By Geno McGahee
In 1996, SCREAM was released and it was the right movie at the right time. Horror was not putting out a lot of good titles and it needed the shot in the arm. This Wes Craven whodunit slasher revitalized the genre and sent it into a new direction, paving the way for films like I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, URBAN LEGEND and VALENTINE. There were two sequels that failed to impress and the SCREAM franchise was forgotten, but in 2011 they brought it back. They reunited the old cast and used some modern influence to attempt to recapture the magic.
We begin back with the idiotic storyline that follows the movie in a movie “STAB”, where they sort of spoof SCREAM within the movie by creating this horror series that has been inspiring killers in real life. I think this is something that could have been forgotten as we headed into this fourth entry, but it became much of the focus.
Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) returns to Woodsboro to promote her book when the Ghostface killer shows up and begins killing with Sidney being the eventual target. Returning also are Sheriff Dewey (David Arquette) and Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), and they are now married and bickering. Gale wants her hubby to tell her more details of what’s going on while he needs to keep that professional boundary. I have to say that seeing these three back again in a SCREAM movie was great. Just seeing the Ghostface go nuts again was nice.
Sidney’s cousin, Jill (Emma Roberts), seems to be reliving the tragic life that she did. Her group of friends is being taken out by the killer and she is barely surviving. Jill relies on Sidney as a protector, but her friends aren’t so lucky. There really isn’t any character development when it comes to her friends in this. You don’t really know anything about them and you have nothing invested in them when they die. You would expect that from a FRIDAY THE 13TH, but not here, and a lot of the writing for the teens is unnatural. Then again, remember in SCREAM when the two girls are in the bathroom and one of the girls referred to Sidney’s man as her “bubble butt boyfriend”? I don’t think women say that. I have never met anyone that has ever used the term “bubble butt.”
Frustrated, Gale teams up with two high school filmmakers that are having a big STAB marathon, which is where the killer is going to hit next. They know this because the killer is following the pattern from the first. This movie is a big retread on the first. It’s surprisingly uninspired considering the launch that this movie had and what they could have done to re-launch the series. What it really comes down to is that Kevin Williamson, the writer, is not much of a writer. Sure, SCREAM was a good film, but other than that, he has struck out, and a lot of the credit must be given to the direction and filming by Wes Craven.
Williamson’s film history include films like I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER and THE FACULTY. Not exactly classics, and I think that I was expecting more than he could have delivered in SCREAM 4. The best thing for the series would have been to get a new writer that understood the characters and could write something better than this. It’s hard to argue with success, but SCREAM 2, 3, and this one weren’t exactly big successes, especially compared to the first. He struck lightning once, but missed the mark since, and although SCREAM 4 is better than 2 and 3, it’s not by that much.
There is a twist or two here, as expected, but the shock value wasn’t there because of the lack of character development. The returns of Arquette, Campbell and Cox were not capitalized on. It was good to see them back but they just didn’t have much to work with and they weren’t used that much.
SCREAM 4 is a missed opportunity. The people wanted a re-launch of the series, but this wasn’t good enough to merit it. Mediocre writing, limited character development and scattered focus makes this another disappointment for horror fans.
Rating: 5/10