scream overview

It was the interplay between genre-fueled expectation and smart storytelling that created a number of memorable set-pieces (as well as twists) in the original trilogy. However, there’s no doubt that Scream 2 and (especially) Scream 3 failed to live up to the bar set by the original. Will the return of Williamson (who passed on the third film), paired with a decade-full of new horror properties to satirize, capture the same magic as the original? Or, much like Craven’s other recent work, is Scream 4 just another brainless slasher film?


Unlike Craven’s recent writing/directing effort My Soul to Take (read our review), Scream 4 is brought to life once again by the surprisingly cohesive collaboration between the director and Williamson’s script. While Craven’s recent creations don’t have the depth necessary to carry a film, the director has no problem taking someone else’s writing – and translating it into tense and compelling onscreen drama (and suspense) that holds-up well even in the current action-focused cinescape.

As in any slasher film, the characters are stereotype frames but a number of tongue-in-cheek performances (especially by Hayden Panettiere and Erik Knudsen) give the characters an added level of polish that isn’t often seen in the horror genre – allowing for some actual surprises along the way. Even the least-assuming Woodsboro residents are portrayed with a bit of menace, successfully keeping audiences on their toes – without resorting to manipulative shifts out-of-character.

Like its predecessors, playing against expectation is one of the greatest strengths of Scream 4 – not only in terms of the “Rules for Survival” and the over-arching story beats but also during the moment-to-moment tension. Good slasher films succeed when they can surprise the audience – in spite of the numerous tropes of the genre. However, Scream 4 not only delivers surprises, the film succeeds by showing the audience something ominous and fulfilling that tension – but in a manner that flies in the face of expectation. While it might sound obvious on paper, no horror film has ever taken the trick as literal as Scream 4.

For horror fans that are less interested in all the meta-film commentary, Scream 4 also offers the most kills of the series. The slasher sequences in the film are not only more frequent than prior installments – they’re also larger in scope. Several of the Woodsboro victims are dispatched in surprisingly creative (but still brutal) sequences – all while managing to avoid slipping into the torture-porn-esque subgenre the film derides.

That said, as the film steamrolls into the inevitable who-done-it revelation, it’s hard not feel as if the actual reveal falls a bit flat. Sure, the high-expectations come as a result of the shocking and innovative reveal in the original Scream; however, the reveal at the end of Scream 4 seems more concerned with serving as a precautionary tale about all-access Internet notoriety than a satisfying climax to the actual tension in the film (or resolution to the characters). Sure there are definitely some interesting twists but there’s no question that the last 15 minutes of Scream 4 drag-on, first bogged-down by the weight of the meta-narrative, and then abandoning the tightly-crafted storyline for a more-traditional and over-the-top final set-piece.