Slanted: The things you do to become the promcoming dance queen

★★★—Watched this last night at AMC Scream Unseen event. If you love Mean Girls and body horror, then you’ll probably like it. First off, there is a character named Cat Fisher, which caused me to audibly groan when her name gets said at the climax of the movie. Not where you want to be watching a movie when the shit starts to go down.

However, for an ok movie, this really disturbed me, and I’ve been thinking about it all day. The idea of completely changing who you are externally is nothing new. Hell, some people do it IRL. But this transracial concept is extremely interesting. Sort of touches on a lot—assimilation, belonging, beauty standards, race—and it’s heavy with metaphor. But it all felt a little obvious/shallow. Just sort of throws these ideas out there without any real emotional payoff, with a few exceptions, notably when the parents celebrate 10-years in America while their daughter goes to the big promcoming dance, which she is absolutely obsessed with. I get that maybe some kids do care about such things, but it is such a trope at this point that you really must do something extraordinary to subvert it. I feel that it had potential there but didn’t get over the hump. 

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That said, the performances were flat out stellar with the females being especially strong. Shirley Chen and McKenna Grace (just saw here in Scream 7) take turns as the lead. Both knock it out of the park. Vivian Wu plays the mom, who maybe stole the show. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan from Never Have I Ever is very good. Then there was Amelie Zilber, the alpha mean girl from the high school. She basically IS Regina George. Except hotter and more of a bitch. Good god she is fine. Kind of reminded me of Mia Sara. Her character was flat AF though with no emotional payoff. She is just kind of there, being horrible, and then suddenly not. 

Overall, the tone might be the biggest problem. In immigrant teen satire territory at times, but then with disturbing body horror thrown in making it not funny. Then it ventures into heartwarming, coming of age with a deformity with a meh, lame, run-of-the-mill ending. Result is some ick/WTF, and a feeling like maybe director Amy Wang either lost creative control and/or focus at the end. 

Scream 7 is trash

Stu, you know, this guy.

★★--Oof. This film was all-nonsense. Kevin Williamson really fell off. Here are some of the things that really stuck out as stupid from this movie… 

 

The panic room that makes no sense, they leave, and you can access through the wall. Why even have a panic room? Also, why don’t you have more guns? And why can’t you shoot for shit? Also, Joel McHale, Sidney’s husband, is the town’s sherriff, you’d think maybe he’d have the cops he works with protect his family since Ghostface is actively trying to kill them. And it has long been heavily implied that Sidney’s husband was Detective Mark Kincaid from the third movie. In maybe Scream 4 we are told that he is named Mark, but now it’s this other Mark. I guess that name isn’t off the table for ole Sid, which sort of implies that they never had a serious thing going on. Ok. 

 

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Speaking of dumb retcons, spoilers below, Matthew Lillard is back as Stu Macher, sort of. He is pretty funny and obviously having a good time. Is that a positive though? Overall, the characters in this film are bad and include all the stereotypes except athlete. Have the boyfriend. The weird boy They are played by Asa Germann and Sam Rechner and are interchangeable. The black BFF. The gay guy. The theater chick, who was the only one of them I recognized. Played Mckenna Grace from the post-covid Ghostbuster films and who was just in that Regretting You movie. And the survivor girl. They all barely have names.  

Woman that plays Sid’s daughter, Isabel May, at least looks super cute. She does look 30 though. Is 25. Her face is kind of an amalgamation of Juliet Lewis, that Linda Cardellini woman from ER and Freaks and Geeks, Alison Lohman from the aughts, Maria Bello, and some Jennifer Lawrence. 

 

Gail is still a bitch. Though now she’s traumatized. You feel sorry for her. Courteney Cox looks pretty good compared to the other last few movies. She’s crazy as fuck though and she moves like an old lady. Neve Campbell is back as Sidney nee Prescott. Everything about her character and performance were lame. And Jimmy Tatro who I still think of as the alleged dick-drawer in American Vandal is there as the dumb guy half of the standard opening kill. 

 

Camp, who seems like a real C U Next Tuesdee, talked a bunch of shit on social, saying “The boycott didn’t work. The critics hate didn’t work. The pathetic leaks didn’t work. What worked was audiences coming out and making the film a success.” I’d wait to see how long you stay in that top spot before doing a victory lap, but that’s just me though. 

 

Which brings me to the two main legacy characters from 5 and 6 that aren’t there and are never mentioned, which is super weird, while Randy’s niece, played by Jasmin Savoy Brown, and nephew, Mason Gooding, are there for reasons that make no sense. Mason is Cuba Gooding Jr.‘s kid. Jesus, he is extremely handsome, even by nepo-baby standards. He is a legit future STAR, in my opinion. I’ve been holding onto his stock since Scream 5… But it hasn’t paid out quite as much as I would have expected at this point. Maybe Heart Eyes and this will change that. Two franchises ain’t bad. Also, Hollywood isn’t forcing him on us like Austin Butler. He seems to be coming up surprisingly organically. 

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Anyway, so I guess Gooding and Brown will carry the franchise on going forward since they conveniently survived. That Melissa Barrera girl got fired because she told the truth about Israel engaging in state sanctioned terrorism. This resulted in the previously mentioned boycotts. Yeah, fuck that Camp lady. I guess Jenna Ortega is too big.

Some more shit is that when the first sort of red herring Ghostface guy gets dispatched in record time, they sure do take their time on masking the guy. When they finally do, you can see why. It was just some crazy guy.

 

They introduce AI into the plot, like someone has made an app or whatever where users can change into legacy characters. Just cheesy as shit. I briefly suspected it was Joel using the program because of their similar heights and looks and weight and what not. Not long after Stu shows back up, we get a story from a crazy guy working at the local mental hospital. I recognized him from all kinds of things from the 90s, including Dutch and Can’t Hardly Wait. He tells Sidney that Stu is alive and has amnesia. Yeah, things t’s getting crazy. But, you know, recognize that guy. So obviously he’s the killer. Or one of them. At one point, in regard to Stu possibly being alive, Randy’s niece starts talking about the rules. “Ridiculous retcon by any franchise standards,”she says. Her brother then says something like “we’re not doing the rules anymore.”

 

Lastly, the killer has unexplained super strength. Ghostface lifts some guy by the head, puts his head through a pointy tap, and then beers starts coming out of his mouth. I guess that was cool.

There is one good thing, a 15-minute stretch that is as tense as anything in the franchise. Things got a little rowdy in my theater on opening night during that run. But it didn’t last, and afterwards I heard everyone universally talking shit, even people that didn’t look like cinephiles, if you know what I mean. 

Immediately upon leaving the movie, I had it second to last. VI I had lower. But after writing about this a little bit, I now think this seventh film is the nadir. My ranking is Scream, 4, 2, the fifth one just titled Scream (2022), 3, VI, and 7. The original is a five-star movie. 4 and 2, four stars. 5 three stars. 3, VI, and 7, two stars. If it weren’t for that tense 15 minutes, this would be a one-star movie. On a related note, I’m done with this franchise. Unless the next one has insane buzz, I’m not falling for this again.