Scre4m Review

The horror movie industry goes through a lot of ups and downs, more so than probably any other genre. Lately, it has been on quite the downside, with horror and suspense films becoming more about grossing us out rather than scaring us. Franchises like Saw and Hostel ushered in a new "torture porn" era of horror.  Other films, like Paranormal Activity, have tried to swing the genre back to its days of scaring the crap out of us, but it's been a slow and meandering process. When the original Scream hit theaters way back in 1996, it re-defined the horror genre, by bringing it back to its roots: teenagers getting murdered by a masked killer in many bloody ways, all while having a little fun and throwing in great twists along the way. Director Wes Craven, writer Kevin Williamson, and stars Neve Campbell, David Arquette, and Courtney Cox, have all returned for the newest installment in the series, Scre4m, hoping to once again capture the magic of the original. Unfortunately, while a decent effort, Scre4m misses achieving its goal.

Sidney Prescott (Campbell) returns to her hometown of Woodsboro after a ten year hiatus to finish a book tour. She's written a best-seller on everything she went through in the first three Scream films. Waiting for her are her old friends Dewey (Arquette) and Gale (Cox), along with her cousin Jill (Emma Roberts) and Jill's many teenage friends, including Kirby (Hayden Panettiere), Charlie (Rory Culkin), Olivia (Marielle Jaffe) and ex-boyfriend Trevor (Nico Tortorella). Ironically enough, the day Sidney returns to Woodsboro is the day that the murders occured in the small town a decade earlier. The day has become a holiday of sorts for the town, with teens putting Ghostface masks on light poles around the city, and having movie marathons of the films based on the killings (if you haven't seen any of the Scream movies before: basically there is a movie franchise within the movie franchise named Stab, and they're all based on the events of the first Scream film).  Sidney's return home prompts a new murderer to don the Ghostface mask, bringing terror to Woodsboro once again, with a whole new slew of teenagers to terrorize.




If you're going to stick something that long in front of my face, at
least buy me dinner first.

 While Scre4m does have some fun moments and isn't afraid of self-parody, the film suffers from too many negatives in order to capture the originality of the first Scream. The biggest problem facing the movie is that there are simply too many characters. The film tries to act as a reunion for the original cast, as well as introducing a new set of characters that could be the launch point for a Scream 5 and Scream 6 (because, who honestly believes they're not going to happen at some point?). Scre4m bounces between the old and the new far too much, and this makes for a sluggish middle, and makes the character development of the new players lacking, if there at all (see: the ex-boyfriend Trevor). While there is nothing immediately terrible about the script or even the acting, there's just too much going on here to really make Scre4m what it's trying to be: the horror genre definition for the next ten years.

The original Scream captured lightning in a bottle. While it's not a masterpiece by any means, it made movie makers rethink the horror movie. Its bloody and shocking opening of killing off arguably its biggest star in Drew Barrymore in the first reel hadn't been done as well since Psycho way back in 1960. Scre4m tries to recapture that same magic multiple times, but misses. While there are some good bloody killings, and a pretty funny opening that I won't spoil the details of, Scre4m suffers from having too much going on. I would love to see director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson work together again, but create something new. One character states in the movie about reboots and sequels, "Don't f*ck with the original." Craven and Williamson should take this to heart, and create something entirely new.

Grade: C+