Review of Scream 4 (2011) by Jesse O — 23 Sep 2015

I decided to buy this movie on the cheap off eBay because I genuinely wanted to see it after seeing the original trilogy. While I had my problems with the trilogy, I still thought that the films were enjoyable, and would actually make for a really fun marathon.

I also thought that with a decade separating Scream 3 from Scream 4, and all the technological advances in that time and how horror films was evolved from then, that it would be intriguing to see this film would incorporate all of those elements to make something that's modern yet still unmistakably Scream.

Honestly, out of every sequel in this franchise, this would definitely be the best of them all. I know that some people think Scream 2 is the best of the franchise, but that film suffered from an insanely quick turnaround as it was released less than a year before the first movie.

The movie's quality definitely suffered from that quick turnaround. And Scream 3 was sort of playing into what it originally mocked. Scream 4, while playing by the rules of reboot/remake, does sort of bring back new life to the franchise.

It feels more like an actual Scream film than any of the other sequels felt. It plays with the horror tropes and cliches in a clever fashion, particularly with how important the internet, Facebook, and Twitter have influenced the modern day Ghostface and how the murders are now streamed online in order to give the villain(s) themselves new notoriety that they wouldn't have achieved in 1996.

So I like how they play with that in a modern setting. It's obviously self-referential, probably more so than any of the sequels, but it also doesn't feel as overbearing as it might sound. It doesn't feel annoying, at least to me.

It might bother some people, but it was perfectly fine in my book. I also liked how the villain(s) were approached because you're given various suspects and they're all viable suspects. That's the thing about Scream, anyone could be the murderer.

If there's one thing I knew is that it definitely wasn't Jill's boyfriend because that would be repeating exactly what was done in the first film and one of themes is surpassing the original.

Though they also do bring up how the unexpected is now the cliche and how the expected is now fresh again, so they could've gone with the boyfriend and it would've fit the film's themes. Though, with that said, it's almost as if Scream 2 and 3 don't even exist according to this film.

It all alludes to the original's film events, nothing about Scream 2 or 3 is ever mentioned or hinted at. I guess it was for the best, since the film itself is a reboot and it'd only draw comparisons to the first film and not necessarily the other sequels.

It's also a pretty bloody film, considerably bloodier than I was expecting. It's not like it's out of this world bloody and gory, but it's violent. Thankfully, too, since the third film toned down on the violence a lot.

And, at the very least, the film has some solid characters so it's not just about seeing attractive and unlikable people meeting a violent demise. I digress, however, this is actually a real fun horror movie.

It might not have been more than a good horror movie, but in this case, that's more than enough. I think Scream fans will find a lot to like here. I think more casual fans will also find something to enjoy here.

It's a good horror movie and I, honestly, think that a marathon of all 4 films would be something really fun to do. I had fun watching this, I wouldn't recommend buying it unless you can get it for under $10, but it is an enjoyable horror movie.

Thumbs up.