Review - Scream 4 (2011)

Wes Craven has made a name for himself as master of the horror genre starting off with Last House on the Left, working his way through Nightmare on Elm Street and pasting People Under the Stairs but soon after the slasher sub-genre began to die down. That was until he wrote and directed the movie the revitalized the slasher but also, funnily enough, parodied it as well. That movie was Scream and it started a phenomenon of mediocre yet original slasher flicks like Urban Legends, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Valentine and the idea of a self-aware movie. Soon after came Scream 2, which parodied the slasher sequel and following that was Scream 3 of which remains a mystery to me. I don’t think Scream 4 could have come at a better time because not only does it poke fun at Wes Craven (meaning all the remakes he had a hand in giving the okay to) but it pokes fun at movies like Saw, which rely on over-the-top gratuitous bloodshed or horror remake. Maybe it’s the fact that I was under the influence of 6 cups of coffee and 12 packets of sugar but I really enjoyed Scream 4 because it is what it’s parodying and I know a lot of people will be let down by it and I understand that it is far from a perfect movie but let me explain why I enjoyed this movie. Also, to it put it in a better perspective I didn’t think it was brilliantly written like the first one but I enjoyed it in the same vain as I did with the My Bloody Valentine remake.

Scream 4 is about Sidney Campbell returning to Woodsboro to try and live a peaceful life after writing a book on her experience with the Ghostface killer. Gale has since retired from TV journalism and settled down with Sheriff Dewey. However, upon her return a copycat killer, disguised as Ghotface, begins slashing his way through the new generation of teens at Woodsboro High. However, Sidney isn’t the only one who is affected by these heinous events but also her cousin and her Aunt who have lived with the idea that she is the “angel of death.” With a new killer in town, following modern day slasher rules, Sidney, Gale and Dewey must find the iller before he or she kills off the entire Campbell family. Scream 4 opens up perfectly because it sets the tone for how ridiculous the film will be and how absurd it can get. If we look at the general state of horror movies today, they incorporate over-the-top kills, hammy acting and a lot of really bad plot twists and I think Scream 4 was sort of how I, and probably others, felt about the Saw franchise. It also builds it’s plot on all the types of remakes that have been made and there is a rather funny scene where the killer asks Hayden Panettiere about remakes in she begins to name off every single one of them. It really put the whole remake craze into perspective.

I don’t’ want say who the killer is but I might give away a few spoilers in this paragraph but I’ll try to avoid doing so. See, the way I see it the killer represents the new generation of horror movies and horror fans trying to desperately to improve on the original or in some cases one-up the original. Since the killer is trying to reinvent the Woodsboro murders to have a different outcome, he or she sees Sidney as the ‘original’ victim and therefore she must be killed. If we look at this in terms of the Halloween remake, Rob Zombie wanted to reinvent or reimage Michael Meyers but in the process he ended up ruining what the original stood for in horror. There are several old-school allusions of old school horror trying to pair up with modern day horror and failing and I am making reference to Gale going “rogue” in her investigation and teaming up with the Woodsboro High film club. There is Sidney’s cousin trying to get along with her despite the fact that she is the primary target of the killer, Dewey being sexually tempted by a younger female deputy and of course the ending. They are all based on the idea of old meets young and I think it’s funny that none of these relationships work out as if it’s Craven’s commentary on how the Nightmare on Elm Street remake could never fair with its remake. Hell, it’s almost like Craven is mocking himself as Mr. Hollywood Horror.

I think Scream 4 has the right to be bad and what I mean by that is throughout the entire film there are ridiculous performances, one-liners here and there, out of place but still funny humor and exaggerated events. Why should it be exactly that? Because that’s what it’s parodying. Take the original Scream for an example; Sidney says, when the killer first calls her, that the females in horror movies are idiots because they run upstairs instead of running out the front door. So, what does she do when the killer attacks her? She runs up the front door. Not only does she challenge the cliché but also she ends up reinforcing it later on. The same thing goes for this movie; it challenges the ridiculousness of horror movies but ends up being ridiculous in the process. I think that’s what Scream’s niche is. I personally think it did a great job of doing this.

I do, however, want to make this clear that I don’t think Scream 4 is as good as Scream or Scream 2 nor do I think that it’s a perfect movie because it’s not. With that said, I would rank this one above 3 because I hated 3. Sure there are flaws in the movie and I think the biggest one that it suffered from was that the story seemed more focused on Gale trying to regain her fame back and Sidney’s cousin trying to cope with the killings. I think it should have focused on Sidney’s cousin and Sidney herself with Gale as a side story. The film touches on the notion that Dewey is being seduced by a younger police deputy but quickly abandons this story midway into the film. For a movie that states that the kills have to be more theatrical and over-the-top, they really weren’t. Sure the killer stabs the victims several times and even goes as far as to thrash them around the house but the 1^st movie had Drew Barrymore hanging from a tree with her intestines spilled out. The only theatrical kill that was exaggerated was having a body thrown down a 5-story parking lot. Sure there is a very limited amount you could do with a knife but the bodies should have at least been strung up or something.

As I have said already, Wes Craven has made a name for himself as a master of horror but he has since become very studio oriented and made a lot of crap after Scream (with the exception of Red Eye). Though Scream 4 didn’t redeem him, it does show that he is aware of how horror fans are towards remakes and reboots. I think that Craven really tarnished himself with movies like Cursed or My Soul To Take and I think that Scream 4 will be his last entertaining movie but he still loves horror even if his movies don’t reflect that. I won’t go into the details because it’s probably one of the best scenes in the entire film as well as recent horror history but I will say this: he said what all us old school horror fans have been saying for a long time now, you just don’t fuck with the original.

Mocking Halloween: Scream

Ah Scream. Wes Craven’s revival of the teen slasher movies that made the late 70s and 80s what they were in horror. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest slasher films in recent times and has one of the most iconic serials killers since Hannibal Lector. But can we really consider it that much of a classic considering that is riddled with studio gimmicks, teen stereotypes and some uninspired scares? Perhaps it was Craven’s intention to show off some of the stereotypes and cliché scares because this is a parody after all… but the film still reeks of studio influence and control and I will briefly elaborate on this.

What I specifically mean by studio influence is that Scream feels very glossy and over the top at times. Hell, even Nightmare on Elm Street did the same thing but at least that was actually original. Everything up until the end of Scream was very cliché. The end makes up for it but still. A good example of this is Marco Beltrami’s score. It’s so overcomplicated as it uses bells, whistles and over-the-top strings. Even during some of the exposition scenes, the score makes you on edge when nothing is happening. During the scare scenes, it’s the score that does the work rather than the sound effects. It’s a great example of over the top studio cheese.

Another great example of this studio influence is over the top killer. In most indie horror flicks the killer uses a specialized weapon to match his or her theme, however in studio made movies the killer goes above and beyond to create elaborate kills (see the Saw franchise). Here, Ghostface is actually two people that set up the fact that the killer can be everywhere. These killers also utilized a very elaborate plan to frame somebody and they even use a voice distorter. It’s one of those moments where you lean back in your chair and say, “okay, this is getting a tad ridiculous.”

That’s the biggest gripe I have about Scream is that it’s way too over the top. If you look closely you’ll notice other things like the flashy camera/lighting work, the glossy depiction of high school and unlikable characters. You can tell this is a Wes Craven flick just by looking at the visuals.

Top 10 Overlooked Horror Movie Villains

I decided that with all the Top 10 Horror Movie Villains of All Time there are, we have seen all the same killers, the only difference is they are all in different orders. So, I have come up with a list of killers that people my have overshadowed or not even thought of simply because they weren’t good enough.

10. Dr. Robert Elliot from Dressed To Kill (1981). What always freaked me out were men dressed up like women and I never could understand why. Perhaps it’s because of the idea or something else… but when one of them finally decides to pick up a razor and slice people up, it’s twice as creepy for me and that’s probably why Elliot my list. Plus, even as a psychiatrist he is strange and very dark.

9. Billy Loomis & Stu Macher from Scream (1996). This killer duo has always been frowned upon when it comes to horror movies and I don’t know why. I enjoyed their style, playing on slasher film killers and I think they know their stuff. It’s like of like Leslie Vernon before Leslie Vernon. Plus, Billy is a hard-core psychotic and Stu is just the manservant. I also enjoyed them because they don’t just stab but they also gut and dismember their victims… something that most adolescent killers don’t do.

From Blogger Pictures

8. Dr. Philip K. Decker from Nightbreed (1990). Like most killers, he slashes through people like scissors through paper but what always scared me as that he had that most killers don’t have… that wicked looking mask. It reminded me of The Scarecrow from the Batman comics and it was frightening.

7. Edward To Swensen from Evil Ed (1995). This was a simple man turned psychopath that I loved only because of personal reasons. His job was a film editor who was hired by Campbell to edit a serious of gruesome hack and slash films. But after seeing so much blood and guts he snaps and becomes a gun totin’, swearin’, killin’ movie editor that acts suave as he’s doing it. It’s like he becomes the person that he always wanted to be rather then a dork.

6. Gus from The Tripper (1995). The only reason why I even categorize him as a worthy villain is because of his costume idea. He takes on the persona as Ronald Reagan and murders hippies. This is something that I am sure every Republican wants to do but never could because of the law… so Gus does it for them in the movie world. Since I am a Republican, I can say I enjoyed a few scenes in this movie.

From Blogger Pictures

5. Johnny Bartlett from The Frighteners (1996). This is one crazy motherfucker! Here is a guy, an orderly, who just went bizerk and started gunning down a bunch of people in a hospital. His M.O.: to out kill every famous murderer that ever lived. What distinguishes him from others is his M.O., it’s simple and not complex and he’s doing it for the fun of it. Plus, you can’t beat that smile that Busey has. It’s so devilish.

4. Patrick Bateman from American Psycho (2000). He is a suave, intelligent and sophisticated killer that murders over the most mundane things like the color of your business card. He knows who he is, he fucks people and then kills them, is a cannibal, has a large arsenal of shiny weapons but are we to believe all of this is real or in his head. He murders without cause or without reason and not to mention he is also a good artist.

From Blogger Pictures

3. Truck Driver from Duel (1971). Though it’s unknown, the number of people he may have killed but all we know is that he tortured poor David all the way down the road and played near-fatal chicken games. This is something that I really enjoyed about him, the fact that he uses psychological fear to kill you as well as his mighty truck. He lures you into a false sense of security and then runs you off the road… and the best part is: you never see his face. Well, until the picture above.

2. Anne Wilkes from Misery (1990). Now this is one crazy bitch. What makes her my #2 is not what she did in the novel or the film, but what she did that the both the novel and film hint on. She was a nurse that would murder patients by overdosing them and then she also killed babies in the maternity ward. She is depressed, paranoid and psychotic… plus, she has a knack for taking a hammer to people’s legs, screams and slams typewriters on your legs. She has such an innocent façade but she is a wicked person who will stop at nothing to keep her number one fane with her.

From Blogger Pictures

1. Axel Palmer from My Bloody Valentine (1981). This is number one solely based on the fact that the killer scared me as a kid. Out of all the costumes and masks that killers wear… a minor mask freaked me out. Why? Because of the breathing, those bug-eyed goggles and that breather made him look like an actual machine that kills. Plus, he uses a pickaxe rather then a knife, which made it bloodier and violent. I also have to give Axel credit for having his killer alter ego choose the costume. Also, I always thought it was awesome the way he laughed and the way that he knocked out those tunnel lights… such greatness.

So that is the list… running down them again:

10. Dr. Robert Elliot (Dressed to Kill)

9. Billy Loomis & Stu Macher (Scream)

8. Dr. Philip K. Decker (Night Breed)

7. Edward Tor Swensen (Evil Ed)

6. Gus (The Tripper)

5. Johnny Bartlett (The Frighteners)

4. Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)

3. Taxi Driver (Duel)

2. Anne Wilkes (Misery)

1. Axel Palmer (My Bloody Valentine)

Why Scream at "Scream"

From Blogger Pictures

Here is one of my biggest concerns: why are there so many people that hate Wes Craven’s “Scream?” What’s the matter with it? “Scream” was what “Shaun of the Dead” was to the zombie genre and it was one of the best spoof movies out there that was self-aware. It had genuinely scary moments, it had some blood and gore and I think that it slaps the slasher genre in its face. It challenges the formula of slashers and provides and explanation. Lets look at it:

Q: Why is it that a killer always seems like he is everywhere?

A1: Because he’s a killer, that’s what they do.

A2: There might be more than one.

Q: Why is it that every other girl gets killed but the main character?

A: Because she doesn’t do drugs, sex, drink or smoke.

There are some moments that are funny and it makes numerous references to horror films that had an obvious influence on this film.

So again, why do people hate this movie so much? I could understand maybe the 2^nd one and for sure the 3^rd but why this one?