Scream 4 (2011)
Directed by Wes Craven

Film Review

Since New Nightmare (1994) director Wes Craven has done more than anyone to keep the slasher genre alive and fresh, mostly by deconstructing it with ever-increasing zeal and repeatedly stressing the pointlessness of movie remakes.  Craven's Scream films represent the ultimate in movie paradox, a superb opener and a series of generally respectable sequels which manage to be both enjoyable slasher flicks and the most effective argument against repeating a popular formula ad nauseum.  Increasingly self-referential, the Scream films have converged to a grim parody, each offering working desperately hard to out-do its predecessor, not only in the quantity of gore it throws at the spectator, but also in the sophistication of its plot.  Watching Scream 4 feels like trying to make your way through a maze of mirrors and it's a struggle to keep up with the devious plot twists that screenwriter Kevin Williamson keeps hurling in our direction.  Craven has taken the idiot slasher film and tranformed it into a mental assault course of the most gruelling kind.

Scream 4 may have been conceived as the first in a new trilogy of Scream films but it makes an effective conclusion to the series - far more so than the disappointing Scream 3 and probably better (maybe) than the mooted official finale Scream 5.  Superficially, the film resembles the classic movie reboot, but it spends most of its near-two hour run time pouring scorn on the whole concept of a reboot, making it pretty impossible for Craven to continue the series without surrendering a whole load of hard won credibility.  For the most part, it's intellectual naval gazing of the most egregious and entertaining kind.  If the characters in the film are not busy being hacked to pieces by a mask-wearing psychopath (who may or may not be named Trevor) they are put through the even more hellish experience of analysing their place in a slasher film, not an easy task as the rules of the film remake are (it would seem) constantly in a state of flux.  There was a time when, to survive a slasher movie, all you had to be was a virgin with a kind heart and a pretty face.  Now it seems the only guarantee of survival is being gay.  Not even the regulars (Neve Campbell, David Arquette and Courteney Cox) are safe and two get the knife (but not necessarily the chop) as the plot contortions get seriously out of hand.

All this may make Scream 4 sound like the mother of all indulgence fests, which it blatantly is, but under Craven's canny (albeit slightly deranged) stewardship, and helped along by dialogue that never ceases to crackle for a moment, it can hardly fail to entertain.  Admittedly, it's most likely to be appreciated by fans of the previous Scream movies.  The film's main redeeming feature, the warped humour referencing Ghostface's earlier bloody outings, will be totally lost on Scream virgins, although the gruesome stabbings (some realised with CGI effects) will doubtless satisfy the unwholesome cravings of today's juvenile slasher addicts.  After this all-too-spirited attempt to reanimate yet another movie cadaver, there is nowhere the Scream franchise can possibly go - other than to completely disappear up its own gut splitting vortex of absurdist self-loathing.

Film Synopsis

To mark the anniversary of the Woodsboro Massacre, in which she was an active participant, Sidney Prescott returns to the town to promote her new book with her publicist Rebecca Walters.  Sidney's reputation as an angel of death is borne out when, shortly after her arrival, two high school students are stabbed to death.  Sidney, herself under suspicion, becomes concerned when her younger cousin Jill begins receiving threatening phone calls from someone posing as Ghostface.   As the town's sheriff Dewey Riley takes charge of the murder investigation his wife Gale Weathers sets out to resolve the mystery single-handedly, so desperate is she for material for her next book.  A friend of Jill is Ghostface's next victim, followed by Sidney's publicist.  High school movie geeks Charlie Walker and Robbie Mercer are convinced that the killings are being carried out to the pattern of the movie remake and deduce that Ghostface's next showing will be at a party.  Gale's attempt to expose the killer at a study party goes disastrously wrong, and as the corpses continue to pile up around her Sidney realises that some people will do anything for five minutes of fame...