So You Won't Have To: Scream 4

Let's put this right up on Front Street: I don't like the Scream series. I saw the first one at a $1.50 theatre with exactly the right audience of "oh shit!" and "bitch don't go in that van!"* talk-back. I saw Scream 2 at the same theatre, this time with one person who used the entire length of the drive home to rant about the numerous, insultingly stupid things that happen in that movie. By the time we got to Scream 3, I was in college, we thought it would be a fun group activity to see the series off, and one person contends to this day that we tricked him into seeing the film**.

None of the Scream movies are very good. The first one is reasonably clever but shoulders the burden for the wave of increasingly awful self-referential horror films that followed (appropriately ending with the only other reasonably good film of its ilk, the astoundingly stupid Urban Legends: Final Cut, which will make sense in a moment). The second film is brain-damaging in its stupidity, and kills off the only remotely interesting character in the film. The third Scream is borderline self-parody, including a cameo from Jay and Silent Bob, for crying out loud.

And yet, Scream 4 is worse than any of the films that came before it; an insipid, self-contradicting "fuck you" to the internet generation from Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson (and Ehren Kruger, who came in to do rewrites and to remind us he wrote Scream 3). The film is ostensibly a commentary on remakes, and makes a big to-do about how this round of killings in Woodsboro follows the "new" rules of remakes, and then pretty much follows the same rules that every Scream to this point has.

Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) returns to Woodsboro - the site of the original murders - fifteen years later, as the last stop on her book tour (conveniently also on the anniversary of the murders). Sidney's re-invented herself as a motivational survivor, much to the chagrin of faded writer Gail Riley (Courtney Cox), who is now married to Sheriff Dewey Riley (David Arquette). No sooner has Sidney arrived than Ghostface starts killing again, promising a special finish for the original "Final Girl" of the series, but not before picking off the "next generation," including Sidney's cousin Jill (Emma Roberts), her friends Kirby (Hayden Panettiere), Olivia (Marielle Jaffe), and film geeks Robbie (Erik Knudsen) and Charlie (Rory Culkin). Can anyone discover Ghostface's identity before it's too late?

But wait! There are plenty more red herrings characters! Maybe it's because there are too many of them. We can start with Sidney's assistant Rebecca Walters (Alison Bree)? She seems awfully excited about the PR possibilities of renewed killings. Or could it be Deputy Judy (Marley Shelton), who knew Sidney in high school and lingered in the shadows? Or maybe it's Trevor (Nico Tortorella), Jill's ex-boyfriend who seems to show up at exactly the right (or is it wrong?) time. It couldn't be Sidney's Aunt Kate (Mary McDonnell), you know, sister to Sidney's dead mother, the whole impetus for Scream 1, 2, and 3, could it? Well, at least it probably isn't Detective Hoss (Adam Brody) or Deputy Perkins (Anthony Anderson***), who are assigned to protect Sidney but just don't ever seem to be around when it counts... or could it?

Scream 4 is far too bloated with characters, and I'm not even counting the cameos from the Stab movies that make up most of the film's subplot. Oh what the hell, let's go ahead and cover the big ones (SPOILERS, but who am I kidding this is a "So You Won't Have To"): Heather Graham returns via footage of Stab used in Scream 2 (but updated to include the title card "A Film By Robert Rodriguez), Lucy Hale (from a show called Pretty Little Liars... I guess the intended audience would know who this is?) and Shenae Grimes (90210 and Degrassi: The Next Generation) are part of the opening of Stab 6, which leads the way to the opening of Stab 7 with Anna Paquin (True Blood) and Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars).

Actually, I will give Craven, Williamson, and Kruger credit for the clever opening of Scream 4, which is essentially one long gag of fake reveals in the form of Stab sequels, but it peaks at the wrong point. The best part isn't the actual kickoff of the Scream kills, but the Paquin / Bell scene, which ends in such a satisfying way that even I hesitate to spoil it, knowing full and well most of you will never see the film****. It's the only smart moment in a film that endlessly name drops other horror movies but never says anything about them.

Okay, so a character says "I fucking hate Saw. Torture porn movies are stupid." That's it; that's the level of insight that Kevin Williamson is adding to the discussion. Just mentioning Final Destination by name does not mean that you're saying anything about the grand guignol horror movement of "no characters, just kills" mini-movement the series glorified. And don't get me started on the ridiculous notion that Peeping Tom, a movie that effectively killed Michael Powell's career, started the "slasher craze."

The manner it's brought up (a trick multiple choice question that doesn't include Peeping Tom), the way the killer thinks that naming the director and the year of the film means anything, or the fact that HE'S WRONG - Peeping Tom didn't start any kind of craze, even if it is an early example of the "slasher" subgenre. It's the kind of answer you'd give if you wanted to sound smart but secretly hoped nobody would call you out on because it isn't factually accurate. (The options were Psycho, Halloween, or Last House on the Left, by the way. Psycho shocked, but Halloween was the big money-maker whereas the earlier and arguably as influential Black Christmas, so I'd give the nod to Halloween based on Ghostface's narrow criteria) But I digress...

What actually ruins Scream 4 is the fact that there's nothing "new" about the film: it's the third sequel to a marginally interesting and wildly influential slasher revitalization, and while it really, REALLY wants you to think that we should approach the film by "remake" rules (anyone can die, copy the original film's set pieces but with a twist, constantly refer to the "original" and its "rules"), Scream 4 isn't even a pale retread of Scream. Yes, Craven, Williamson, and Kruger go out of their way to recreate moments from the films (the garage kill, the van surprise, the reveal of the killers, the exact same "shady boyfriend" plot line), the fact that half the time one or more character draws attention to it is grating.

At no point is this more annoying than when the killer(s) are revealed (again, I guess MASSIVE SPOILERS but who of you is really going to see Scream 4?) - and shock, surprise, it's Jill, Sidney's niece, with her accomplice Charlie. Remember the kitchen scene from Scream? They do too! Well, they call it "Stab," but you get to see it again, with minor, stupid variations, because this is a "remake." Get it??? Oh, and the twist is that they're filming the whole thing, to upload online so people can see the murders from the killer's POV. But wait, Jill wants to be famous for being the "Final Girl" this time, which means she has to kill Charlie and Sidney first, them go through a ridiculous amount of self abuse in order to make it look like she struggled (it goes on to the point of being comical).

But wait! The movie still isn't over, because Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven (and I guess uncredited Ehren Kruger) can't let this stand. They can't allow a self absorbed Gen-Z (or whatever they call themselves) to "win," even though the film has no trouble integrating every form of social media into the script, to the point that Gail Riley (nee Weathers) becomes a joke of a character in the process. They have to really stick it to this new generation, these remake obsessed little shits, and if it weren't enough that Jill becomes a totally despicable brat in the last fifteen minutes of the film, beyond even Matthew Lilliard and Skeet Ulrich in Scream, they give Sidney the final, telling, send-off line:

"You forgot the first rule of remakes, Jill - don't fuck with the original."

Oh, ha ha. How clever. But then again, Scream 4 isn't a remake - as much as it wants to breathe new life into a tired franchise, Scream 4 is just another shitty sequel, one without anything new to add after ten years being away. By dragging the first Scream into the mix, by incessantly reminding the audience of the first film innovative-ness, the trio of director and screenwriters have only managed to make another lousy knockoff of their "original," fitting, in that this is how most people remember Scream in the first place. If the sequels were bad, at least they advanced something. Even remakes try to breathe something new into the concepts. Scream 4 is the same old tired garbage; it's the Halloween 6 of the franchise - nobody asked for it, nobody needed it, and accordingly I think you all understand why I saw it So You Won't Have To.




Side Note which Could REALLY SPOIL a Movie That Isn't Scream 4: I get that one could argue that Williamson, Kruger, and Craven were trying to comment on the not-that-popular-yet-but-getting-there movement of the Final Girl turning out to be the killer, but the way Jill turns from vaguely sympathetic to totally spiteful brat at the end of the film does not this accomplish. It also doesn't add anything to the conversation that a High Tension or, say, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane does. It doesn't even do what Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 does with a similarly aged protagonist. It's really just a spiteful way to say that "kids today, they just suck!" from two (or three) generations removed. It's more "you kids get off our yard" than "wow, that's food for thought."




* Yes, that's what they said and yes, I still remember it.
** If you're wondering, no one else seems to agree that anyone was tricked and that we all knew what we were seeing, just like when we didn't see The Time Machine but bought tickets and were all gone for the length of The Time Machine in 2003.
*** See what I did there? Urban Legends: Final Cut's Anthony Anderson???
**** Okay, here it is: after Paquin goes on a rant about how much she hates horror sequels and fake out trickery, Bell, who is sitting quietly beside her, stabs her in the stomach and says "you talk to much, sit back and watch the movie." Cue the Stab 7 title card. I honestly did not see that coming, and there was some pleasant laughter from the Cap'n.