SCREAM 4 REVIEW

Scream 4 (2011): By Wes Craven.

"Ten years have passed, and Sidney Prescott, who has put herself back together thanks in part to her writing, is visited by the Ghostface Killer."

Fans adored Scream 4 when it released, and I did too. The fans who eat up the franchise were becoming desensitized to remakes by Platinum Dunes, "torture porn" like Hostel and Saw, the rebirth of the found footage genre, and foreign countries trying to shock America with buckets of blood and gore. Wes Craven wanted to bring back his trilogy to old and new fans alike and try to poke fun at the modern state of horror films and the remake craze. He also wanted to make a statement about modern technology and how a TMZ fame obsessed world would react to such brutal news. Did we get what he promised, or did we get an average popcorn slasher that was butchered limb from limb by a studio? Well, we're here to find out...

Let's talk about the main thing that brings down this movie - the humor and cheese factor. To this day, fans of the Scream series rank Scream 3 as the worst movie of the franchise because of it's Scooby-Doo humor. Now, we can all agree Scream 3's humor was sometimes OTT and silly, but if Scream 3 was Scooby-Doo then Scream 4 is a Looney Toons special. This film did not take itself seriously at all. Not once did it feel like I was watching a horror movie. Scream 1 and 2 didn't take themselves 100% seriously but they weren't filled with stupid humor and gags throughout. Are characters stupid enough to walk out of a car after a killer jumped on your hood and flicked his knife at you? Are we really supposed to believe a person's last line is "Fuck Bruce Willis?" No. And that's what pisses me off about this entry. We have idiot characters, bad one-liners, and stupid moments like defibrillators not having a "Safety Measures" button. Um, you DO know they have safety measures so no one accidentally gets their brain fried. The amount of cheese (not good cheese, stupid atrocious cheese) in this film would have to be cut with a chainsaw.

Character development is another thing that brings this movie down. Even with the deleted scenes, the characters don't really shine. David Arquette seemed like he was having fun doing this movie but with three minutes of deleted scenes of his character when he's NOT acting like a complete moron might have changed his opinion about the final cut of this film. Courtney Cox seemed miserable doing this movie and if we didn't get the barn party scene, she wouldn't have done anything in this movie just like her ex-husband. Neve Campbell as Sidney disappointed me as well. She is the reason why the Scream series is so great. However, her character was very weak here. Scream 4 didn't explain to us what happened to her between the traumatizing events of 3 to 4. Why did she write this book? Did she become a mild alcoholic like Jamie Lee in Halloween H20? Instead, all we get is an action hero portrayal from Neve with a good performance and some decent lines of dialogue. However, are we really supposed to believe she wouldn't be screwed up when she found out someone was going to kill her, her friends, and her family? We get a few tears and her screaming into the phone but nothing major. She watches someone get their brains blown out in the finale and she just stands there crying and not doing anything else. No matter the gap between 3 and 4, she WOULD have been screwed up if she came back to Woodsboro and then hearing the news about another serial killer.  The teens are nothing special either. Emma Roberts as Jill, Sidney's cousin, doesn't shine until the finale when she takes her mask off but I guess that was the point. Hayden Panettiere was pretty good though, even if her character is worshiped by a cult. She is easily the highlight of the new cast, showing that she can carry a film and is tremendous at delivering snappy dialogue and showing emotion, especially during her Drew Barrymore scene near the end. We also get Mary McDonnell as Maureen Prescott's sister who was very underused, two idiot cops, and Nico Tortorella  as Jill's "mysterious" boyfriend who only has three minutes of screen time so you aren't shocked when you find out he isn't the killer. Most of the throwaway characters like the dumb cops, the dumb blondes and brunettes, and Jill's mother are like characters in a Saw film - characters you don't care to see get ripped apart, and pretty ironic since this movie bashes Saw more than once.

 

However,  I'd be lying if I said this was a bad movie because it does get a few things right. The deleted scenes are fantastic and show a lot of emotion and character development that was lacking throughout the movie so they should have been put in the final cut. Emma Robert's performance post-reveal is also amazing, showing how far the average teenager would go to put on a fake smile and murder a few people to get on the tabloids. Scream 4's final act has a lot to say about the media, press, and a fame obsessed culture - but it can't say what it wants because it's in such a rush to get to the next bloody kill or funny line. This film also has some good moments of tension like Hayden Panettiere's call near the end of the movie which I mentioned above. This movie has some good atmosphere when effective scares are involved, but it's not really scary or polarizing. It's just unfunny with blood and guts.

So, final thoughts? Scream 4 isn't a good Scream film at all. It has tons of wasted potential, boring kills, things that should have been added and removed in the final cut, pointless characters, and some dreadful comedy. It is a fun slasher film however since it has a lot of gore, some decent performances, and a great killer. But Scream isn't just a slasher series - it pokes fun at the current trends of horror while showing how the surviving cast of the last movie has grown. Scream 4's final cut didn't feel like a Scream movie, but just a by-the-numbers popcorn flick. There is a great Scream film in here, but the bad score/kills/character development makes it hard to find.

SCREAM 4: As a Scream film? 4/10.

SCREAM 4: As a slasher? 7/10.

SCREAM 4: Overall? 55%, which is pretty sad 'cause I used to love this movie.