johnlink ranks SCREAM 4 (2011)
This is the first thing I’ve seen in theaters all year. The first since HARRY POTTER last November. That’s all you need to know how much I wanted to love this. The first SCREAM is a landmark film in the horror genre. It turned me on to the writing of Kevin Williamson, and it defined a certain kind of movie of the 90s. The second film was good, but had some flaws. The third film was junk. They took a full decade off before coming back to the series. I wanted this film to be everything the first one was, but for the new remake or torture porn flicks which have permeated the horror genre since the first trilogy.
I watched SCREAM 4 (2011) in theaters on 4.14.11. It was my first viewing of the film. TRAILER HERE
Sigh. What a frustrating film. It’s certainly not as bad as SCREAM 3. But I’m not sure it’s as good as SCREAM 2. And it certainly doesn’t live up to the original. In trying to define what a remake is, the film itself becomes a rehash. The idea is that all the rules are thrown out, that anyone can die. But that’s not what remakes do. And it’s not what this film does. It doesn’t transcend anything, the way the first one does. And it is not as witty as the third.
If this was called GENERIC TITLE I would probably be a little easier on it. I just had some high expectations coming in. And the script is a little clunkier than I would have thought. The cutting edge technological aspect of it, the guy who webcasts his whole life online, feels less genuine than the concepts from the first film that they are supposed to be updating. I’m going to blame Ehren Kruger’s 15 percent that he wrote after Williamson finished the script. Kruger ruined the third film, and for some reason they brought him in to do the late rewrites on this one. How that guy still gets work, I just don’t know. His early career was promising. ARLINGTON ROAD is a great flick, great script. But then he ruins the SCREAM trilogy and gives us such epic fair as TRANSFORMERS 2 (one of the worst scripts of the decade). The fact that he is working on Stephen King’s TALISMAN frightens me. But I digress.
SCREAM 4 never had that ‘Wow!’ moment. I was never blown away, or caught off guard. It was just sort of there, unfolding roughly how you thought it might. I didn’t care about these new characters enough to really feel attached. And it wasn’t because I don’t know them. I have a secret (whoops, not anymore) crush on Hayden Panettiere, but I didn’t care at all if her character lived or died. I just never got invested in these characters the way I was in the auxiliary characters of the first and, to a lesser degree, the second films.
They are talking about doing a second trilogy. I’m a sucker, and I WANT so badly for these movies to be good, that I will certainly see them. But my hopes certainly won’t be as high.
SCORES
FILM: 4; MOVIE: 6; ACTING: 5; WRITING: 4
4+6+5+4+0=19
FINAL SCORE: 4.75
When I previously ranked these films the final scores were…
SCREAM: 7.75
SCREAM 2: 5
SCREAM 3: 3
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