Directed by:
Wes CravenScreenplay:
Kevin WilliamsonCinematography:
Peter DemingComposer:
Marco BeltramiCast:
Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Emma Roberts, David Arquette, Rory Culkin, Hayden Panettiere, Marley Shelton, Marielle Jaffe, Kristen Bell, Anna Paquin (more)VOD (5)
Plots(1)
In Scream 4, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), now the author of a self-help book, returns home to Woodsboro on the last stop of her book tour. There she reconnects with Sheriff Dewey and Gale, who are now married, as well as her cousin Jill (played by Emma Roberts) and her Aunt Kate (Mary McDonnell). Unfortunately Sidney’s appearance also brings about the return of Ghostface, putting Sidney, Gale, and Dewey, along with Jill, her friends, and the whole town of Woodsboro in danger. (Dimension Films)
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Reviews (8)
After a very long hiatus, the regular fourth film has indeed arrived. It’s not a reboot, but a normal old-world sequel. And while no one would have expected it, the film works well as a standalone horror film and as a new installment in a long-running franchise. The film series Stab got its seventh sequel, and the times have changed, but the main thing has remained the same. The main trio works well together. Sidney has written a new book, Out of the Darkness, and it serves as the perfect reason to come home. The younger generation can't do without their phones anymore, everyone is online 24/7, and the dynamics of killing are changing. Excellent supporting roles are played by Shenae Grimes, Anna Paquin, and Kristen Bell. Of the newcomers, Hayden Panettiere and Emma Roberts are very good. And it looks like there will be a regular fifth film after the series. Maybe in 2022.
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There's a lot of things to highlight here (again, the supremely evocative and increasingly gory murders, the perfectly working old/new casting, or the very imaginative pop culture references), but I honestly appreciated the topical commentary on the online environment the most. "Depravity has become the new norm" is an almost painful statement about the ideological emptiness of our times. I wouldn't have expected a now classic 90's horror film to get this good an update, providing a satirical look at today's (post-factual) society in addition to being entertaining again. Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven have pulled it off in a way they certainly have nothing to be ashamed of. They may not have generated the mass response of the latter half of the 90s, nor have they spawned a new phenomenon, but as a nostalgic close to the franchise, Scream 4 works reliably well.
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Hayden Panettiere and her Hitchcock-Lady hairstyle is the highlight of the film for me. :-) This juicy slasher tops the previous installments by increasing the body count as well as the number of jokes and film references (both in the dialogue and in the form of posters on the walls). Too bad it came out eleven years after the third Scream and thus serves only as a nostalgic reminder of the famous franchise. The tastes of today’s horror audience have evolved since then.
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Finally, a quality leap compared to its predecessor. The fourth installment is like a breath of fresh air for the series! The new characters are fantastic (Hayden Panettiere is brilliant!), and the thrilling pace is non-stop. Most importantly, the final reveal of the killer is shockingly incredible. I really enjoyed Scream to the fullest! We'll see what the next installment brings. For me, the fourth one earns a solid 7/10.
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0% fear, 100% playful (sub)genre tongue in cheek. If Craven and Williamson hadn’t missed the European train, or else if they had had the courage to work with it, this could have been better. Much better, if they had left out the superfluous “alternative ending". They aren’t resuscitating the American teenager slasher with this, they are simply proving that it is long since dead and can’t be approached otherwise than by making a comedy.
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Gallery (83)
Photo © Dimension Films
![Scream 4 - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/159/842/159842563_a84b01.jpg)
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