Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Movie Review | Scream 4

From the beautiful (and creepy) mind of Wes Craven, Scream 4 is what I've come to expect of the slasher genre and in my opinion redeems the franchise after Scream 2 and 3 which was one train wreck after another. It's ranking at a 3 star film from most "experts", but on my Netflix queue it's a 4 star film, and that's not easy to achieve in our household.

I am a big Scream fan - The movie came out in 1996, I was a 6th grader, and forbidden to watch movies like this. So naturally, I peaked while my brother was watching it, and it scared the ever living crap out of me - and it still does.

The movie was one of the first of it's kind in main stream movies. Breaking barriers that there wasn't just one killer, but two, and they revealed the sick reasons behind their madness.The Scene where Billy and Stu reveal their thought process and adhering to the "formula" of scary movies to carry out their killings was genius. I have no shame in naming Scream one of my favorite teen slasher films.


Scream 4 takes place 15 years after the original. The anniversary of the Woodsboro Massacre is upon us, and Sidney Prescott has returned to Woodsboro to promote her book when just the night before Ghostface (I wish they had a better name for that) had killed two local girls. Poor Sidney, returning to town just in time for chaos. Evidence was found in her car, thus leaving her stranded in Woodsboro as an active suspect in the murders currently taking place in town. More people murdered, and the crazy film geeks of our beloved Scream 4 tell us the "rules", just as Randy did in the original, in the sequel and in the trilogy (see first video) Sidney and Gail Weathers both are there to visit the class as they name off the NEW rules, and how different they are here in 2013(see second video). For me, personally - it kind of left my head spinning, I had just about everyone pinned as the murderer right up until the killer pulled the mask off in the end, and I was blindsided. The rules may have helped a lot of people figure out the killer, but not me. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention.

The movie was definitely "More extreme" and I really appreciate the "Stabathon" and the Stab movies that mirror the Scream movies - though I have to say it's pretty extreme that there are 7 of them!  I think I should have a "Screamathon" but I'm totally locking myself in a second story building and turning off the ringer on my phone first.

I won't go into much detail about the ending, because I really think you should watch it for yourself.

Here's what I didn't like about it - the script felt very bumpy and amateur, and the calls from Ghostface were really campy, and I think in large part to the crap that the "Scary Movie" franchise has laid on us, it's hard to take it serious any more. I also wasn't a huge fan of all the gore, I know that these movies are supposed to be bloody and violent, and that killing isn't "clean" but when you see a corpse and you can see their fake intestines, well, that's when I call it quits. Gross.

I liked that I didn't know who both the killers were at the end, and I even liked that my favorite character got killed - sometimes when you're rooting for someone you hate to see them go, but this worked for me. I gave it 4 stars out of 5 - if you like the original, I say watch this one, but take it with a grain of salt, there are a few lines that are going to make you roll your eyes.

Thanks for the 4th Wes Craven ... Please, for the love of God I'm begging you - STOP HERE! The franchise isn't going to get better!

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