430: Scream 4

[00:00:00] 137, let's get to SCRE4M. This one came out in 2011, a while after SCRE3M. It's once again directed by Wes Craven, stars mostly the same cast but also Emma Roberts, Kristen Bell, Hayden Pantier, Marla Shelton, and Alison Brie.

[00:00:22] And the synopsis is, ten years have passed and Sidney Prescott, who has put herself back together thanks in part to her writing, is visited by the ghost-faced killer. So I don't even remember this one

[00:00:36] coming out. I think I was so out of the horror movie world that it was not even paying attention. I didn't care about SCRE4M at the time so I was like, I don't even remember this being in theaters. And like basically all the sequels I didn't know

[00:00:50] what to expect going in, but I was happy that Wes Craven came back once again and this was his last movie before he passed. And this was also the very last one that I saw of the six. I had started with five and six and then went one

[00:01:03] through four, so this was the last one that I had not seen up until that point. And like I teased with part three, this one is very solid. It would still be middle of the pack. It's a good, not really reboot, but a good step forward in

[00:01:20] terms of getting the direction, the story, the characters on a very strong sense of footing. And also one thing that I really, I know I've talked about with some of the other reviews and I'll talk about with five and six too, but I like how Wes

[00:01:36] Craven is able to tackle trauma in horror films. Like he's able to take a very generic, seemingly generic slasher story and incorporate things about past trauma, current trauma, and then even really update it for the time that it's

[00:01:51] out. Like for example, this came out in 2011. There's more of the media, the internet, online, almost even like a cancel culture sort of thing in this movie. And I really do appreciate that in all of these films. And following Nev

[00:02:06] Campbell through all this, I think she's someone who, like Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, honestly I think she's more interesting than Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween. I think there's more going on there underneath.

[00:02:18] But before we get into all that, talking about the opening of the movie, I love the opening for this movie. Some people might find it to be eye-rolling or whatever. I think it is so well done where, spoilers here, there's the meta

[00:02:31] meta twist where you're watching a scream movie and then the characters are watching a movie that's stab and then there's another stab sequence within that movie or that trailer. Like it's all very well done and how they

[00:02:45] think, alright we're watching real people and then they get stabbed. Oh wait no, we're not actually watching them. And then there's the twist and all that. I think all that is awesome with Kristen Bell and Anna Paquin. I think that is a

[00:02:56] perfect opening. One of the best openings in a slasher movie maybe ever. I love that. The Alison Brie relationship with Neve Campbell of her being this publicist, I really enjoy that where the publicist is really trying to take

[00:03:10] advantage in some ways of Neve Campbell's situation and just for her own well-being. But then that character really gets their due justice where there's that great sequence in the car garage and then she's thrown off the

[00:03:22] roof onto the truck where they're having the press conference where like, oh everything's fine and then wham, she lands on the van right behind them. So that's really really well done and that shows you the humor that Wes Craven

[00:03:34] always incorporates into his horror. And jumping quickly to the end, everything with Emma Roberts is awesome. I know some people say she's the best ghost face of the series. I mean she's definitely up there. I don't know if she'd be my top

[00:03:47] favorite but she's very good in general and she's very well known at this point for her work in horror like American Horror Story for example. But she's great in this and everything with the third act, very classic scream where there's

[00:04:01] multiple killers then she kills the other one and then she tries to make it seem like she's a victim. And so there's that whole ridiculous sequence where she's stabbing herself, running into a wall, pulling out her hair. Like all that

[00:04:13] stuff is awesome and really I mean you can see that being believable to a certain extent in terms of someone trying to cover their tracks and doing sleight-of-hand misdirection. I think that's very clever and very good writing,

[00:04:25] very good direction. And then as with all the movies there's the sort of main climax where she's doing all that and then there's the hospital sequence where she realizes that Nev Campbell is still alive and she has to try and go after and

[00:04:40] there's the whole fight in the hospital room that's great. So this movie really really ends on a great note and is definitely one of the best third acts of the whole franchise. And also in terms of updating the story I like everything

[00:04:57] with the film club bloggers, like video bloggers. I think that's very clever and funny and them really indulging too much in the stab fandom and trying to get Nev Campbell and Courtney Cox's characters to show up there.

[00:05:13] The twist or misdirection sequence with Hayden Pantier, sorry if I'm saying that name wrong I'm sure I am, and her crush, her boy crush who it turns out to be the killer where he's outside and she's refusing to let him in but then turns

[00:05:28] out he is the killer. Oh and I almost forgot probably the most gory sequence in the entire franchise to date is the sequence with the girl in her bedroom where she's basically gutted like her guts are out on the bed the walls and

[00:05:44] ceilings are covered in blood like it's pretty shocking sequence but it's very very effective and I don't think they've topped that gore wise even in five and six so that's a very pretty disturbing part of the movie. And then

[00:05:57] the death of the two cops especially the one who gets knifed right through his forehead like it's just Wes Craven's ability to create these weird shocking moments of horror and create really memorable moments seemingly at a very

[00:06:10] fairly mundane sort of horror deaths and slasher deaths he's able to make it either ridiculous, funny, scary, visually memorable whatever it might be he just has that skill and I will really miss getting more films from him because he

[00:06:26] is really one of a kind and there's not many like him out there. The sequence with Neve Campbell on the roof and Ghostface chasing her I like that the sequence with the stab screening I think all that's very well

[00:06:40] shot well directed and really on that point I don't have many criticisms for the movie it's not a masterpiece it's not the best of the franchise you know it's not reinventing things but for the fourth film in a slasher franchise

[00:06:54] pretty darn solid. Not many other ones like this have that quality at that point in time and even just that it goes with having Wes Craven direct you know like the whole franchise almost but having that consistency of vision

[00:07:10] because oftentimes it's a different director every single time if you look at Halloween or Texas Chainsaw it's almost always a different person every single time so this is one of the only ones that has that consistency at least

[00:07:24] through the first four so that I really appreciate and that really elevates it much higher than a lot of others like it and or even something like Nightmare on Elm Street which Wes Craven was involved in as well so I think it's very

[00:07:36] entertaining got some good scares got some good humor got good callbacks to the original but not so much in a really pandering way it just feels fresh and like alright here's stuff that people love but we're still making our own

[00:07:48] original quote-unquote movie and I would highly recommend it so that one is a heavy four out of five