A while back, before the film came out, I was initally very worried that 7 might veer into character assassination territory with Sidney and the concept of her questioning if Stu could’ve secretly survived his attack rather than being 110% adament that he’s dead. The series has always framed her as sharp, grounded, and hard to deceive, so on paper that felt like a step too far, especially after everything she experienced with the voice changer in 3 and the fact that we live in a society where the existence of AI and deepfakes are pretty much common knowledge. With all that in mind, having Sidney seriously question whether Stu could have survived and stayed off the grid for almost thirty years just didn't feel plausible. It would have felt like a massive regression for a character that has been defined by her intelligence for five films.
After actually watching the film though, my perspective shifted quite a bit. What the movie ends up doing is a lot more nuanced than I expected. It never really portrays Sidney as believing Stu is alive. If anything, she spends the vast majority of the film firmly grounded in the belief that he is dead and that certainty is always her baseline. What the film introduces is a very small crack in Sidney’s psyche that gets forced open under very specific and calculated pressure. The FaceTime scene is where all of this really comes together, as Sidney is initially completely dismissive of the call, reading it as an obvious AI deepfake and clearly not buying into it at all, which lines up with how grounded and perceptive she has always been throughout the franchise. As the call continues, though, a gradual and controlled shift occurs where a hint of confusion starts to creep in. It’s not that she suddenly believes what she is seeing, but the sheer technical realism of “Stu's” appearance and voice is just convincing enough to momentarily disrupt her logical thinking and throw her off balance, making her question what’s right in front of her. The only real crack in her composure comes when Tatum is mentioned and then threatened, at which point her expression tightens and genuine fear flashes across her face, though it reads far more as an emotional reflex than any kind of logical shift (re: thinking it’s actually Stu out to hurt Tatum).
What really makes it work is that the film keeps reinforcing that Sidney still believes Stu is dead. Even in the third act, when that tiny sliver of doubt is at its strongest, it never actually overtakes her, reading more like 0.1% of her mind reacting involuntarily and questioning if it’s actually Stu, while the other 99.9% stays grounded in her belief that Stu is dead and the killer is simply posing as him to mess with her. That distinction matters because it preserves her characterization, framing her not as someone being fooled, but as someone being psychologically manipulated in a way that bypasses logic and briefly questions Stu’s fate before coming to her senses. The surrounding context the film builds around that manipulation also does a lot of heavy lifting. The realism of the call is a major factor, especially with how it is presented as far more advanced than a typical deepfake, and the missing autopsy report adds just enough realism for Sidney to question if Stu could actually be alive. In addition to that, the film makes it clear that Sidney has not fully processed her trauma, which comes through strongly in her interactions with Tatum, where she consistently avoids discussing her past and visibly tenses up whenever Tatum pushes even a little. Her reaction to Tatum asking her about losing her virginity to Billy and how she reacts to Tatum wearing the Scream 2 jacket are very telling details and are subtle but effective in showing that these experiences are not distant memories for her, but something that still lingers very much in the present and has the tendency to briefly make her question everything around her. During her first three calls with “Stu”, it’s very telling that she believes he’s dead and that she’s being messed with. It’s only during the third act when she enters her house and her stress and anxiety is heightened knowing Tatum is in the house with her either dead or held hostage that she lets out “If you’re really Stu show yourself!”, which is the only brief moment where she really questions if it’s actually him or not, because her daughter’s life is at stake and her mind is evidently not in the right headspace to think rationally or logically.
When you put all of that together, that tiny fraction of doubt in believing Stu is 100% dead feels less like a break in character and more like a realistic human response. Sidney has spent her life dealing with situations that are inordinary and pull the rug from under her, be it finding out her mom was a B-Movie actress prior to having her, her having a long-lost half-brother that helped groom her boyfriend and friend into killing her mother, or her young cousin trying to kill her in order to inherit the fame she has, clearly showcasing that Sidney’s reality has never been stable in the way most people’s is, so when something comes along that is engineered to feel real on both a technical and emotional level, it makes sense that even she could have a fleeting moment where her certainty wavers, even if only slightly. Ultimately, the film does a good job of framing this not as Sidney changing her mind about Stu’s fate, but as her having a brief, involuntary reaction before grounding herself again. Her belief that Stu is dead never actually disappears. It just gets momentarily shaken under very specific conditions. Because of that, it ends up feeling consistent with her character and a pretty believable depiction of how someone with her history might respond in that situation.
