Scre4m

Same shit, different decade!

The H-Bomb: The original “Scream” came seemingly from out of nowhere back in ’96, my Freshman year of high school, and almost overnight became all the rage. I remember it like it was yesterday. “Scream” was the movie everyone was talking about, and for good reason. Yeah, it was another slasher with teens getting sliced and diced, but it was different. It was intelligently written, with memorable, likable characters, an involving whodunit plot, and it was not only a slasher movie but a dissection of the slasher genre. Most importantly, it pulled the entire horror genre out of Hollywood’s leper colony and made it respectable again. Respectable, and popular.

Exactly a year later “Scream 2” was bestowed upon us. With the ghost face mask and the “killer phone voice” already cultural icons, the sequel wasn’t quite as fresh as the original, and had its moments of pure silliness, but it was still entertaining and people still went to see it in droves and talk about it ad nauseam. Then, they decided to wait a couple of years before making a third one, and in that time we were treated to the likes of “I Know What You Did Last Summer”, “Urban Legend”, “The Faculty”, “Halloween: H20”, and a whole host of other Scream-spired flicks. So when “Scream 3” finally hit the theaters in early 2000… no one cared. In fact, people were sick of “Scream” and all things “Scream” related. It was obvious that it was time to close the book on the ironic, self-referencing horror sub-genre that screenwriter Kevin Williamson created.

Now we arrive at 2011, eleven years after this series was deemed irrelevant, and we now have “Scre4m”. This time, Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) returns to her hometown of Woodsboro as part of a book tour to promote a memoir she has written about her experiences from the first three films. She barely has time to get reacquainted with old friends Sheriff Dewey Riley (David Arquette) and Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), who are now married, when news hits that more teens are being murdered by a killer in a ghost face costume. What a shocker.

As someone in the movie actually says, Sydney should be in the “Final Destination” movies, because death seems to follow her everywhere she goes. But this time the killer seems not only focused on Sydney, but also on Sydney’s young cousin, Jill (Emma Roberts), and all of her dopey high school friends. Can anyone see where this is going? Yep, for better AND worse, “Scre4m” is more of the same. More bloody kills, more cat-and-mouse plotting, and a twist reveal towards the end that I had figured out long before the movie got to it.

I liked that this is a throwback to the “self-aware” horror movies of the mid/late 90’s. The movie even addresses in the opening reel that it’s a style of horror flick that has long since passed in favor of torture porn and the stream of remakes and reboots that seems to have no end. In fact, that is the angle that the killer in “Scre4m” is taking, that they are “remaking” the murders of the original Woodsboro massacre, except, like a true remake, they are doing it bigger and bloodier. Why just stab somebody, when you can stab them, then throw them off a roof onto a news van? Why only hear about the murders, when you can actually see them on the Internet?

Yes, one of Williamson’s ways of trying to keep his idea relevant for today’s audience (picky lot that they are) is to work streaming video into the story. Streaming video, and texting, and Facebook, and Twitter… these things are mentioned often throughout the story, but they just serve to remind us that “Scream” is something from a bygone era. The original was a product of its time, this one is a trip down memory lane. It was a game attempt to make it fresh, Mr. Williamson, but it just didn’t fly.

Another area where Williamson faltered was in the character department. In the first two films, the characters were interesting, unique, and to an extent, real. Here, the exact opposite is true. Hayden Panettiere’s annoying BFF made me yearn for Rose McGowan, Nico Tortorella’s asshole boyfriend character can’t hold a closed fist to Skeet Ulrich, and the two movie geek characters are just dull when compared to Jamie Kennedy from the first film and Timothy Olyphant from the second. As for the two doltish deputies (Adam Brody and Anthony Anderson), they were just there to pad out the running time, get a few chuckles with their banter, and then die bloody deaths.

Just to give an example of the dip in writing quality when it comes to the characters; the film opens with a . . . “twist” (eye roll). The thing was, I couldn’t see a difference between the “fake” characters and the “real” ones, writing wise. They ALL sounded like artificial movie people. Sad but true, Williamson’s writing just lacks that kind of sharpness that made the earlier films so good.

Director Wes Craven is back, surely hoping to rebound from that epic shit storm that was “My Soul to Take”, and… yeah, this is a better film, but… one can hardly call that a rave. He keeps things moving, never letting the movie drag, and his action scenes are well staged (loved that forehead stabbing) and would’ve been exciting except it’s all just so familiar by now. The idea of somebody trying to “remake” the events of the first movie is clever, but it’s not enough to spice up this rather stale dish. The blood caked final act actually is pretty entertaining, but… much like the film itself, it’s too little, too late. Too bad.

All that stated, I did not dislike “Scre4m”. I actually did enjoy it in a retro kind of way. I partially grew up with “Scream” (it was my 90’s) and I enjoyed seeing Dewey and Gale and Sydney again. It was like visiting old friends. But, to do that all I would have to do is pop the original movie into my DVD player. I really don’t see why a fourth film was needed, especially a decade later. It’s watchable, but it gives us nothing new, and despite references to “Saw” and “Shaun of the Dead”, it’s all just so 90’s.