Scream 4 – movie review

It’s been ten years since Ghostface killed his first victim in Woodsboro. To commemorate the anniversary, a new killer dons the mask and begins a new spree of murders. Series survivors Sidney Prescott (Neve Cambell), Dewey (David Arquette), and Gale Riley (Courtney Cox) are all back for this fourquel.

The Scream series is known for revitalizing the slasher genre in the 90’s by adding self-aware character types and meta-humor. But by the time Scream 3 came around. it was no longer fresh and had become the same kind of horror movie it once made fun of.

So how do you reinvent a franchise? Well, Scream 4 has the answer. You do a remake. Now we’re poking fun at the clichés of a horror movie reboot. There’s just one issue I have, but it’s a big issue, and it’s affecting how I see the whole movie: director Wes Craven clearly had a lot of fun taking jabs at Hollywood’s formula for horror movies, but it makes you question the seriousness of the movie overall. Some parts are definitely supposed to be cheesy and campy, but is the whole movie? At what point are you supposed to take it seriously? Was it Craven’s intention for everything to seem like a joke? It’s a big question, and the answer is what separates this movie from a work of genius and a piece of garbage.

There’s a fine line between homage and parody, and Scream 4 walks it proudly. It makes no apologies for the humor it uses, and it works most of the time. The humor is only distracting and leans towards parody when the killer’s victims find the time to tell a joke before they die. But as I said, if Craven purposefully made a bad, cheesy horror movie, then he’s a genius. It’s perfect in that sense.

If he wanted to make anything else, then he failed. Cheesy movies don’t take risks, and neither does Scream 4. Don’t mistake that as me saying the movie isn’t surprising, because it is. I was truly shocked by the revelation of who the killer was. It was a good moment and played out very well. I mean it doesn’t do anything we haven’t seen before in a Scream movie. It follows its own set of clichés. You can tell when someone’s about to die; even if you’re not sure where the killer will strike from, you know he’s coming.

(WARNING SPOILERS!)

The biggest move the movie could have made would have been to kill off at least one of the returning characters. It comes close, but it never has the guts to really do it. That’s straight up cowardice. No one should be exempt from the knife, but Sidney always is, same with Dewey and Gale. If Scream 4 really wanted to shake things up, it would’ve killed all three; instead it takes the easy way out.

(END OF SPOILERS)

This is a really good B movie. It’s incredibly amusing, as a good cheesy movie should be. But don’t be in any rush to see it.