lot of fun with it. That is hive the board game

without a board. And that's what's making me happy this week. And if you want links for what we recommended, plus some more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter at npr.org dot org slash pop culture newsletter. And that brings us to the end of our show. Daisy Rosario, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. This was fun. This episode was was produced by Liz Metzger, Carly Rubin, Kayla Latimore, and Mike Kettsif and edited by our surerunner, Jessica Reedy, and Alokamin, provide. our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all next week.