For the
sake of not having to write the same intro a million
different ways throughout the rest of time, just know that
this column avoids the overly long and sometimes dull
process of full film reviews and instead opts to break
things down based on what I thought going in, what happened
while I was there and what I learned at the end of it all.
Thanks for reading!
The
Breakdown - Scream 4
The Impression:
Who knows? It’s a sort of rock-bottom move by the
skin-flints in Hollywood to introduce a fourth picture in
the Scream series after the film’s sequel and
threequel were so abysmal. Was anybody asking for this? Or
is this just a bald faced attempt to mine a new wave of
franchise from the recently dormant series?
The Reality:
I’ll say this, Scream 4 isn’t as bad as you think the
fourth entry in to a series that peaked at entry one would
be. It manages through some borderline obnoxious use of the
term "meta" to lambast the horror genres need to expunge
sequel after sequel and the inherent weaknesses this sort of
diluting of the original seems to bring about. The film,
though previews would make you think otherwise, follows
Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell, looking wrenched directly
out of Party of Five) as she returns back to Woodboro,
the scene of the horrific Ghostface killings ten years
prior. She returns as an author of a book about not being a
victim, to a sleepy town that still finds infamy in the
killings that now define it. Of course, Sydney’s return
prompts a new killer to throw on the mask and start hacking
people in to bits and pieces. Scream 4 is so
dedicated to discussing itself, and thus the horror film,
that at times it becomes ludicrous. Character after
character after character yammering on about the shittiness
of a sequel, or the "new rules" of horror, all the while a
new generation of meat falls to the knife. And as annoying
as it is, what it does paint an accurate picture of is the
sort of stoner-eyed malaise the upcoming generation seems to
view the world with. Everything can be seen on the internet
and nothing, not even the murder of your closest friends,
can shock anymore.
Strangely enough, where most would think Scream 4 is
a franchise reigniter, the film heels pretty closely to the
original films stars. Sydney Prescott is clearly the main
character of the film with David Arquette’s idiotic sheriff
Dewey and his nosy reporter wife Gail (Courtney Cox) second
leads. The rest of the blank-faced teen starlets are merely
fodder for gruesome killing and, honestly, I’m glad. I saw
the first Scream film when I was a freshmen in high
school, and the thrill of seeing Sydney Prescott kick the
shit out of Ghostface still lingers in me. Thus when she
kicks him down in the stairs in an early scene, I cheered a
little bit. The film drags, almost on purpose it seems, and
tries to explain away its narrative holes through
meta-contextual reasoning, but Ghostface, even if his voice
is sounding a little overthought these days, is still scary,
and sure, I can’t recall a single new characters name, but a
few of the stabbing deaths certainly resonate. It isn’t
Scream, that’s for sure, but it isn’t Scream 3
either.
The Lesson:
Maybe fourth film horror sequels can be decent. Or maybe I
just love myself some Sydney Prescott.
- Noah Sanders
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