Outside the town of Woodsboro stands a house that has been the scene of two massacres, the Macher house, now transformed into some sort of Air BnB/museum to the various Ghostface killers. Well, it was standing before the latest guests come face-to-ghostface with the latest iteration of the killer in the mask.

Meanwhile Sidney Prescott – sorry, Sidney Evans who despite being married for the at least the past two films has finally started using her husband’s surname – is living quietly in a small town, raising her family and getting concerned about her daughter Tatum’s boyfriend’s habit of climbing through Tatum’s bedroom window. But things are going to get a lot worse – and the danger is wearing a very familiar face. And I don’t mean the Ghostface mask…

Welcome to my guilty pleasure. I sort of grew up with the Scream films. Well, sort of. I was at university doing my doctorate (yes, I do have one, although it’s not in puzzles) when I saw the first one, knowing very little about it, and I absolutely loved it. I’m not a fan of horror films at all, but it wasn’t really a horror film – it was an episode of adult Scooby Doo with a bit of blood. And over the years, I’ve been to the cinema to lap up every iteration of the franchise.

As you may know, Scream 7 is a bit of a left-turn for the franchise, although it’s a sort of a reversal really to the more traditional format after Scream 5 and 6 started a new story strand. You can read elsewhere why this happened and why Neve Campbell is back after sitting the last one out, but I thought I’d just concentrate on the film.

First of all, go and see it without reading about it – yes, I appreciate the irony, but this is spoiler-free – especially as concerns some of the members of the cast. I mean, good luck avoiding such spoilers. I’m going to be as vague as I possibly can be…

First of all, the opening sequence at the Macher house is great. Complete with a very early nod to a fan theory, it’s fun, creepy and scary. And it sets the scene for the fact that this is, I think, a tad gorier than the films that have gone before. Then it switches to Sidney and we meet all the suspects/body-bag fodder. So far, so traditional, but then the first format variation happens when we, and Sid, get a message from the killer sans-masque. To be clear, there’s a lot more to it than that – there’s still a “surprise” behind the mask at the end.

When Gale Weathers – Courtney Cox – shows up, we get the second variation from the norm but then it slips really quickly into what viewers expect – and want – from a Scream movie. Arguably, from this point, there’s nothing really new happening, but while the plot beats are expected, they are done pretty well.

As ever, some people prove remarkably resistant to being stabbed multiple times, and you have to question exactly why the killer kills some characters other than the fact that they are there. But the set pieces are well done and Isabel May, as Sid’s daughter, does a really good job when it’s her turn to be chased by the killer.

All in all, it was a lot of fun, but the killer probably wins the prize for being the most guessable in the series for a number of reasons, and the motivation… well, it felt pretty garbled beyond “I’m mad, me” and I’m not convinced how well it fitted with all the references to the past.

Still, as I said, a lot of messy fun, and Neve Campbell is always a treat to see as Sidney F***ing Prescott – and now we have Sidney F***ing Prescott’s daughter too. Roll on Scream 8…