Scream 4 (2011)

The problem with the first Scream film in over a decade, Scream 4 (AKA Scre4m, 2011), is that it is too much of a Scary Movie (2000-2009) and not enough of a scary movie.  The first film, directed by Craven off of a script by Kevin Williamson, was released in 1996 (when the target demographic for the fourth installment was still in diapers) and provided viewers with a refreshing bridge between comedic, self-reflexive cinephilia and genuine horror.  At the time, it was groundbreaking formula and it re-vamped the horror genre in the same way Quentin Tarantino de and re-constructed the crime thriller.  Over the span of three films and four years however, the “Scream” franchise slowly lost its way.  When the parodies of a parody arrived in the form of the “Scary Movie” films, the final nail seemed to have been placed into the Scream coffin.  Yet, unfortunately for those nostalgic for the magic of the first film, the killer in Scream 4 is Wes Craven.  He took a beautiful, young genre in the form of self-reflexive horror and gutted it for all eyes to see. 

Scream 4 starts off promisingly enough with a Russian Nesting Doll trick of self-reflexivity that perhaps added one too many meta-levels to an already very meta film (Inceptionesque with its layer upon layer of cinematic reality).  Without spoiling the payoff, it does provide a welcome twist on the casting of the loveable Drew Barrymore in the first film.  Then, after this fun but prolonged series of cold opens, Craven finally shifts Kevin Williamson’s script into gear.  The franchise’s heroine, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) returns to her hometown of Woodsboro on the last step of her book tour, symbolically marking her transition from a victim to a survivor.  Settling in with Aunt Kay (Mary McDonnell) and her cousin Jill (Emma Roberts), Sidney initially finds comfort in Woodsboro, especially when catching up with old friends like Sheriff Dewey (David Arquette) and his wife Gayle Weathers (Courtney Cox).  Yet, with Sidney tempting fate by returning to the cursed town on the anniversary of the original killings that spawned sequels and meta-sequels, Woodsboro does not remain welcoming for long. 

The second-act of the film is where things start to fall apart, both for the audience and for the characters.  The main problem that Scream 4 has is that it never reaches the level of horror that made the first one so much fun.  There are lots of chases, stabbings, and blood and gore stained bodies, but it never raises the hair on the back of your neck.  The horror has been taken out of these sequences by the addition of comedic punch lines.  For instance, in one scene, two cops describe that how it always sucks to be a cop in the movies.  Is your wife pregnant?  Are you the better looking cop of the duo?  Well then, you’re gonna die…unless you’re being played by Bruce Willis.  For those curious, Bruce Willis does not make an appearance in Scream 4, so you can guess how the said exchange ends. 

By infusing comedy directly into the scenes of horror, we are never allowed to feel anything.  While the first film wore its knowledge of genre on its sleeve, this “reboot” or “remake,” as it is called within the film, takes that knowledge and snarkily critiques it:  it deconstructs the deconstruction.  This approach, as one character in the film notes, taking one generation’s tragedy and turning it into another generation’s comedy, is a tricky proposition that ultimately kills the film when the comedy bleeds into the horror segments.  For a horror film, the audience is never allowed to be genuinely scared because being genuine and being self-reflexive are not exactly compatible filmmaking methodologies.  Tarantino ended up in this same position with the dreadful Death Proof (2007).  Yet, the film that Scream 4 aspires to be is that of Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (2004), watched by the young Jill and her friend Kirby (Hayden Panettiere, who fills the Rose McGowan role of the ballsy blonde very well here).  Sadly, Craven does not have Wright’s gift for generic gear shifting. 

The second problem Scream 4 runs into is that it is simply trying to do too much.  Between ramping up the self-reflexivity, re-introducing old characters for newbies so that they can benefit from all this cinematic knowledge being strewn around like blood on a white wall, and introducing new characters that can attempt to widen the demographic away from Generations X and Y towards Z, the Generation bred on Facebook and Twitter (which the film seems to desperate to integrate into the plot), there are a lot of juggling pins for Craven and Williamson to keep up in the air.  Unfortunately, the creators blow ten minutes of film on film within a film jokes, not leaving a large temporal margin for error.  Clocking in at nearly 110 minutes, Scream 4 is a film that feels overlong and yet it rushes through or botches all the variables that matter.  Those familiar with the original trilogy never get enough time with Sidney, Dewey, and Gail to make it the exercise feel worthwhile while the newbies are not given enough screen time for characterization (a point the film acknowledges in one of its jokes, but acknowledgment is not the same as rectification), making them the equivalent to cuts at a butcher counter before they even meet Ghostface.   

In the end, Scream 4 isn’t a terrible film, just a disappointment as both a horror film and a Scream film.  It is easy to admire for the brains it has but it never rises to the level that the first two films established for the franchise.  In the end, it’s a lot like a ten year, high school reunion.  There’s a mixture of dread and giddy anticipation as it approaches but, in the end, the brief time spent there is underwhelming.