Every so often, rumors hit the blogosphere about some mythical, lengthier edit of a famous movie, like the 4-hour version of Black Panther. This is usually an assembly cut: industry parlance for a rough draft containing every scene at length before the film is actually shaped. There was allegedly one of these floating around for Wes Craven’s Scream 3, though this turned out to be a workprint from much later in the process. However, if you exist in the overlap of Scream fans and people curious about assemblies (what they look and feel like, and why they’re never shown to the public), then I have a mixed blessing: Scream 7 is for you.
A film of scattered ideas that may as well be no ideas at all, it began as a troubled production owing to two sets of directors exiting the project, the unjust firing of one series lead, the swift exit of another, and rewrites from scratch, leading to its awkward final form. You might assume that Scream 1, 2, and 4 writer Kevin Williamson taking the director’s chair might be able to salvage things, but the film’s half-baked script (which Williamson co-wrote with Guy Busick & James Vanderbilt of the last two entries) lends itself to little intrigue. Spoilers ahead.
