I have to defend my rating of Scream 4 as I know many people hated this reboot. When you're rebooting a franchise that has been dead for 11 years you have to take extra care to make fun of every horror reboot trope you can think of because this is a Scream film after all. After the disaster that was Scream 3 we finally get a return to form by Wes Craven, the worst aspect of the movie is probably the lack of realism; this is a heavily romantic film. I don't mean romantic in the sense of smooching between David Arquette and Courtney Cox, I'm talking about the fact that 50 police officers can't catch a serial killer that kills his victims with a prop knife that gimmick might've worked in the late 90s and early 2000s but in today's surveillance state there's no way! Ghostface wouldn't last longer than 3 days especially in Los Angeles. Now looking past the negatives (way too much self-referencing, some bad characters, and sequelitis), we can talk about the good aspects, and oh boy are there a lot of good aspects. First off I love, love, love the new characters in the film (some of them), the short-haired blonde girl Hayden Panettiere was cute and likable for me, and the fact she wasn't the killer surprised me and made her death all the more heartbreaking. Anthony Anderson as the dumb cop was hilarious for the first 30 minutes of the film especially his death although I wish that was on screen. Emma Roberts as Sidney's niece was sweet for like an hour and a half of the film and I did not see the reveal coming. I'm not sure if it was intentional but all of the character names are based on the real-life actors and actresses' names which isn't funny but it's much easier to keep track of their names.
We start the film off with an incredible intro that may be one of my favorite horror movie intros. We wake up in Stab 7 that references Stab 6 then finally back to real life where two friends get hacked to oblivion. In the first half of the film, there was a bit where Emma Roberts and Hayden were stuck in Emma's room while across the street their best friend and neighbor gets slashed in a scene so obvious it will make you facepalm although the gore is great and the most realistic and ambitious of the franchise especially after watching the PG-13 blood in Scream 3. We go through Shaun of the Dead references a publicist of Sidney's dying in high octane and scary parking lot scene we get arguably the best scene of the movie where Courtney sets up cameras then all of them turn off Courtney goes to investigate and we get a fight scene where we think she's going to die but she doesn't. Finally, we get the seemingly final battle between five teenagers, Ghostface starts picking them off one by one and we get a hilarious scene where he is about to kill a high schooler that is recording his life (Wes Craven has no idea what teenagers do), and he says that he's gay in a horror movie so he can't be killed but Ghostface kills him anyways the joke was spoiled for me but I still laughed at my screen. We're at Hayden's house, 3 / 5 of the kids die including the video streaming gay dude, Jill's boyfriend and Hayden. One of the video streamers is Ghostface and the other Ghostface is Jill Roberts which surprised me apparently she killed them all for notoriety by becoming the teenage queen girl that saves the day kills the guy in the Ghostface mask framing her boyfriend all in an elaborate scheme to become famous. This was a great plotline and incredibly unique; she even goes as far as to smash her head and make it seem like she was assaulted and acted in self defense. The more I thought about this movie the more I liked it, after initially watching this film I was like at a 6 or a 7 out of 10 but upon further reflection I was thinking about what I could find wrong about the film and I decided you know what it's an 8, it deserves an 8, screw the consensus I f with this film.
A few critics and fans wanted Sidney Prescott to finally die at the end of the film where her niece Jill Roberts (Emma Roberts) seemingly kills her but oh wait guys Wes Craven saves her through plot armor somehow she wakes up and fights off her cousin after arriving at the hospital almost dead. Then crazy stuff happened. A defibrillator started flying, it felt like an action movie. It was freaking awesome. Then Sidney lives so a sequel can be made but oh wait Wes Craven dies the same year which means we have to wait until 2022 for the sequel directed by some other dude, my only disappointment about there being a fifth movie is the fact they killed all and I mean all of the new kid characters which means the next movie will have to reboot the reboot with an entirely new cast in the same city for the fourth time.
We start the film off with an incredible intro that may be one of my favorite horror movie intros. We wake up in Stab 7 that references Stab 6 then finally back to real life where two friends get hacked to oblivion. In the first half of the film, there was a bit where Emma Roberts and Hayden were stuck in Emma's room while across the street their best friend and neighbor gets slashed in a scene so obvious it will make you facepalm although the gore is great and the most realistic and ambitious of the franchise especially after watching the PG-13 blood in Scream 3. We go through Shaun of the Dead references a publicist of Sidney's dying in high octane and scary parking lot scene we get arguably the best scene of the movie where Courtney sets up cameras then all of them turn off Courtney goes to investigate and we get a fight scene where we think she's going to die but she doesn't. Finally, we get the seemingly final battle between five teenagers, Ghostface starts picking them off one by one and we get a hilarious scene where he is about to kill a high schooler that is recording his life (Wes Craven has no idea what teenagers do), and he says that he's gay in a horror movie so he can't be killed but Ghostface kills him anyways the joke was spoiled for me but I still laughed at my screen. We're at Hayden's house, 3 / 5 of the kids die including the video streaming gay dude, Jill's boyfriend and Hayden. One of the video streamers is Ghostface and the other Ghostface is Jill Roberts which surprised me apparently she killed them all for notoriety by becoming the teenage queen girl that saves the day kills the guy in the Ghostface mask framing her boyfriend all in an elaborate scheme to become famous. This was a great plotline and incredibly unique; she even goes as far as to smash her head and make it seem like she was assaulted and acted in self defense. The more I thought about this movie the more I liked it, after initially watching this film I was like at a 6 or a 7 out of 10 but upon further reflection I was thinking about what I could find wrong about the film and I decided you know what it's an 8, it deserves an 8, screw the consensus I f with this film.
A few critics and fans wanted Sidney Prescott to finally die at the end of the film where her niece Jill Roberts (Emma Roberts) seemingly kills her but oh wait guys Wes Craven saves her through plot armor somehow she wakes up and fights off her cousin after arriving at the hospital almost dead. Then crazy stuff happened. A defibrillator started flying, it felt like an action movie. It was freaking awesome. Then Sidney lives so a sequel can be made but oh wait Wes Craven dies the same year which means we have to wait until 2022 for the sequel directed by some other dude, my only disappointment about there being a fifth movie is the fact they killed all and I mean all of the new kid characters which means the next movie will have to reboot the reboot with an entirely new cast in the same city for the fourth time.