One thing about me is that I love crappy horror movies. Give me unrealistic characters, practically immortal villains and over-the-top gore, and I will be fully satisfied. So, when I saw that the “Scream” franchise was coming out with yet another movie, I knew it would be a must-watch.

I have seen almost all of the past “Scream” movies (besides “Scream 4”) and have been pleasantly surprised by the latest two installments in the franchise. Due to that, I walked into this movie with high expectations. Unfortunately, I was let down.

This movie followed a plotline similar to most of the “Scream” movies: A small town is terrorized by the notorious “Ghostface” killer. However, while the last few movies offered up some amazing new characters to shake up the familiar story, I found myself let down by this installment’s main cast. 

I truly believe that Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, who played sisters Sam and Tara in the past two “Scream” movies, carried the new era of the franchise, so I was disappointed to see that they were not in “Scream 7.” I found most of the new characters in this movie to be quite cliché and boring, the only new character I truly found myself rooting for was Tatum, played by Isabel May.

Another aspect that made this particular entry into the “Scream” franchise stick out to me was its reliance on cameos from actors who were in earlier installments.

Matthew Lillard, who played Stu Macher in the original “Scream,” Laurie Metcalfe, who played a Ghostface in “Scream 2,” and David Arquette, who played Dewey Riley in five of the previous “Scream” movies, all made appearances in this movie. 

While it was cool to see some of the franchise’s most iconic actors return, I almost felt like the number of cameos were overkill, and just a way of relying on nostalgia to get people to see the movie. 

In addition to the large number of cameos, “Scream 7” also featured two actors from the original movie as main characters — Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott and Courtney Cox as Gale Weathers. While I was not necessarily in love with the amount of cameos, I did enjoy that two such well-known characters were featured heavily in this movie, without feeling over-the-top or forced the way that the other cameos did.

Another aspect of “Scream 7” I did not enjoy was the Ghostface reveal. In previous films, Ghostface was always a central character that you’d never expect to be the main villain, in this movie, Ghostface was revealed to be two characters who had maybe ten minutes of screentime combined before the big reveal.

To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. In past movies, I think that the unexpectedness of who is revealed to be Ghostface is what makes the movie so good — because it typically is such a plot twist that you don’t see it coming. 

In this movie, however, I honestly think Ghostface could’ve been any other character and it would’ve made more sense than the two characters it actually was.

While there were aspects of this movie that I enjoyed, I definitely felt that the bad outweighed the good and wouldn’t rank this among the best “Scream” movies. Here’s to hoping that the (inevitable) next entry in the franchise is much better.