Meta-Murder: a Scream 4 Review
When Scream was originally released in 1996 it could be seen as groundbreaking. Its self aware brand of storytelling was fresh and new. It revitalized the horror genre, and spawned parodies and stylistic rip-offs for nearly a decade. The last Scream movie was released 11 years ago and like its predecessors was a huge success.
Scream 4 (or Scre4m if you want to be a douche about it) is currently in theaters and stars all three of the principle actors from the previous movies: Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette. In the horror genre, this is an accomplishment in itself and with Wes Craven still at the helm its not surprising that Scream 4 feels exactly like a Scream movie.
Picking up 15 years after the events of the original movie, Scream 4 gives a quick update on the aforementioned characters before rolling out a new batch of fresh meat. These new characters are well casted and fit into the mold of the franchise really well. With the new generation comes new technology and Craven and Co. were very quick to capitalize on smartphones and the internet. The characters stay connected to each other and the internet. Just as teenagers are constantly connected these days, it seems like a conscience effort was made to implement current culture into this film.
With the stories of the first movies being told with an in-movie film franchise called Stab, the new characters can specifically refer to things that happened in the Scream movies as if they happened in the Stab movies. While this may seem like a cheesy gimmick for a horror film, since the cast is self aware of the cheesy-ness, their willingness to play along is believable and somewhat charming.
Meta…(from Wikipedia) “In epistemology, the prefix meta is used to mean about (its own category). For example, metadata are data about data (who has produced them, when, what format the data are in and so on)… Furthermore, metaemotion in psychology means an individual’s emotion about his/her own basic emotion, or somebody else’s basic emotion.” To describe Scream 4 as Meta would be an understatement. If there was a term called Meta-Meta-Metatude, you might come close to describing the plot and idea behind Scream 4. Nearly every character in the movie acknowledges how meta or self aware or self referential the story is and this only fuels the humorous tone of the film.
How do you make a new Scream movie without it falling into the buckets of either remake or rehash? Craven’s answer is to point out the trappings of both, mock them, play to their strengths and simply spend 1:45 reminding people why the Scream movies are cool, the mystery aspect. At the core of every Scream movie is a solid mystery plot. The novelty of mocking horror movies to try and separate itself is old hat at this point and the new plan of mocking the mocking of the original movies will only go so far. Solid performances from the old and new cast, especially Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere and Alison Brie help the movie seamlessly transform from a comedy that borders on being a direct parody to a horror movie with characters that feel appropriate.
As for scares, Scream 4 almost “Metas” it’s way out of them. By being SO self aware, the audience knows to not expect deaths when deaths should be expected, and it creates a numbness to the suspense and a death. This leads to weak jump scares and somewhat predictable attacks. That’s probably a product of the franchise as a whole and not this specific movie, but Scream 4 almost feels more like a comedy than a horror movie. Its unclear as to whether certain scenes in the movie were supposed to be funny. These scenes lack blatant jokes, but the absurdity of the situation caused genuine laughter throughout the theater. If they were not trying to be funny, then those scenes were horrible failures. Conversely, the characters that were included to bump the comedic value (Anthony Anderson and Marley Shelton), seem to fall flat.
For the millions of people that loved the Scream movies, Scream 4 is a natural progression for the franchise and hits all of the points needed to scratch that itch. Fans of horror movies that may not be familiar with the franchise might be lost and will not see the value in the story’s framework and absurdity. Is it amazing? No. Is it intriguing? Yes. Is it a good time? Absolutely! Where does the franchise go from here? Your guess is as good as mine.
Verdict: Its funnier than Scary Movie (take a moment to let that one soak in).
