Nordling here.
SCREAM 4 (or SCRE4M, if you prefer, but I don't, so I'll make the effort and put that extra space in it) isn't a reboot, no matter what you've heard about it at this point. It does have something to say about the remake/reboot craze that's so prevalent in Hollywood these days, and not just in horror films, but the film is very much a continuation of the first three films. It's a sequel, it plays like a sequel, and it expands on the original films like a sequel.
The problem is, I don't know if the message is what the filmmakers intended, or at least how they get that message across. More on that in a bit.
The film takes place 10 years after the events of SCREAM 3. These films are all about the openings, and in this one we're treated to a film within a film within the film. Here's where director Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson lay out their thesis - we're in a reboot. All the rules have changed with the times - much as the original SCREAM commented and changed the rules of the slasher genre, this film wants to do the same with the current state of horror today. No one is safe, and the least expected has become expected.
Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) has returned to Woodsboro on the tenth anniversary of the last series of murders (how convenient), with a new bestseller and book tour, her publicist Rebecca (Alison Brie) in tow. Dewey (David Arquette) is now sheriff, married to Gale (Courtney Cox). Sydney's staying with her aunt Kate (Mary McDonnell) and her cousin Jill (Emma Roberts). Jill's friends Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) and Olivia (Marielle Jaffe) are also curious about Sydney; Kirby especially, who is a horror fan herself.
And of course, the murders begin again, and since, according to this sequel's movie geeks Robbie and Charlie (Erik Knudsen and Rory Culkin), this time the killer is attempting to "reboot" the whole series, which means all the old rules are gone. The killer could go after anyone. Of course, the plot lays out practically everyone as a suspect - could it be Jill's ex-boyfriend Trevor (Nico Tortorella), Sheriff Dewey's new partner Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton) who seems strangely interested in Sydney, or someone else? If you've seen a SCREAM movie before, you know how this all goes. Everyone's either the potential killer, or a red herring - and this film's got so many of those it's a fish market.
If SCREAM 4 is Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson's statement on the whole remake/reboot craze, I find it admirable that that statement is that remakes and reboots suck. It's even more admirable that, to emulate why remakes and reboots suck, they made a film so watered-down and bland, and so lackadaisical, just to show the audience how bad remakes and reboots are to the horror genre. Or maybe I'm giving them too much credit, and they just made a crappy movie without any higher motive behind it. The cast tries hard enough, especially the principals, but it's obvious all the air is out of this franchise. Neve Campbell is still convincing as Sydney, but you can tell in her face that she's clearly bored with the character at this point. David Arquette and Courtney Cox try hard as well - it's not their performances, but the script that's selling them short. The kills aren't even all that exciting, with one exception: one character's impromptu brain surgery as they stumble around bleeding from their forehead was suitably creepy, until it gets ruined by a one-liner.
The problem isn't that we've seen all this before. The first SCREAM movie fully acknowledged that, and yet still felt fresh and exciting, mostly because Kevin Williamson's script was witty and surprising. The first SCREAM was innovative; this one very much feels like it's going through the motions, hitting the points in the plot because it's supposed to, and since we don't care about anyone anyway - unlike the first film - when people die it's no big deal. It's all just filler until the Big Reveal. I think Williamson's seen enough Scooby Doo cartoons in his day to know how to drag this kind of thing out, because it certainly feels that way in this film.
I'm convinced, after the ending of SCREAM 4 - not to dive too much into spoiler territory - that Wes Craven hates Millennials. The ending definitely has a "get off my lawn, you meddling kids" kind of feel to it. Unfortunately, I don't think the film earns the message it's trying to send, if it's sending one at all. Again, if Wes Craven went out of his way to make a boring, toothless film to show just how reboots and remakes are in comparison to their original films, kudos to him. But knowing his film roster, I doubt it. Anyone that sells this film as a "new generation" of anything is lying. This isn't any kind of new iteration of this series - it's just another tired sequel, and just saying you're the biggest, baddest person on the block doesn't make it so, no matter how badly you want to be.
This is a bit of an aside - I remember the first SCREAM film admonishing its characters for doing stupid things like going into dark places alone, or following that creak in the attic, but this one seems to have forgotten all that because this one's full of characters doing stupid things constantly. At one point a character gets out of their car after that character KNOWS the killer is in the parking garage that they're in. Now that was downright insulting.
Nordling, out.
