What’s your favorite scary movie?
If the answer is either “Scream 1, 2 or 3″ you’re in for a treat with a fourth round of meta-horror madness. Everyone else will endure a brisk but brainless genre exercise, the regurgitation of slasher references already discussed to death in the first three films. Audiences won’t be stabbed by the film’s not so sharp wit. They’ll be bludgeoned by the familiar plot devices, cheap scares and unimaginative kills.
“Scream 4″ begins with the return of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), the poor soul stalked by Ghostface in the first three movies. She’s both a survivor and a book author now, and she reluctantly returns to her home turf of Woodsboro, Calif. to promote her new memoir.
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That’s more than enough incentive for a new Ghostface to pick up the bloody mantle of his predecessors. Teens start piling up at the local morgue, a fact which alarms both Sidney and her cousin Jill (Emma Roberts, displaying very little star power). Seems Jill’s friends are getting those infamous Ghostface phone calls (“what’s your favorite scary movie? Please check your closet for a homicidal maniac,” etc) along with Sidney.
Good thing Sheriff Dewey (David Arquette) is on the case. Dewey and his wife, Gale (Courteney Cox) both try to solve the new string of murders, all the while Jill’s pals (including Hayden Panettiere) find themselves in the killer’s cross hairs.
Director Wes Craven resuscitated his career with the original “Scream,” a movie smart enough to fuse hipster dialogue with genuine shocks. Watch the first “Scream’s” opening scene again and marvel at its brutish efficiency. Compare that to the movie within a movie within a movie opening in “Scream 4,” which needs only a dozen more layers before it approaches “Inception” level confusion.
We’re exhausted before the opening credits actually begin.
Things settle down nicely once the story shifts to Dewey and Gale, whose marriage takes a hit when Dewey is forced to focus his time on the serial killings, not his wife’s eggshell ego. Arquette’s character remains an impish treat, a Keystone Kop who knows his own limitations but is too focused on doing good to care.
Craven and returning “Scream” scribe Kevin Williamson simply can’t give the couple enough screen time to work out their issues. They’re too busy forcing the new teen cast on “Scream” fans, an obvious attempt to appease the young demographic. Who cares if Campbell is still adorable, or that Cox is as feisty here as she is on “Cougar Town?”
Youth must be served. And disemboweled.
And don’t bother trying to guess the killer. The “Scream” films don’t offer traditional whodunit arcs, and the motivations behind the murders are typically limp.
Craven’s ability to scare us may have wilted over time, but he’s a sturdy enough craftsman to sustain our interest until the bloated final reel. So we get a killing every 15 or so minutes and enough “inside baseball” jargon to appease horror hounds. But clever and hip rarely equals smart storytelling, and while “Scream 4″ references web cams, Twitter and other modern flourishes it never gels into something original.
Every frame feels too familiar, which means shocks are out of the question.
“Scream 4″ toys with bigger themes, like our need to be famous in a reality show age and the “blame the victim” mentality which erupts after the initial round of killings. The film is far too impatient to explore them to anyone’s satisfaction. It’s far too keen on rebooting a money-making franchise for another generation of horror fans with low expectations.
(Photo Caption: Alison Brie, Marley Shelton, Adam Brody, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette and Anthony Anderson in Wes Craven’s SCRE4M. Photo by: Gemma La Mana / Dimension Films)
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
When I saw the trailer for this, it attempted to go on and on about how self aware it was of being in a horror film. I said to my friend “how good could a horror movie be, even a parody, when it has to go out of it’s way time and time again reminding the audience that it knows its a horror film?”
Thanks, but I’ll pass.
Lord knows I’m a big fan of formula—I’ll watch any of the original Zatoichi movies, for instance (not the Beat Takeshi abomination of a reboot, though). But the formula’s got to be strong. “A blind guy who’s secretly a master swordsman wanders around making a living giving massages and gambling, and righting wrongs committed by corrupt yakuza and feudal lords” is a strong formula. ” “A slasher film so PoMo self-conscious as to make Joss Whedon cringe” is a pretty weak formula, good for one, maybe two runs, absolute tops—the original one was a pretty risky bet, and in less practiced hands the franchise would’ve been stillborn.
I want to see this, honestly because I enjoy the idea of seeing something that’s familiar from time to time. It’s been long enough that when the trailer came out for this, I didn’t roll my eyes, I thought, “Wow, good to see Neve and the gang back.”
i think you were way too critical on this movie. i grew up with scream and it is something iv’e loved ever since it came out. i saw the film last weekend and i thought it was brilliant. It was witty, suspenseful, mysterious and frightening all at the same time. You compare the movie to the original, which is wrong because you should never compare a sequel to the original, because it can never be better. And thats the best thing about scre4m, that it didnt try to be better then the original, just continue its ability to scare the hell out of us with its totally original storyline.
P.S the start of scre4m was hilarious and brilliant!