To my mind the Scream series are not really horror films, they're comedies.
I don't think the films work. The first Scream is a pretty fun movie but the original sequels are boring. At some point they start taking themselves too seriously, and it stops being any fun.
Despite not liking either Scream 2 or 3 I went into 4 with zero expectations. I didn't expect to love it and I didn't expect to hate it... and here's how it went. WARNING, BIG FUCKING SPOILERS!Start at the beginning. This films official title is Scre4m. Scre-Four-M. That's the on-screen title and that's the title that shows up on the BBFC rating card... which means, legally in the UK... that's what the film is called. That's fucking stupid, so I'm going to call it Scream 4.
The movie opens on a movie within a movie within a movie... See, the Scream 4 characters are watching Stab 7 and the characters in that are watching Stab 6.
I wonder if the number 7 was picked intentionally as the "real world" Stab movie. See, director Wes Craven's New Nightmare does the same thing and is the seventh in the Nightmare On Elm Street series. I'm convinced it's a fan reference.
ANYWAY, the continued fake openings really slow down the movie. The writer obviously thought it would be clever, but it just comes across as a way to stretch the film a little longer. It should have just opened with the Scream stuff.
So very quickly our main characters are introduced... Sydney is has now written a cheesy book about her experiences, Dewey is the Sherrif (and is no longer any fun at all) and Gail is a bitter bitch who spends her time cranking out stories for Stab sequels. Got that?
Okay, that's all the character development you're getting. They all stay exactly the same throughout the film. That's it...
And we meet our new characters, all of whom are sort of instantly forgettable. Really... they don't have characters, they just have one single defining feature.
Theres one guy who likes movies, another guy who likes movies (and films his entire life - he gets two things) and a chick who likes movies. And so these three character spend the whole thing talking about movies, and comparing what is going on to the Stab movies...
We've seen it all before in the other three films. But it was done better in them, and I hate Scream 2 and 3.
Also, these characters speak like they are in a Kevin Smith film. They always seem to be referencing something. Which is shit. Not even Kevin Smith can get away with that anymore.
There's also a girl who is Sydney's cousin. She doesn't seem to have a personality or any interests or anything like that. Anyway BIG FUCKING SPOILERS - she's the killer. So is one of the guys who likes movies, the one with the long hair.
The ending sucks. Because this girl doesn't have a character, her motivation makes zero fucking sense. Neither does the long-haired geeky guy's. None.
They're just doing it... because the girl is jealous of Sydney or something. And he's doing it because... she asked him to? How the fuck did that conversation go?
The film seems to exist to comment on the recent trend of remaking every single horror movie ever. It's going out of its way to slam remakes for their lack of originality.
This message appeals to me, but I can't take it seriously coming from Scream 4. It contains so many little homages to the original movie that it basically feels like a remake at times.
And that is literally all there is to talk about. The movie is actually vaguely entertaining, but there are huge plot holes and major issues with the script. Performances are okay, but in some cases the returning characters feel like a parody of themselves... another below-par entry into an over-rated movie franchise.
The movie opens on a movie within a movie within a movie... See, the Scream 4 characters are watching Stab 7 and the characters in that are watching Stab 6.
I wonder if the number 7 was picked intentionally as the "real world" Stab movie. See, director Wes Craven's New Nightmare does the same thing and is the seventh in the Nightmare On Elm Street series. I'm convinced it's a fan reference.
ANYWAY, the continued fake openings really slow down the movie. The writer obviously thought it would be clever, but it just comes across as a way to stretch the film a little longer. It should have just opened with the Scream stuff.
So very quickly our main characters are introduced... Sydney is has now written a cheesy book about her experiences, Dewey is the Sherrif (and is no longer any fun at all) and Gail is a bitter bitch who spends her time cranking out stories for Stab sequels. Got that?
Okay, that's all the character development you're getting. They all stay exactly the same throughout the film. That's it...
And we meet our new characters, all of whom are sort of instantly forgettable. Really... they don't have characters, they just have one single defining feature.
Theres one guy who likes movies, another guy who likes movies (and films his entire life - he gets two things) and a chick who likes movies. And so these three character spend the whole thing talking about movies, and comparing what is going on to the Stab movies...
We've seen it all before in the other three films. But it was done better in them, and I hate Scream 2 and 3.
Also, these characters speak like they are in a Kevin Smith film. They always seem to be referencing something. Which is shit. Not even Kevin Smith can get away with that anymore.
There's also a girl who is Sydney's cousin. She doesn't seem to have a personality or any interests or anything like that. Anyway BIG FUCKING SPOILERS - she's the killer. So is one of the guys who likes movies, the one with the long hair.
The ending sucks. Because this girl doesn't have a character, her motivation makes zero fucking sense. Neither does the long-haired geeky guy's. None.
They're just doing it... because the girl is jealous of Sydney or something. And he's doing it because... she asked him to? How the fuck did that conversation go?
The film seems to exist to comment on the recent trend of remaking every single horror movie ever. It's going out of its way to slam remakes for their lack of originality.
This message appeals to me, but I can't take it seriously coming from Scream 4. It contains so many little homages to the original movie that it basically feels like a remake at times.
And that is literally all there is to talk about. The movie is actually vaguely entertaining, but there are huge plot holes and major issues with the script. Performances are okay, but in some cases the returning characters feel like a parody of themselves... another below-par entry into an over-rated movie franchise.
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