The unusual stakes of Scream 7 have been described by one of the franchise’s returning stars. The slasher franchise, which features various killers wearing the iconic Ghostface mask, kicked off with a quartet of Wes Craven movies between 1996 and 2011 before being revived with a legacy sequel in 2022, which itself got a New York-set 2023 sequel, Scream VI.
The upcoming Scream 7 is set to feature the return of a great number of characters, including longtime survivors Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), as well as the legacy sequels’ twin siblings Chad (Mason Gooding) and Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown), who are the nephew and niece of the late legacy character Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy).
The supposedly ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Dewey Riley (David Arquette) will also appear in some capacity alongside unknown characters played by Matthew Lillard and Scott Foley, who previously played the Ghostface killers Stu Macher and Roman Bridger respectively.
Per ᴅᴇᴀᴅline, Mason Gooding has described the stakes of Scream 7 as being very different from the more expansive urban horror of Scream VI. In addition to calling the story “domestic,” he described the stakes as “homely and unconventional.”
What This Means For Scream 7
It ultimately remains to be seen what exactly Mason Gooding means by calling the new Scream movie domestic. However, it seems like he is hinting at the idea that, even though the movie features a robust ensemble of new characters, it may focus primarily on Sidney and her family, namely her husband Mark (Joel McHale) and her daughter (Isabel May).
The ensemble cast of Scream 7 also includes Anna Camp, Mckenna Grace, Asa Germann, Jimmy Tatro, Mark Consuelos, Celeste O’Connor, Sam Rechner, Michelle Randolph, and Ethan Embry.
However, the story could also explain the other returning characters in Scream 7. There will reportedly be an in-universe reason why Chad and Mindy return without sisters Sam (Melissa Barrera, who was fired after sharing pro-Palestine social media posts) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega, who departed the cast shortly afterward), and this could be linked to those same stakes.
Additionally, this tease casts doubt upon one of the biggest theories about the return of Lillard and Foley. If the stakes are less expansive, it seems unlikely that it will be revealed that there is a cabal of still-living Ghostfaces out there.
It is much more likely that the actors will either play new roles or reprise their original roles as hallucinatory ghosts, much like Skeet Ulrich’s return as an apparition of the former Ghostface Billy Loomis in Scream (2022) and Scream VI.
Our Take On Mason Gooding’s Scream 7 Update
Regardless of the reason why the stakes may have changed so dramatically, this is fitting because Scream 7 is a homecoming of sorts. In addition to featuring Neve Campbell’s return after sitting out Scream VI amid contract disputes, the movie was directed by original screenwriter Kevin Williamson, who has not been involved so directly in the franchise since 2011.
