Scream 4 review

Film reviews

Scream 4 (Wes Craven - 2011)

Scream 4 is an explosive, violent action packed film full of references that pay homage to its original Trilogy. As the original film "Scream" was so popular, it brought a whole new wave of typical generic acts that it managed to elaborate, thus many films of a similar genre ensured a depiction along this path. It spawned an ironic comedy called "Scary movie", which meta narratives the acts performed within the Scream movie and other classic films of its kind. Considering its place is still within the horror genre it is well placed towards a light hearted context so that the audience can clearly gain a sense of appreciation through its stylistic techniques. This makes the movie fun to indulge into, however adds more room for the story to develop. In a similar way to films such as "Kill Bill" or "Scott Pilgrim V's the World", we see the rules of either cinematic or real world laws of nature failing to apply. A post-modern edge such as this helps the story teller to interact further with the audience to almost communicate farther with them than if submerged within a generic modernist style cinematic approach.

The story is a depiction of self indulgence into its own trilogy, which done well enough to almost set the rules of how a slasher film should be layed out. Therefore, it pretty much is a reference to itself throughout the entire movie, which is what the characters must follow to ensure their survival through the film.
The film opens with a series of openings reminiscent to the original Scream movie, where the character Casey was killed off within a few minutes, setting the scene for the films intention from the start. In this film, however, this event is played on and we see a set of characters watching films from what is the "Scream" series within its own movies world, entitled "Stab". In a sense, this becomes a catalyst for the whole movies pursuit.





Scream 4 seems to somehow over rule the trilogy and offer more scares based on what we come to expect from the other films and their ways of producing sticky situations. This film develops in a relentless, unapologetic depiction of meta reference and mind boggling twists which turn the audiences anticipation upside down on a consistent basis. In other words, if your watching this film trying to work out the storyline and who done what, you wont fully gain any full understanding until the end. You will come to find plot holes aplenty and moments which could make you wince with an awkward smile, but it definitely shines in the right places. Theres no doubt a sense of deconstructional humour fully injected into this

The film is basically a "who done it" Slasher, where the murders appear reminiscent to the murders of the small town that the original Scream, yet we all know it has to be another psycho on the loose with some strange new motive to reinact these crimes. In turn we come to find that it is Jill (Emma Roberts) the Cousin to Neve Campbell's character "Sidney" who is jealous of the attention that Sidney receives from being the victim of the original Woodsboro murders.

Wes Cravens suspense set-ups are a little overcooked, but he does manage to keep things moving at a fine pace considering his task of juggling umpteen characters and the necessary tonal shifts within the pace of the movie.
The musical stamp embedded within the duration of the movie stays consistent to the previous Scream films, and to that of typical Teen/suspensive Horror movies. The use of the camera, lighting and dialogue hasn't changed much either, so although the film somewhat feels old and like used property, it flows forwards with so much familiar ground yet builds many opportunities for something new and appreciative for the audience to enjoy.

Overall this is a great movie and I think it is the best of the Scream films created as it somewhat summarizes the whole franchise.

Chris