SCRE4M Review

Oh yeah, I did the unthinkable and downloaded a movie on the internet for free. I am a strong defender of copyright, and believe one should pay for the right to take in art. At the same time, I'm a strong defender of "save-the-penny" and will be even in richer times. That is for a different blog post, though.

So back to the important point, the review of the reboot Scream 4. As if the franchise hadn't been stretched out enough with the abysmal Scream 3, the producers thought that bringing the series back would be a fantastic idea.They were right. And I suggest every movie exec starts looking into their back-catalogues of old movies and start rebooting some franchises. Exept for this one:

Oh yeah they did remake this movie. With Camilla Belle. Yawn.

Back to the point part II: SCREAM 4.

 

I shall reveal a lot of plot details, murders and of course I will mention who Ghostface is, so please do not read if you haven't watched the movie and plan on watching it, this will ruin it all. You have been warned. Hate messages will not be tolerated.

Most of the premise of Scream 4, is reinventing the wheel and also jabbing nods to past Scream movies and characters. The most notable entry is the beginning where two "Drew Barrymores" (Kristen Bell and Anna Paquin) talk over the stab movie about how cliché the horror genre has become. Kristen Bell's character (KB) notes that nothing is surprising anymore and that the killer never shows himself until the end of the movie. Anna Paquin's character (AP) agrees before she is stabbed in the stomach by KB. When AB asks her friend why she did that, KB answers that she was annoyed by her talking and then stabs her friend again at which point the main title STAB 6 appears on screen and we are then informed that this was a movie within a movie. This repeats itself until we finally find ourselves with the "real" Scream 4 opening.

With that being said, it's like they didn't know what to do with the middle part of the movie. They had an awesome beginning and and awesome end (wait for it) but the middle had little excitement no suprises. So many characters grace the screen and some die before we even get to know anything about them.

Like many horror stories, the filmmakers believe that a profile view of the character and an obvious job title (policeman, nurse) will suffice in us getting an overall idea of who this character is. Yeah, not it doesn't suffice, I want character devellopment here.

People start to die one by one with little to no clues as to who could possible be the killer. Maybe there were but I wasn't interested at this point. I was still blown away by the beginning and they did little to reel me back in for more.

Not only that but all original Scream 1 characters are back. Just different actors. Hayden Pannetière is brilliant as Tatum (Um.. I mean Kirby), Emma Roberts is perfect as Sydney Prescott (Um..I mean Jill), ¸Rory Culkin and Erik Knudsen are quite believable in the dual of role of Randy (Um...I mean Charlie and Robbie), Alison Brie is convincing as Gale Weathers (Um...I mean Rebecca Walters)...You see where i'm getting with this?

It was hard to get into the movie when they wanted us so depseratly to remember the past movies. The execs clearly had in mind that we would watch this movie after watching all the previous entries and go :"Oh look that's Tatum, Oh look she's dying like Cici in Scream 2, oh"...Ok so I did do that and enjoyed doing so. Bad problem: I enjoyed it more then the movie.

They had to introduce us to the new rules of a horror movie and the way they led into it was so awful. Charlie Sheen could have come up with a better subplot then that. Seeing Sydney Prescott in a classroom only fifteen odd years after she graduated seems odd. Because you can tell she graduated WAYYYY before that. lmao.

Now, that is the entire middle part. If you can survive that, then you have made it to horror movie heaven and have witnessed the marvelous ending where Ghostface reveals herself to be none other then **** and her secret lover Charlie Walker (Culkin).

Kirby (Pannetière) is playing the movie game, in which Drew Barrymore's character eventually lost and found herself on the receiving end of The -Shling- Blade, the weapon that Ghostface uses; a knife that is never dull. odd. Who is behind the mask, Martha fucking Stewart?

Anyhow, Kirby wins the game and as she leaves the house to rescue her boytoy, he basically says thanks but no thanks, and proceeds to stab her mutliple times. In the OG Scream, a few stabs and blood would have been enough because the actors had skills, and we could tell they were in pain without all the guts and gore. Now they watch Stab marathons RIGHT after witnessing their best friend's murder. Um..are they all sociopaths?

Anyways, Pannetière is FINALLY murdered and left in the yard while Charlie enters the house to finish off the remaining characters. We are still unaware at this point that **** is the murderer.

Charlie enters the house, attacks Sydney; she tries to run but comes face to face with Ghostface numero dos who removes the mask and reveals her identity to us: Jill Prescott. Tum tum tum. In like 30 seconds, she turns around kills her actual boyfriend, Trevor (Nico Tortorella), kills Charlie (oh my god) and then kills Sydney (OH MY GOD!). Her speach (just like Billy Loomis') is to die for. Wow the writers hit it dead on (no pun intended) with this one. Everything I bitched about earlier is put into perspective by Jill's speech about youth in revolt and instant stardom. Like she says:

"All you have to do now to be famous is to have fucked up shit happen to you"

What she does next is completly nutso. The whole movie needs to be watched to truly appreciate everything behind it. The clichés, the characters, the feeling of déja-vu had to happen because "this is the reboot, baby".

So, I thought Gale was Ghostface. First, I thought they were going back to a darker, more original tone (see Scream, circa 1996) but then they decided to go with the bright colours and sarcastic dialogue (see Scream 3, circa 2000; scratch that, don't watch Scream 3! no reference is made in scream 4 anyways lol)

But then it became apparent quickly enough that they would all be surviving. And Sydney doesn't really die, she comes back in the hospital scene to finish off her fucking retarded cousin Jill. Man, she is creepy. But still, in the best line to date, Sydney looks at Dewey and Gale and then at her dead cousin, Jill, and says THE MOST AWESOME QUOTE IN SCREAM HISTORY:

"You forgot the most important rules of a remake...You don't fuck with the original"