SCREAM 7 horror movie review

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There is a difference between resurrecting a franchise and reviving its pulse. Scream 7 understands that distinction.

There is a difference between resurrecting a franchise and reviving its pulse. Scream 7 understands that distinction. This seventh installment aligns far more closely with Scream 2–4—with the 1996 original remaining peerless—than with the tonal divergence of entries five and six. It is not an attempt to eclipse the original nor to extend the reboot-era mythology. Instead, it is a recalibration: a deliberate return to the structural mechanics and tonal balance that once defined the series—brutal yet playful, self-aware yet grounded, meta without collapsing into parody. It restores the rudimentary whodunit spine, re-centers the franchise’s emotional trinity, and reasserts consequence in a narrative space that had begun to flirt with immunity. It may not reinvent the mask, but it remembers how to make it frightening—and fun—again.

The premise is straightforward: a new Ghostface emerges in the quiet Indiana town where Sidney Prescott has built a life beyond trauma. When her daughter becomes the next target, Sidney is pulled back into the cycle she has spent decades surviving. The simplicity is intentional. This is not a mythology-expanding installment. It is a structural restoration.

When I wrote about the original Scream in 2020, I emphasized how Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson fused satire and sincerity—how the film functioned simultaneously as genre critique and legitimately tense mystery. And in reflecting on Scream 4, I argued that the franchise’s survival depended on maintaining that balance between irony and genuine stakes. Scream 7 understands that lineage. It does not reinvent the formula; it reasserts it.

The humor is sharper than in the previous two entries, and the dialogue once again flirts with meta-awareness without dissolving into self-congratulation. More importantly, the whodunit framework returns to prominence. Scream has always been more mystery than massacre—a slasher disguised as a parlor game. Here, suspicion lingers. Motives matter. The audience is invited to participate again rather than merely observe. That interactive quality—so essential to the original—has been restored.

The kills are similarly recalibrated. They are decisive, occasionally shocking, and refreshingly unwilling to protect characters based on audience expectation. Supporting players are bloodied. Familiar faces are not insulated by nostalgia. The film reinstates a fundamental rule: no one is safe. In doing so, it restores tension that had softened in recent installments.

At the center of this recalibration is the reaffirmation of the franchise’s trinity: Sidney Prescott, Gale Weathers, and a classically-derived Ghostface presence that evokes the psychological intimacy of earlier entries. Strip Scream to its essentials and it has always revolved around those pillars. When they are foregrounded, the franchise regains coherence.

If Scream 4 was the franchise’s first major recalibration, Scream 7 feels like its long-delayed mirror. The fourth installment ushered Scream into the digital revolution—interrogating self-made celebrity, the commodification of trauma, and the toxic symbiosis between violence and visibility. It marked the franchise’s pivot from analog to digital, from landline terror to algorithmic notoriety.

Scream 7, by contrast, gestures toward cultural correction. In a late-2020s climate increasingly skeptical of hyper-digital performativity and increasingly nostalgic for tactile authenticity, this installment feels almost deliberately analog in spirit. The satire is restrained. The violence has weight. The mystery mechanics are foregrounded. If Scream 4 bridged the franchise into the digital age, Scream 7 gently guides it back toward its roots. Both are recalibrations—but pulling in opposite technological directions.

It would be naïve to ignore the production context that shaped this film. Melissa Barrera’s departure following her public political statements altered the series’ trajectory and necessitated a creative reset, with Kevin Williamson returning to write and direct. Freedom of speech is foundational—but not without professional consequence within corporate filmmaking. The result is a film structurally distinct from what entries five and six were building toward.

More concerning than the controversy itself is the critical climate surrounding the film’s release. Its unusually low Rotten Tomatoes score reads less like a measured assessment of craft and more like a referendum on production politics. Evaluated on narrative mechanics, tonal discipline, and franchise coherence, Scream 7 is far from a failure. It is focused, structurally sound, and far more aligned with the franchise’s DNA than its aggregate score suggests.

This return to form may also be more culturally resonant than some critics assume. There is a growing appetite—particularly among younger audiences—for analog aesthetics and classical genre storytelling. Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving proved that an original slasher can thrive in the 2020s. Scream 7 demonstrates that a legacy slasher can endure by remembering what made it compelling in the first place.

In retrospect, Scream 7 may not be the boldest chapter in the franchise—but it may prove to be one of the most necessary. It restores the mystery spine. It reinstates consequence. It reminds us that Ghostface works best when the blade cuts both ways—satire and sincerity, humor and horror. The original remains untouchable. But longevity in horror does not come from constant reinvention. It comes from understanding when to sharpen the knife rather than redesign it.

And sometimes, survival is less about evolution than about reclaiming your identity.

Ryan is the general manager for 90.7 WKGC Public Media and host of the show ReelTalk “where you can join the cinematic conversations frame by frame each week.” Additionally, he is the author of the upcoming film studies book titled Monsters, Madness, and Mayhem: Why People Love Horror. After teaching film studies for over eight years at the University of Tampa, he transitioned from the classroom to public media. He is a member of the Critics Association of Central Florida and Indie Film Critics of America. If you like this article, check out the others and FOLLOW this blog! Follow him on Twitter: RLTerry1 and LetterBoxd: RLTerry

HOW TO MAKE A KILLING movie review

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A darkly comedic commentary on when ambition becomes obsession and obsession begins to rationalize itself as virtue.

There is a fine line between genius and insanity—and How to Make a Killing lives in that narrow corridor where ambition becomes obsession and obsession begins to rationalize itself as virtue. Writer-director John Patton Ford delivers a smart, sophisticated dark comedy that feels as if it has the soul of a 1940s/50s film noir but expresses itself through more contemporary cinematic means. From the moment the movie opens, you are invested in the fascinating confession of the central character of Becket.

Disowned at birth by his wealthy family, Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell) will stop at nothing to reclaim his inheritance, no matter how many relatives stand in his way.

At its heart, the film reminds us that obsession rarely announces itself as corruption. It presents as vision. As discipline. As genius. Only later do we recognize the erosion of ethics beneath it. Read superficially, the film is a crime drama about financial manipulation and moral compromise. Read more carefully, it is a character study about how the love of money—so often misquoted, so rarely understood—can metastasize into something corrosive. “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” is not a condemnation of wealth itself, but of fixation. It is obsession, not currency, that corrupts. And this film understands that distinction with unsettling clarity.

Based upon an early 1900s novel, Ford’s film aligns with and falls within the vein of The Big Short in subject matter but not in spirit. Both explore financial ambition as a moral gamble, but where McKay’s film is kinetic and self-aware—almost gleefully explanatory—How to Make a Killing plays like a contemporary noir stripped of voiceover and venetian blinds. It shares The Big Short’s suspicion of capitalism’s ethical elasticity, yet rejects its comedic distance. Instead, it sinks into fatalism. If McKay’s film feels journalistic—an exposé delivered with sardonic flair—this one feels like a cautionary tale whispered from a holding cell. The satire is muted. The consequences are personal. The system may be flawed, but the focus here is the individual who chooses to exploit it. Tonally, the film feels spiritually aligned with 1940s and 50s film noir. One could easily imagine this plot transposed to postwar America—smoke-filled offices, whispered deals, fatalistic narration. Though not shot as neo-noir, its moral architecture is noir to the core: ambition curdling into self-destruction, intelligence weaponized against itself, inevitability closing in with quiet precision.

Becket is not written as a villain–which is to say that he isn’t written as a classical villain from the outset. But that is the point. He is written as intelligent, disciplined, and—crucially—persuasive to himself. Each unethical decision is internally justified. Each moral line crossed is reframed as strategic necessity. The film traces how obsession reorders one’s moral hierarchy: legality becomes negotiable, relationships transactional, consequences theoretical. It is not greed in caricature form—it is incremental self-deception. Ignoring one’s conscious repeatedly will eventually mitigate the decibel to little more than a whisper before being muted altogether. However, what keeps him from turning completely from sympathetic victim to full-bodied sociopath is that Becket’s conscious does persuade him that there is a line that even he won’t cross.

We, the audience, find ourselves in an uncomfortable position. We root for Becket because we recognize his drive. We admire his focus. We even understand his resentment. Yet we simultaneously want him to stop—to walk away before the inevitable collapse. The film’s framing device, opening where his journey will likely end, casts the entire narrative under the shadow of consequence. It is not a question of whether the fall will come, but how long denial can postpone it and we are held in suspense as to what is going to eventually bring about his downfall. What distinguishes How to Make a Killing from lesser character studies is its restraint. The writer-director demonstrates equal competence in both disciplines—an increasingly rare balance. Nothing feels indulgent. Nothing feels didactic. The film never moralizes overtly; it trusts the narrative arc to indict the behavior. The pacing is clean and deliberate. The plot is simple—but the characters are complex. That is the formula for enduring storytelling.

The film also explores the many faces of wealth—and the different kinds of monstrosity it can produce. There are those who flaunt their prosperity with vulgar bravado, mistaking excess for authority. There are others who manipulate and exploit with a polished smile, weaponizing charm and access as currency. And then there are those who inflate their own sense of importance, confusing proximity to power with moral superiority. Yet the film wisely tempers its critique. Not all wealth is predatory. There are figures of means who genuinely open doors, who extend opportunity—even if their motivations are tinged with ego or paternalism. This nuance prevents the story from collapsing into caricature. The danger, the film suggests, is not wealth itself, but the moral distortion that can accompany its pursuit—or its performance.

Becket’s love interest represents the one thing in his life that isn’t transactional. She falls for him before the money enters the frame—before the inheritance becomes a possibility, before ambition curdles into obsession. He loves her too, in his way. What she offers him is not leverage, not access, not advancement—but something rarer: affection without calculation and companionship without contingency. In another life—or perhaps in another genre—that might have been enough. But noir rarely permits redemption. His compulsion, his fixation on the promise of sudden elevation, becomes the crack in the foundation. The inheritance is not necessity; it is temptation. And temptation, once entertained, demands escalation. The tragic irony is that he already possesses what he claims to be chasing—love, validation, belonging—but he cannot recognize it because he has convinced himself that worth must be quantified. In reaching for more, he loosens his grip on the one relationship capable of saving him. And in true noir fashion, the loss will not feel dramatic when it happens—only inevitable.

There is also a pointed commentary on relationships built upon status, influence, and net worth. The film suggests that when affection is contingent upon achievement—when love materializes only after measurable success—it is less love than leverage. Becket’s romantic entanglement is not merely subplot; it is thematic reinforcement. In the second and third acts especially, he is not simply pursuing someone—he is being pursued by someone whose interest aligns conspicuously with his rising value. That dynamic becomes the first step toward moral descent. Toxic relationships here are not explosive; they are aspirational. And that makes them more insidious. The film quietly warns that those who crave financial or social influence often exploit weakness and tragic flaw, convincing their target that they are both reward and refuge. The toxin may look exquisite—may even taste intoxicating—but it corrodes judgment long before its damage is visible.

How to Make a Killing is not a loud film. It is a steady one. And in tracing the psychology of a man who convinces himself he is justified, it offers a sobering reminder: the most dangerous moral collapses are the ones that make perfect sense to the person committing them–that is, until the pattern is difficult to reverse.

Ryan is the general manager for 90.7 WKGC Public Media and host of the show ReelTalk “where you can join the cinematic conversations frame by frame each week.” Additionally, he is the author of the upcoming film studies book titled Monsters, Madness, and Mayhem: Why People Love Horror. After teaching film studies for over eight years at the University of Tampa, he transitioned from the classroom to public media. He is a member of the Critics Association of Central Florida and Indie Film Critics of America. If you like this article, check out the others and FOLLOW this blog! Follow him on Twitter: RLTerry1 and LetterBoxd: RLTerry

WUTHERING HEIGHTS (2026) film review

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A very lose adaptation.

Is it a bold, thoughtful reinterpretation of a literary classic—or a grotesquely self-indulgent fever dream? Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights positions itself squarely at the intersection of gothic romance and modern sensibility, daring to reimagine Emily Brontë’s tempestuous novel for contemporary audiences. The question is not whether Fennell has vision—she undeniably does—but whether that vision honors Brontë’s architecture or merely rearranges it to suit her own aesthetic impulses.

Tragedy strikes when Heathcliff falls in love with Catherine Earnshaw, a woman from a wealthy family in 18th-century England. What follows, in Brontë’s telling, is a slow-burning study of pride, cruelty, class, and decay.

Let us begin where praise is due. Emerald Fennell is undeniably a visionary director. Her eye for composition, color, texture, and environmental immersion is extraordinary. Every frame feels curated—shadow and candlelight carefully balanced, fabrics heavy with implication, the moors rendered both seductive and foreboding. The costuming and production design are exquisite, nearly flawless in execution. If one were evaluating this film purely as visual art, it would stand among the most striking adaptations of Brontë ever mounted. There is a neo-gothic confidence in its aesthetic—modern, tactile, and immersive.

Unfortunately, that same discipline is absent from the screenplay.

Fennell the director and Fennell the writer feel like two different artists. Subtlety is sacrificed in favor of blunt-force reinterpretation. When Fennell adheres closely to Brontë’s plotting, the film works. When she strays—and she strays often—the adaptation buckles under the weight of unnecessary revisionism.

The most egregious example is the character assassination of Catherine’s father. In both the novel and the 1939 William Wyler adaptation, he is a kindly, stabilizing force—the glue that holds the family together. It is only upon his death that his biological son, Hindley, descends into cruelty and degradation, transforming Heathcliff from adopted son to servant in a perverse Cinderella inversion. Fennell eliminates Hindley altogether, redistributing his vices—gambling, drunkenness, cruelty—onto the father himself, rendering him a monstrous, bigoted drunk from the outset. This is not reinterpretation; it is structural sabotage.

By corrupting the father from the beginning, the narrative loses its axis of decay. And decay is central to Wuthering Heights. The estate should mirror the relationships within it—beautiful at first, falling gradually into ruin as love curdles into vengeance. Yet Fennell presents Wuthering Heights as decrepit from the outset. If everything is already broken, there is no meaningful deterioration to witness. The symbolism collapses before it can resonate.

Isabella Linton suffers a similar flattening. In Brontë’s novel and prior adaptations, she possesses dimension, agency, and tragic complexity. Here, she is comparatively inert, stripped of the inner life that once made her more than a narrative device. Again, when Fennell stays close to Brontë, the film steadies itself. When she diverges, the narrative weakens.

Pacing further undermines the film’s impact. What could have been told effectively in an hour and forty-five minutes stretches to two hours and fifteen, with a protracted second act that tests even patient viewers. Entire opening sequences could be excised without loss, and substantial portions of the middle tightened considerably. One feels the absence of editorial restraint—the checks and balances that a separate, more disciplined screenwriter might have imposed.

And yet, there are cinematic pleasures here.

While the narrative falters, the film’s visual architecture is nothing short of extraordinary. Production design, cinematography, and costuming operate in near-perfect harmony, creating a world deeply rooted in Gothic romance yet unmistakably filtered through contemporary sensibilities. The estate’s textures—weathered wood, cold stone, candlelit interiors—create a tactile atmosphere that is immersive and deliberate. The color palette oscillates between muted earth tones and saturated bursts of crimson and shadow, suggesting emotional volatility beneath composure.

The costuming deserves particular recognition. Fennell understands silhouette and line as psychological tools. Structured bodices, layered fabrics, and stark contrasts in texture mirror emotional rigidity and suppressed desire. There is a modern sharpness in the tailoring—a recalibration that prevents the film from feeling museum-bound. This is Gothic romance rendered through a contemporary lens without collapsing into gimmickry.

The cinematography further elevates the material. Light and shadow are deployed not merely for aesthetic pleasure but for emotional suggestion. Faces emerge from darkness as though haunted by memory; candlelight flickers against stone walls like unstable devotion. Fennell’s compositional instincts are impeccable—symmetry fractured at key moments, framing that isolates characters even when they occupy the same space. Visually, this Wuthering Heights breathes.

Fennell’s restraint also deserves applause. After the provocative spectacle of Saltburn—and the social media speculation that followed—many anticipated a sexually explicit interpretation of Brontë. Instead, this adaptation is comparatively restrained. Passion is implied more often than shown. Edginess exists, yes—but it is measured, not gratuitous. Ironically, this restraint underscores her discipline as a director even while her writing falters.

Performatively, the film is strong. Robbie and Elordi deliver committed, emotionally grounded performances, leaning into the operatic intensity of the material without tipping into parody. Hong Chau, as Nelly, provides a compelling presence—observant, restrained, and quietly anchoring the emotional chaos around her. The cast frequently elevates what the script undermines.

There are even moments—brief, surprising—that are genuinely funny. Fennell understands tonal modulation, allowing dry humor to flicker through the gloom like shafts of unexpected light.

Ultimately, 2026’s Wuthering Heights is immersive and visually arresting but narratively anemic. It demonstrates how essential the collaborative checks and balances of cinema truly are. A more disciplined screenwriter paired with Fennell’s formidable directorial skill could produce something extraordinary. Instead, we are left with an adaptation that is imaginative, occasionally exhilarating—and unlikely to command a rewatch.

It is not without merit. But it mistakes alteration for insight, excess for depth, and provocation for revelation. And for a story as enduring as Brontë’s, that is a costly miscalculation.

Ryan is the general manager for 90.7 WKGC Public Media and host of the show ReelTalk “where you can join the cinematic conversations frame by frame each week.” Additionally, he is the author of the upcoming film studies book titled Monsters, Madness, and Mayhem: Why People Love Horror. After teaching film studies for over eight years at the University of Tampa, he transitioned from the classroom to public media. He is a member of the Critics Association of Central Florida and Indie Film Critics of America. If you like this article, check out the others and FOLLOW this blog! Follow him on Twitter: RLTerry1 and LetterBoxd: RLTerry

Love-themed Film Scores

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Valentine’s Special 2026

With Valentine’s Day approaching, it felt like the right moment to step away from jump scares, body counts, and box office noise—and spend an hour with something far more enduring: love, as expressed through film music.

Cinema has always struggled to say what love feels like. Dialogue often collapses under the weight of it—becoming either too poetic or painfully banal. Film scores, on the other hand, have an uncanny ability to articulate what words cannot: longing, ecstasy, restraint, obsession, memory, and heartbreak. Sometimes all at once.

This episode’s juried selections are not simply “romantic” scores in the conventional sense. These are works that understand love as complicated and often uncomfortable—love that consumes, love that lingers, love that is sacrificed or denied. From classic Hollywood to modern cinema, these scores don’t just underscore romance; they interrogate it.

Some of these films are sweeping and operatic. Others are quiet, restrained, almost painfully intimate. But what they share is an emotional honesty—music that trusts the listener to feel deeply without being told how.

So settle in. Let the music guide the conversation. This is ReelTalk—and today, we’re listening to what love sounds like.

Ryan is the general manager for 90.7 WKGC Public Media and host of the show ReelTalk “where you can join the cinematic conversations frame by frame each week.” Additionally, he is the author of the upcoming film studies book titled Monsters, Madness, and Mayhem: Why People Love Horror. After teaching film studies for over eight years at the University of Tampa, he transitioned from the classroom to public media. He is a member of the Critics Association of Central Florida and Indie Film Critics of America. If you like this article, check out the others and FOLLOW this blog! Follow him on Twitter: RLTerry1 and LetterBoxd: RLTerry

SEND HELP (2026) horror movie review

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Send Help is the rare survival thriller that understands the most dangerous thing on a deserted island isn’t nature—it’s the workplace baggage you bring with you.

Send Help plays like a postmodern riff on Misery—less interested in replicating its mechanics than in reconfiguring its psychological cruelty for a contemporary workplace horror. One can also detect traces of Survivor, the underseen Office Killer (1997), and even a one-way echo of Fatal Attraction, though Raimi’s film resists the lurid sensationalism of those predecessors in favor of something more controlled, more ideologically curious. I went into Send Help expecting one kind of movie and walked out having experienced something far more interesting—and far more satisfying. What initially presents itself as a straightforward survival thriller gradually reveals a different set of priorities: character over carnage, tension over spectacle, and psychology over shock. The turn is not a bait-and-switch so much as a recalibration, one that rewards patience and attention.

A woman (Rachel McAdams) and her overbearing boss (Dylan O’Brien) become stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash. They must overcome past grievances and work together to survive, but ultimately, it’s a battle of wills and wits to make it out alive.

Despite containing remarkably little gore, Send Help is punctuated by moments of excruciating intensity—scenes engineered to linger in the mind the way Misery’s hobbling scene does, not because of what is shown, but because of what is anticipated. Raimi understands that true discomfort is often born from restraint. Violence, when it arrives, is not gratuitous; it is precise, purposeful, and deeply unpleasant.

Where Send Help distinguishes itself most clearly is in its thematic ambition. Raimi trades his trademark splatter for commentary on workplace dynamics—particularly the lived experience of women navigating environments shaped by misogynistic men, institutional indifference, and power imbalance. The film proposes that monsters are created—that violent behavior can be traced back to environment, circumstance, and provocation. While the film makes this argument with conviction, I remain unconvinced by its absolutism. Environment can shape behavior, yes—but it does not absolve agency. Some monsters are forged by their surroundings; others choose monstrosity despite them. Under most circumstances, we remain responsible for our actions.

That tension—between explanation and excuse—is where Send Help becomes most interesting. The film is less persuasive as a moral thesis than it is as a provocation, forcing the audience to wrestle with where empathy ends and accountability begins. In that sense, the island setting becomes more than a survivalist conceit; it is a crucible. A demented Gilligan’s Island, stripped of whimsy and comfort, where rescue is uncertain and survival demands agency. The film is clear-eyed about one thing: help does not always arrive. Sometimes survival requires seizing control rather than waiting to be saved.

Visually, the setting is striking—lush, isolating, and quietly menacing. The CGI animals, however, are nearly laughable, though thankfully used sparingly enough not to derail the experience. When Raimi relies on atmosphere rather than digital intrusion, the film is at its strongest.

Excellent casting anchors the film, thoughtful writing gives the conflict weight, and the thrills feel refreshingly old-school—earned through escalation and dread rather than excess. All of it is quietly underscored by moments of dark comedy that arrive not as winks to the audience, but as pressure valves, reminding us that sometimes the most unsettling laughs are the ones that catch us off guard. McAdams’ and O’Brien’s chemistry is exceptional. They play off one another with a rhythmic precision that feels almost musical—each reaction, pause, and escalation perfectly calibrated. Their dynamic does much of the film’s heavy lifting, grounding the psychological tension in something human and volatile. One hopes this pairing is not a one-off; there is genuine electricity here worth revisiting.

There is also an unintended—but revealing—meta-text hovering around O’Brien’s presence. In a recent Entertainment Weekly article, O’Brien noted that he has been repeatedly told by agents, producers, and directors that he needs an Instagram account—that without it, he risks losing roles deemed “appropriate” for him. He has no intention of starting one. As a film scholar, I find this deeply troubling. When talent, suitability, and longevity are increasingly filtered through social media metrics rather than craft, presence, and screen intelligence, the industry risks confusing visibility with value. Send Help, perhaps inadvertently, becomes part of that conversation—raising questions about how we identify monsters, merit, and worth in systems increasingly governed by optics.

Ultimately, Send Help is not a perfect film, nor is it a subtle one. But it is a thoughtful, unsettling, and frequently compelling genre exercise—one that uses survival horror as a vehicle for interrogating power, agency, and responsibility. Raimi may be experimenting here, but the experiment is a worthwhile one. If nothing else, Send Help reminds us that the most terrifying scenarios are not those where monsters appear—but those where we are forced to decide what kind of people we are when no one is coming to save us.

Ryan is the general manager for 90.7 WKGC Public Media and host of the show ReelTalk “where you can join the cinematic conversations frame by frame each week.” Additionally, he is the author of the upcoming film studies book titled Monsters, Madness, and Mayhem: Why People Love Horror. After teaching film studies for over eight years at the University of Tampa, he transitioned from the classroom to public media. He is a member of the Critics Association of Central Florida and Indie Film Critics of America. If you like this article, check out the others and FOLLOW this blog! Follow him on Twitter: RLTerry1 and LetterBoxd: RLTerry