Review: Scream 4

I remember when I first watched the original Scream. I was in 6th grade and I recorded it off TV. Terrified, I sat in my room and watched the movie, I would pause it and catch my breath - trying to get myself to continue watching. It affected me in many ways - for at least a month after, I couldn't enter a room by myself without checking any possible hiding spot a killer could be lurking. As I grew up and watched the rest of the movies, I understood and appreciated the humor and the wittiness I didn't notice before. I loved the self-awareness and intriguing storylines (well, maybe not Scream 3 so much).  So, needless to say, I've been stoked for Scream 4 ever since I heard it was coming out. I got even more excited when I found out the writer for Scream 1 & 2 (Kevin Williamson) was back after the writing job for Scream 3 had been given to someone else in what turned out to be a pretty disappointing movie. Scream 4 makes up for the the last installment and then some. It does not disappoint. Wes Craven fans will be happy to finally see another good horror flick from him.

Scream 4 brings us and the original cast back to Woodsboro. Sidney (Neve Campbell), the survivor of all the previous installments has written a book about her near death experiences and is on her final stop of the book tour in her home town. Just as she arrives, surprise, people start dying. Brutal murders by someone in the Ghostface outfit. There is a new young cast which mirrors the cast of the original and the story follows them mainly. Jill Roberts (Emma Roberts) who is Sidney's younger cousin and her best friend Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) are friends with some movie nerds who offer some insight into what type of movie this is. As opposed to the previous installments, in which the "rules" were always those of sequels, the rules here are that of a reboot, which provides an interesting dynamic to the movie and fans will be able to notice a lot of mirroring of the previous movies. Don't worry, that doesn't make this movie predictable. Courtney Cox and David Arquette offer a lot of the same they did in the original trilogy. It's fun to see them all back together.

Scream 4 may not offer the mystique of the original but it definitely tries to outdo it in every other way. There are more deaths, scares, laugh, and thrills. There aren't just more deaths, but the deaths are most gruesome we've seen in the series. The movie is even more self-aware than the previous. There are self-aware jokes about how self-aware they are! In all, it's a lot of fun. Hayden Panettiere is as likable as I've ever seen since Remember the Titans, her Bad-A character is the standout and she feels fresh to the series. The rest of the cast does it's job. Scream 4 also offers an interesting commentary on how people get famous through the internet. I won't go any further into as I don't want to give any of the plot away, but it's thought provoking.

The balancing act between humor and horror feels a little more forced than it does in the original two, but it doesn't hurt it too much.

Who's the killer? What's the motive? Who's going to survive? These questions make the film even more entertaining to watch. It's great to see the series succeed in the new generation of cell phones and Facebook. We need more scary movies like this, so hopefully we see another installment in the future. Go out and see this film.

What's your favorite scary movie?

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