SCREAM 4

SCREAM 4
rated R

ART--->**
HEART->**1/2
MIND-->***
FUN--->***

The Woodsboro Murders have become the stuff of legend. Immortalized in the "Stab" films, the images of Ghostface killers still haunt this sleepy little town. Deputy Dewey is now Sheriff Riley, who along with his wife, former tabloid reporter Gale Weathers, are confronted with a new killing spree on the anniversary of the original murders. When Sidney Prescott returns to promote a new book about her survival story, her life is in jeopardy and the hunt is on to find out who's behind the mask this time. But will any of them survive?

It's been fifteen years since the first SCREAM blazed a bloody trail in theaters, reinvigorating the genre and cementing director Wes Craven's reputation as the go-to guy for the thinking man's horror film. Extrapolating the "rules" of scary movies into an intense, pop-culture thrill ride, SCREAM set the stage for its inevitable sequel, and then went for a cinematic hat-trick three years later. Even though the last film wobbled a bit (the script by Ehren Krueger tried its best), the trilogy of SCREAM movies wrapped things up and faded into movie history. But if you know anything about horror films, you just can't keep a good franchise down.

So it's time for a reboot. It's time for SCREAM 4.

Wes Craven is back in the director's chair, and there is no man better for the job. With degrees in Psychology, Philosophy and Writing (plus a strict Baptist upbringing) he has almost single-handedly elevated the horror film from its B-movie slasher roots. With Craven's films, the psychological terror cuts as harsh and deep as the killer's knife. In a disposable genre like horror, his stuff stays with you. And that's saying something.

Screenwriter Kevin Williamson also returns with a great script that hits just the right tone of audience familiarity, teen jadedness, modern savvy, and horror fan street cred. The opening sequences alone set the mood for a bloody good time. The cast includes familiar faces, rising young stars, and entertaining film-within-a-film references to the original trilogy and the past decade's horror offerings. It's very Meta.

My only major objection to SCREAM 4 is the obvious uptick in the use of profanity. I know, I know, "What? People on screen are murdered in disgustingly violent and brutal ways, and your only objection is to... foul language?!?"

Look. This is a horror film. Characters are going to get killed. In the end, it will be a bloody mess. But under those conditions, anything that distracts from the movie experience, including gratuitous swearing, is a bad thing.

You could argue that the entire act of watching a horror movie is a bad thing, a point that I completely understand. But I'm talking about working within the parameters of the genre. And I couldn't help but notice after a marathon screening of the original trilogy (and an eleven year gap since the last film was in theaters) just how many f-bombs were casually and consistently dropped in SCREAM 4, even by the main characters. There has definitely been a coarsening of the culture since the original film in 1996. And that wasn't very long ago, people.

Still, this era's narcissistic existential nihilism plays out well in the fourth film, and it certainly takes a stab at what our modern media-saturated youth considers important... or worth killing for. And that gives SCREAM 4 an edge over whatever else the studio sausage factory cranks out these days. With that in mind, this film is...

RECOMMENDED
(Unless you object to watching horror films. If so, AVOID AT ALL COSTS)