The irony is almost too perfect: Scream, a franchise built on satirizing horror sequels and franchise fatigue, has finally succumbed to franchise fatigue. Scream 7 currently sits at 50% on Rotten Tomatoes with 10 reviews—not disastrous, but decidedly lukewarm for a series that prided itself on reinvention.

The mixed reception tells a familiar story. Screen Rant's review cuts deep: "Scream 7 injects nostalgia and self-referentiality like a weak drug, a stash of weed purchased so long ago it has gone so stale it crumbles to the touch." When your whole brand is meta-commentary and even that feels stale, you're in trouble.

The Rotten Tomatoes consensus shows critics split down the middle. Some appreciate Neve Campbell's return as Sidney Prescott and find it "far more engaging than any seventh film in a horror franchise has any right to be." Others see a franchise desperately recycling its own references, "forgetting that for a story to stay alive, it's not enough to just replicate the echoes of what came before."

Director Kevin Williamson—returning to the franchise he created—knows how to "film a good slashin'," but that's table stakes for Scream. The series earned its place by being smarter than standard slashers, by understanding and subverting the rules. When you're just executing those rules competently, you've become what you once mocked.

The real MVP, according to critics, is Courteney Cox as tart-mouthed reporter Gale Weathers. Which tracks—legacy characters doing legacy things is all Scream 7 has left to offer.

Mixed reviews aren't a disaster. Plenty of franchises survive on "good enough." But Scream was never supposed to be just good enough. It was supposed to be the franchise that knew better. Turns out, nobody's immune to diminishing returns—not even the movies about diminishing returns.