Apr
15
“Scre4m” Review
Filed Under Movies
This review will be spoiler-free. Part of the fun of the “Scream” movies is not knowing where they’re headed and that all their purported rule-breaking will result in something truly original in a genre not known for its freshness.
In the eleven years since “Scream 3″ signaled that the franchise had tapped itself out (at least for the time being), we’ve seen the rise and fall of J-horror remakes, torture porn and moribund franchise reboots. It was a grim period in our nation’s history, the aughts. That most horror films were released with PG-13 ratings was an indicator that the genre had become toothless and practically family-friendly. When I was a young ‘un, the allure of horror movies was that they were hard-R affairs, and I couldn’t even get into the theater without some “Mission: Impossible”-style wirework. But I’m digressing. Fact is, for over a decade, the horror genre didn’t seem to know what to do with itself, post-”Scream.”
So, how does “Scre4m” send-up ten years’ worth of bad horror cinema? Well, it largely ignores our cultural fixation on zombie movies, save for showing a lengthy clip from “Shaun of the Dead,” and it doesn’t even bother mentioning the “Twilight” saga; are those considered horror by anyone but me? The “Scream” movies aren’t interested in the supernatural. “Scre4m” is a straightforward slasher, which is kind of refreshing. Yes, it splits the difference between being a sequel and a reboot, but doesn’t suffer for it as much as I’d feared it might.
In the film, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) returns to her hometown of Woodsboro to close out her book tour. She’s written a self-help tome called “Out of Darkness,” presumably for Final Girls from horror movies to draw strength from. At any rate, she’s arrived just in time for a series of Ghostface-style killings that have Sheriff Dewey (David Arquette) and his wife Gale Weathers-Riley (Courtney Cox) at their wit’s end trying to solve. A new batch of dumb teenagers, including Sidney’s niece Jill (Emma Roberts, who looks uncannily like her Aunt Julia), all do double-duty as potential victims and red herrings.
I’d argue that the opening sequence of the film is actually the best in the series. Giving away anything about its particulars would ruin its impact. Suffice it to say, the movie gets off to a great start. Does it sustain that momentum and cleverness? Eh, not really.
The middle section at times feels draggy and unfocused. Too many new characters are introduced, taking the attention away from the Sidney, Dewey and Gale. Lots of bodies are stacked up along the way, but the kills are unspectacular for the most part. The movie’s not terribly scary, either. Perhaps the most frightening thing about it is all the work Courtney Cox has had done. Gale looks like she was exposed to the Joker’s Smilex gas.
All that being said, the final third of the movie redeems its blah middle section. I won’t reveal the details, but I wish that director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson had gone even further the ending. They start down a path that’s really bold, but hold back. As it is, it’s a solid (and more commercial) conclusion. I just think that the new direction they suggest the series could go is something I’d desperately like to see.
-Brad Lohan
Comments
Leave a Reply