Synopsis:
Sidney Prescott returns home to Woodsboro on a book tour and meets up with the old gang as well as her cousin and aunt. Her return home however coincides with the reappearance of the masked slasher, Ghost Face.
The original Scream film, and to a lesser extent Scream 2 and 3, were quite unique and innovative. The idea was a parody homage to 70’s and 80’s slasher flicks. Scream was a post-modern entity, aware of itself, embracing the clichés of traditional horror films and embodying them in savvy, pop-culture literate characters that were aware of the rules, and played by them and indeed embraced them in order to avoid the slasher. In a similar way Scream 2 and 3 followed the rules laid down by horror sequels and as such became even more self-aware with the introduction of the Stab franchise breeding a post-modern, self-aware film within a film, mocking itself. OK, still quite original, but there comes a point where enough is enough. Stab 6 and 7, which feature in Scre4m, may well be self-deprecating but they illustrate the point that in moving from a trilogy to a franchise the originality is lost. In the forth Scream instalment all bets are off, anything can happen and anyone can be the killer. That’s fine, but it therefore is no longer the same entity. Scre4m tries to cling to the threads of the first 3 films by having the film club nerds who elucidate the franchise rules for the audience, but in trying to reboot the franchise the original slasher flick parody is eclipsed by trying to follow rules laid down by film franchises like Final Destination. To some extent, that is probably intentional to introduce a new audience demographic to the franchise, but in doing so the original idea is diluted.
There are the expected shocks and jump inducing moments; you know they’re coming, you know Ghost Face is behind that door but you just can’t help flinching. There’s also the obvious choice for the bad guy presented early on, and although you know it can’t be him, you’re kept guessing as to the actual killers identity and motives. But the overall package is a pale shadow of the original Scream despite the nice twists and turns in the plot.
