Scream 4

Review

Scream 4 is the, surprise surprise, fourth installment in the Scream series and after the absurdity of the third movie, this was the return to form that I feel this series needed. This movie brought back the movie references and ended up being a commentary on the horror reboots that inundated the genre in the 2000s. Overall I think this return to form really worked for me, but didn’t quite capture the magic of the first two which leaves it at it’s 7/10.

Typical of the Scream series the town of Woodsboro is being attacked by someone hiding under the Ghostface moniker after Sid comes back to town on the last stop on her book tour. Sid ends up staying with her aunt and cousin in order to keep them safe as she deals with her cousins’ friends getting killed at an alarming rate.

This movie brings back the more serious tone of the first two films which I really appreciated. It really feels like a back to basics sequel and it’s probably the most similar formula-wise to the original but tbf that title could and probably should go to Scream 5 but I’m not talking about Scream 5 so I’m saying it here. I think this movie was a lot more successful in this regard than Scream 3 since it’s not so much just these random shot references and line references but instead uses the well thought out formula to base it’s own movie off of which I really like.

I definitely think this movie was less effective as a horror when compared to the first two but I think it still ended up functioning well as a commentary of the horror landscape at the time. In this movie I just found that there was a lack of shots that as we track Ghostface unbeknownst to the characters and more of just cutting away to be like, ‘now he’s over here, spooky!’ which didn’t work for me personally.

I think the characters in this movie were a lot stronger than in 3. I liked most of the characters, with the exception of Deputy Judy but I think she’s just weird and horrible to throw you off and idk, but yea other than her I pretty much loved the new cast. In specific, I really liked Kirby, however I do wish she actually ended up being gay, and I also really liked Charlie, he was a good Stu stand-in and clearly a pattern is emerging where the earnest, often times a little more disturbed killer ends up being my favorite but what can I say I like to root for the manipulated, insane underdog.

Speaking of killers, I was genuinely shocked by the reveal. After the reveal, Jill really lives up to the absolute crazed psychopathy that the main killer requires in these films and I felt like the second reveal of her true plan was super cool and done really well. I also thought that this reveal is the best one we’ve had since the first film since it was super unexpected and I feel like the relationship between Jill and Charlie along with their obsession for a recreation of the original incident confirms that Billy and Stu were in fact in love which is so slay. However, I thought their reasoning was relatively flimsy for me and when I think back to it, it just really doesn’t work for me, even if I didn’t take much note of it when originally watching.

Just a tiny note but I fucking love how Jill has an American Werewolf in London poster foreshadowing her reveal as a killer, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Like I noticed the poster because I really loved An American Werewolf in London and when the reveal happened and I looked back on my notes I just thought that was a really cool small detail.

I thought the Steven Orth reference was really cool and that the moment was really intense knowing what happened last time we saw this on screen. Even though I thought that Charlie was one of the killers there was no way to know for sure until his reveal and I really liked him so I was hoping that this worked out for him and the way it plays out it super tense and cool. I also think that this stood well enough on it’s own that such an extended reference didn’t bother me that much.

I also really liked the ending in the hospital which is so genuinely scary because for a moment it almost seems like Jill is going to win and it seems plausible when you realize that Jill winning would subvert the remake angle so I was very concerned. I don’t really love hospitals in horror movies but as a second finale I thought it worked. Also THE END SHOT??????????????????????????????

It was literally so fucking cool. You’ve just watched Sid and Gale put a bullet through this teenage girl’s head and the next thing you see is all the news outlets praising this girl calling her a hero. It’s probably one of the most powerful visuals in the entire series for me. It’s just so striking and continues the series tradition of playing the news as the fool within each of the movies.

However we’ve officially reached the era of horror in which snappy one liners right before or right after death are supposed to be the funniest thing known to man. Honestly, I blame the Nightmare series and the Chucky series because Freddy and Chucky are probably the worst perpetrators of these snappy one-liners. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good pun but holy shit does it change the tone of the kill. I think for later more silly Child’s Play movies, it works because it’s supposed to be a silly movie in this way, same for the Nightmare series. For Scream though?? Scream is more smart funny to me and I don’t mean to sound pretentious when I say that but I think there was like 2 puns in the entirety of the original movie and it’s both from the extremely silly character of Stu. I feel like no other character in this series has established themselves as even a fraction as silly so when they pull out a random snappy one-liner it just feels so weird and it makes this movie feel less like the serious horror movie it is. This isn’t just an issue in the Scream franchise but this is the first real opportunity I’ve gotten to talk about it, hence the semi-rant. But like seriously imagine if the first Scream had Casey Becker stop before she was killed and say, “I wanted to watch a horror movie, not be in one” or some stupid shit like that. Like it would completely kill the energy and menace from the kill which is exactly what it did in this movie, like come on. Even Sid’s one-liner was just fucking annoying, they really just kill the energy in a scene. Like think about it, do you really want me laughing right before or after someone get brutally and hopefully emotionally murdered??? Like no……. All this to say, I feel like snappy one-liners in more serious horror films should die and not even like a cool gore-filled death just an shitty, off-screen, single stab to the chest because that’s all it deserves. Anyways, I hated those four or so lines in the movie, moving on.

All of this to say, I thought Scream 4 was a fun movie. Scream 4 hit all of the necessary beats for a Scream movie I feel and did them relatively successfully. I think the movie references were back in action and integrated well, I thought the reveal was super cool and shocking, I thought the references to Scream 1 were done really well and cool enough on their own, I thought Sid and Gale exhibited the highest level of girlbossery throughout this movie and overall the movie was just a fun time. This movie wasn’t magic for me which is why it’s not a 9 or 10/10 but I would definitely recommend this sequel to someone who enjoyed the original one.