By Nick Rosa
It was a popular trend in the 80s to make a horror film which could be defined as a ‘slasher’. As we progressed, so did the genre. The 90s brought a cinematic and slightly more elegant horror back to life. The capstone example of this is ‘Scream.’
‘Scream 4’, with original director and master of horror, Wes Craven, and original screenplay writer, Kevin Williamson, who worked together on the previous three Scream films team up once again and go back to what has made ‘Scream’ so effective. By keeping the clean simple plot of hiding the killer’s identity, murder mystery, a high school set, ‘Scream 4’ was a slasher-comedy that worked.
While working in the new cast members: Emma Roberts as Sidney’s cousin, Jill, Hayden Panettiere as her tough horror-geek friend Kirby, with the original cast: Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), who has returned to Woodsboro to promote her new ‘Out of the Darkness’ novel of her experiences; the awkward lawman Dewey Riley (David Arquette), once a deputy, now the town sheriff, and former newswoman Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), now a bestselling novelist with a hard case of writer’s block, mesh together unlike many other horror film sequels.
Even within the film they use some small humor to get the point across on how you never mess with the original.
Williamson is known for his, and a fiend for, the red herrings. The movie is wall-to-wall red herrings, with shots held on characters long enough to make you think, He’s the killer! No, she is! No, it’s both of them, aspect. You have that feeling till the terrific but utterly outrageous climax of the film. The way character portrayal is played it will have you guessing till the very end.
‘Scream 4’ opens with the predictable shot of a ringing telephone, that can’t compete with the original, but Craven gives you an opening that shows this is not going to be a just average sequel like ‘Scream 2 and 3’. It will probably be better if you pretend this movie kicks off 15 years after the original and forget about the crap in the middle. The witty opening with the added meta-joke works all too well for its first 15 minutes.
Once again, like the original, the ‘rules’ of horror films are brought to audiences attention. The film occasionally mocks horror film clichés and refers back to the original rules of horror. But what makes this different from the already different ‘Scream’, is just like what the movie poster says, “New Decade, New Rules.” This makes it more interesting, now, instead of a killer nobody knows terrorizing the town of Woodsboro based on a set of rules, it changes to where there are no more ‘rules’. Along with a modern feature added in, which is an Iphone app that can duplicate the Ghost face voice, with the aspect of ‘no rules’, it’s hard to pin-point which characters are actually in danger or are causing the killings. Anyone and everyone have the tools to play this game now.
I’m going to stay clear of actual plot points because the movie all together would be best seen not knowing what’s going to happen right around the corner. For this film, the element of surprise is plays a pivotal role. Williamson brings out the best in Craven as a director: He knows how to work amazingly for wide-screen, allowing the killer to jump from unexpected places over and over again. Even at points where you know you shouldn’t jump, you’ll jump.
Wes Craven is also known for his blood, and this slasher has plenty of it. From his original horror films like, ‘Last House on the Left’ or ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ there will be disturbing images. You see knives go through doors, skulls, and hearts. Even a gruesome scene of disembowelment Craven adds to spice things up.
The opening, story-line and climax all fit together to make one of the better horror films I’ve seen in awhile, in theaters. Guessing who will be killed next or the identity of the psycho behind the infamous ‘Ghost Face’ are two questions that last for the entire film. Neither question is easily solvable, to the credit of the director and filmmakers.
The only real complaints I had were the easily recognizable Botox injections Courtney Cox had in her lips and some iffy acting from Emma Roberts, but that is as expected from a former Disney star. Not bad for a first horror film though. Overall, nothing to second guess the money you spent on the ticket.
If you are Scream fan I recommend you see the fourth installment of the series and, if you’re a person who loves a good twist with a guessing game all the way through, ‘Scream’ is 4 you.
