Sunday Review: Scream 4

Editor’s Note:  Hey, guess what?  There are spoilers in this!  It is all Susan’s fault.  But if you don’t wanna know who the killer is, turn back now!

Geoff:
So, we’re now to the fourth of the Scream films, if you can believe it. Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), and Deputy (now Sheriff) Dewey (David Arquette) are all still alive and well and once again being haunted by a new round of dual killers dressed as the now-iconic Ghostface. The entire franchise of fourth-wall-breaking (and perhaps fifth and sixth walls … I wish I had more time to think about this and put it together in my head) films had gotten steadily more conventional and hammy and less clever in the first through third movies, and while this one has some pretty enjoyable moments, I feel like it was pulled from the oven before it was completely cooked. (But that might be because I’m asking too much of the film.)

In this one, Sidney returns to Woodsboro on the tenth anniversary of the original murders she survived to promote her new book about being a survivor (again and again). Unfortunately, someone decides yet once more to start picking off teens, this time concentrating on Sidney’s younger cousin (Emma Roberts) and her cohort while Sidney, Gale, and Dewey attempt to keep as many people alive as possible and solve the whodunit.

I’ve always enjoyed Wes Craven horror films more than others because they’re at least about thrills and hiding and running and jumps rather than straightforward gross-out gore, and the guy’s done this so long that he knows how to move a camera during a chase scene and how to block a shot to induce jumps and etc. If you’ve seen the first three movies, though, you might find yourself yearning for a set-piece as good as the original’s final house-party scene or the sequel’s silent, incredibly tense attack-and-chase scene in a college sound studio. They’re just so skillfully done, and in this film there are some jumps, but the chases and tension are brief, fleeting. There’s rarely even a moment that you think whoever’s in the crosshairs in a given scene might have even a chance of making it out alive.

Still, there are some fun, clever jokes, both at the beginning and the end, and it was interesting to watch the incredibly self-conscious series try to think about the horror film landscape of today as compared to a decade ago. I just wish it had gone further with it, played with it a little bit more, I guess, both in the execution of its scenes and the discourse it was trying to have with itself.

Susan:
Well, Geoff, you can blame this on either my terrible taste in movies or the fact that I haven’t seen the first three Scream films, but I really, really liked this thing.

I especially liked that even when I thought I knew what was going on, the movie’s insistence on laying out all the rules for me and then breaking some of them but following some of them kept me overthinking it and underthinking it at the same time!  Maybe that happens in all of them?  But luckily, I had a mother who discouraged our watching of scary things, which means this reboot feels fresh to me.  It made me want to go back and watch the first three, and I can’t remember ever having a desire to watch them before.  GOOD WORK, HOLLYWOOD.

Also David Arquette and Courtney Cox are back together!!!  And Neve Campbell is there!!  And people are using land lines!!  I mean, HEY THE 90s REMEMBER THEM??  Watching this movie was like putting on a flannel shirt and a pair of Doc Marten boots and a baby-doll tee and being impressed by Yahoo! Mail.  You get to jump at the scary things and squirm in your seat because of anticipation and tension, instead of gross-out discomfort.  You say it felt unbaked to you, but I thought it was near perfect.  Simple, easy, predictable enough, and fun.

Also:  LADY VILLAN!!  Right??  I mean, did that happen in one of the earlier ones too?  Because that was a pretty bomb-ass twist, I thought.  I never, ever suspected her.  In fact, except for the dude with the camera, the two killers would have been my last picks.  And that’s the fun, right?  It’s supposed to be the people you least suspect, but not the people you’re aware that you least suspect, but just the people that you legitimately don’t suspect.  UGH SO COOL.

I dunno, Geoff, I think sometimes it’s hard to review horror flicks with you because I’m just so late getting to the genre and I still think all the things about them are super neat, whereas you are a jaded old man.  But whatever, I think this flick’s totally good enough.

Geoff:
Man, I was really trying not to give away the ending. Oh well.

I can see why you would enjoy yourself, Susan. It’s still part of a horror series that’s very likable overall, and I’d be curious to hear your reactions to the others, and you’ll have even more of a ’90s freak out when you watch them. I’m not calling the fourth film awful, but I would say there’s been a marked depreciation in value as the series has dragged along if you’ve had the opportunity to see the first three.

The way I see it, the first movie chuckled at the horror genre and called attention to its tropes while still itself BEING a skillfully done horror film. And the second one still held itself together fairly well, too. But particularly with the third and now fourth films, though, it seems like it’s been harder to walk that tightrope because the levels and layers of irony and awareness have to keep outdoing themselves. To maybe put it more directly, the first movie is aware of itself, the second movie is aware of its awareness. and by the third and forth movies, the franchise is aware of just how aware it is of its own awareness.

And all the cleverness and irony that results makes it harder for the actual scariness to shine through effectively because it has created an audience that itself is now aware on new and untold levels. In the first film, there were still death scenes that could sober you (on a level, sometimes), and the characters were fleshed out and had semblances of backstories to make you feel like something was at stake when they were under attack and fleeing Ghostface. And they actually seemed to have a CHANCE of fleeing Ghostface sometimes.

Here, there’s little of that, and all the new characters have pretty much nil backstories and are just bodies to add to an eventual body count. Every now and then, there were flashes of what made (at least the first two) pretty damn enjoyable, but they were only flashes to me. Again, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this one once you’ve seen the others and have had a chance to compare.

Susan:
It also might speak to your age and awareness too, Geoff.  I mean, we’re talking about a moviegoing Geoff who was also 15 years younger (or so), and despite the fact that I would believe you if you told me you’d sprung fully formed from your mother’s head with a brain like a movie rolodex at birth, perhaps you were also less astute and aware and what have you.  What I’m saying is that maybe if I saw the first movie NOW at this stage of my movie-watching game, it would not strike me the way it struck you.  Or maybe it will, because I am but a nascent horror-flick-watcher.

IRREGARDLESS.  What you say about the many layers of irony is absolutely true, and I could pick up on that, even being a newb.  Sort of like the layers of plastic skin coating Courtney Cox’s old-young-lady upper lip.  HEYO.  (But seriously:  Neve Campbell looks GREAT and Courtney Cox looks WEIRD.  I wish she and Nicole Kidman would just age gracefully.  They always seemed like such normal people until THE CHANGE.)  I also was waiting for the black cop to note the fact that he was the only black character in the movie and would therefore certainly be killed, and that never came.  And man, that cast was still LILY WHITE.  There’s a trope I could get behind someone being self-reflexive about.

I guess in the end the movie just gave me what I wanted.  I don’t know that I want sobering deaths.  Maybe I watch for something different than you do.  I don’t think I want to be legitimately FRIGHTENED so much as startled and maybe haunted just a bit, but not so much that it affects my life outside of the theater.  This thing swallowed me up for two hours and then let me go about my business, and that’s just what I want from my popcorn flicks.  Light and palatable and easy.

So yeah.  This thing wasn’t the best thing on earth, but it wasn’t the worst.  I’m going to rank it a couple notches above “meh” and recommend it as a decent example of the kind of stupid horror movie it works just hard enough to be.