The picture of self-satisfaction

Scream 4 spoilers after the jump. I'm posting this so late, that shouldn't matter, but whatever. Sorry, I mean wh4tever.

Before the weekend box office results were announced, it seemed that there was nothing to say about Scream 4 (which I will refer to from now on as Scre4m because that abbreviation is too stupid not to use). It is so meta, it's meta about being meta. That's not an exaggeration: there's literally a movie within the movie in which a character bitches about how meta horror has become. Elsewhere, characters identify each other according to horror-movie stereotypes ("You're the dumb blonde with the big tits!" "You are a victim for life!").  Maybe most exhaustingly, Scre4m openly rehashes the first film in the series at several turns, thanks to a rash of convenient copycat killings. Scre4m is the cinematic equivalent of someone babbling about himself and how he fits in the world for two hours. Is it any wonder that viewers tuned out and the film grossed less than half of what was expected? This is exactly why it's foolish to puff yourself up and emphasize your own importance – people don't even have to do anything to prove you wrong. Indifference can be fatal.

Even if it were less obnoxious, I wonder if the Scream franchise is relevant in 2011 on a fundamental level. Since the first one, we've grown less enchanted with the past as pop-culture consumers. Long gone are the days when rappers rhapsodized the music they grew up with and sampled, emphasizing its greatness the point of it being cool to reach back and actually get into the originals. (In music, generally, the synth has been a great equalizer – plenty of stuff that's 25 years old could be mistaken as new, whereas no one would make that mistake with that's 40 or 50 years old.) More pertinent to the medium at hand, I wonder if all the horror remakes at our fingertips have rendered the sometimes harder-to-find originals irrelevant to kids today. This is all conjecture, obviously, but it is clear that we're only becoming more youth obsessed as a culture, and our present is stuffed with current things to consume. With so much drama on the air that we see (and in the LBC, duh), who even has the time to reach back?

A dip in the cultural worth of nostalgia would mean big problems for Scream, which assumes that we're experiencing pop culture like its horror-savvy characters (a fair assumption since we bought tickets to be there). The fact that the Scream universe shares our actual world of horror makes it feel like it exists in less of a bubble than most horror flicks. But self-awareness only goes so far – it is, at best, endearing. It excuses nothing and in Scre4m, it only makes shortcomings that much more visible. This movie has a bone to pick with two-dimensional characters in horror movies…while being a horror movie full of two-dimensional characters. In Scre4m, we essentially watch cartoons bumble around (the only thing that's missing are banana peels). Neve Campbell's Sidney is a bizarre representation of inner peace, spouting self-help bullshit we're supposed to find admirable and always looking as though she just got done sobbing. She seems not so much enlightened as lobotomized and does stupid things that would make previous characters in Scream movies punch in their own faces out of exasperation. These things include running into a house after she's just watched a murder committed from next door, and sighing "Kids!" upon being confronted with decorations commemorating the murders of her family, friends and innocence, as she returns to Woodsboro. Courteney Cox, whose face is so Joker-ized, she couldn't look like she just got done sobbing if she wanted to, plays Gail Weathers with what should be a perfect level of ridiculous anxiety. Her performance eventually feels understated considering Gail's pro-bono desperation for solving the newest rash of murders the film chronicles. David Arquette's Dewey is...well, when wasn't he a cartoon character?

Still, it is those characters that I focused on and stuck it out for, under the same trance of brand loyalty that had drove me to the theater every opening weekend of every Saw movie. Speaking of, unlike the first time around, Scre4m has nothing to say about the past 10 years of horror, save some passing references to torture porn and Japanese ghosts that amount to, "Yeah, but we're better." I actually agree, but telling and not showing isn't the way to prove your superiority to anything. Almost all of the new characters are negligible. Hayden Panettiere's haircut has more spunk anyone introduced by screenwriter Kevin Williamson (and that rewriter Ehren Kruger attempted to shade in).

That said, not all the writing is bad. A scene climax based on calling out the names of over a dozen recent horror remakes worked really well as a gag. (After being bombarded with as many remakes as we have been, it's easy to empathize with the desperation that comes with staring down death.) That list, though, about as much insight, though, as you're going to get from this thing, which replaces Scream's relied-upon film-criticism-within-the-film with surface-level reading. If the original is Cliff's Notes, this is one of those books made out of foam that toddlers can take in the tub. The most out-of-touch moment unfortunately occurs during the climactic killer-reveal scene, in which we discover that the motivation for all this carnage boils down to a case of Marcia, Marcia, Marcia-itis and the desire to be famous. It all feels so...MySpace.

And yet, I didn't hate Scre4m – in fact, I cared way more about it than I should have. What it comes down to is that the Scream legacy is now a soap opera and I am sucked in. I care about Sidney, Gail and Dewey about as much as I care for any fictitious characters. I will follow them wherever they go because I will take what I can get when it comes to horror. I know not to expect too much, which is why something that builds itself up like Scre4m is so jarring. Unlike the original it so wants to be as important as, Scre4m will not revitalize its genre. A soap opera is not what horror needs. In fact, soap operas are what no one wants, as evidenced in their recent rash of cancellation. It'd be giving the film too much credit to read that as more meta-commentary (now the movie itself is a potential victim!). Really, the answer is it's just less self-aware than it thinks it is.

Comments

[Dru]

Alison Brie needed more screen time for this entire thing. That is all.

[Michael]

I also enjoyed the film, while also finding it pretty bad, and just a touch TOO campy. Mostly Emma Roberts bad acting.

The one message that served as a punchline to the entire movie was "a remake is never better than the original." I feel like the entire movie was setup just to drive-home that point and to serve as a message to film in general - to stop remaking others ideas and try to come up with your own.

Of course that message is soured with the reality that *if* #4 is successful, Wes is already contracted in some sort of way to write a 5 and a 6. The punchline to that joke is that I'll likely go see those as well (if Sid, Gail & Dewey are there)

[Robert]

It's camp, but the series has always been camp.

It's way too meta, but the series has always been way too meta.

The problem is the film focuses on itself instead of focusing on the changes in the world of horror since the initial entry in the series. You can't go that meta on horror and brush off the torture porn genre with forty seconds of commentary on Saw IV. You can't choose to only use a knife when a mundane attack in a horror film is throwing someone into a trap filled with broken glass and razor blades.

[Nich]

I enjoyed the hell out of it.

The remake angle (horror or otherwise) fits better overall and is more relevant in 2011 than the already played-out torture porn or creepy Asian girl angle. In '96, everyone was aware how awful and perfunctory horror / slasher movies had become, so the original had a fertile playground. Horror trends of the 2000s weren't as fertile...with the exception of the constant xeroxed remakes.

So 'Scream 4' was a 'Scream' reboot but kept the original characters around to witness / comment on it...I thought it was clever, even if it wasn't perfectly executed. And the reasoning for a *certain killer* actually feels more 'Tumblr / Generation Y' than simply MySpace...I'm in this peer group and it felt right on the nose. The 'Gen Y coming face-to-face with Gen X' theme could've been punched up more...but there's only so much you can put in and keep the run time tolerable.

Damn, and I've just rambled to death in this comment. But nice write up...even if we aren't in total agreement. A+

[Jim]

The thing I loved about Sydney is this movie was how over it she seemed. She was strangely Zen because the only other way for her to deal with the hell she paid would be to just kill herself. In terms of charging around doing insanely stupid things, I really felt like it was a mix of bravado (hey, no one's killed me yet) and a near indifference to what happened to herself. And Neve Campbell plays it so straight, almost subverting the campiness of the movie as a whole. Yet it was still such a funny movie and served as an effective (to me) signpost not of where horror movies have been of late, but the nauseating cultural climate where anyone can be a star if they just get enough attention. It lacks the zing and the actual frights of the first movie, but it's still smarter and has more bite than most of what's out there. And damned if I didn't love Allison Brie and Hayden Pannetierre in it.

[stretch marks removal cream]

I find this one entertaining but lacks the essence of a horror film

[Kat]

I just had to see it because I am so invested in those characters since first meeting them about 15 years ago. I had been excited about this film since it was originally announced and there were some entertaining parts. What it actually inspired me to do this weekend was to re-watch the previous three films. Scream 2 was way better than I remembered, thanks in part to Timothy Olyphant and Portia de Rossi's eyebrows. Scream 3 was confusing and kinda lame but still had some amusing moments. I am interested in knowing if the original Scre4m script was better than this finished film.

[KilPattrick]

Rich always seems to enjoy laughing at camp and irony if he feels like he's the only one in on the joke. But if he feels like the people in the movie, the show, song, etc are in on it too, he always takes it way too serious.

[B.Floyd]

Maybe I'm overshooting here -but I think you missed the critique the writers were making. Or maybe you pin-pointed the critique exactly, and just didn't appreciate it? What I will say is: Snooki was just on the cover of Rolling Stone for getting drunk every night, and having sex a lot. This country considers "Famous" an occupation, and will do, literally, anything to get there. I think Scream 4 did a really good job of demonstrating the grotesque accomplishments young adults will pursue for any level of fame. The scene where the killer runs into a knife, dives onto a coffee table, and does any number of things to secure a "victim" card is utterly ridiculous, and it has to be. Because SNOOKI is covering Rolling Stone. Dr. Drew is hosting Teen Mom. Celebrity's are replacing rehab with Vh1. Reality tv is turning real-life into parody, and I think Scream 4 works to point out how ridiculous pop culture has become in the past decade or so.

Other than that, the movie wasn't scary..I don't think it wanted to be. And I really enjoyed Neve's random Power Ranger routine. After 15yrs, it's time she trends toward hero proper.

[Yourmom]

I hope you'll write about Insidious

[nitro muscle Mass]

A movie shows every thing related human life but we should also learn a movie lot .

[EmilyI]

I'm going into some SPOILERS here...

Going into Scream--or as I like to call it, Screfourem--I felt like it absolutely had to kill one of the three returning characters for me to approve. That was my biggest beef with part 3 (it tried to act like it was going commando but turned into a safe and dumb horror comedy) and I just wanted to see Gail, Dewey "Test Audiences LOVE Me" or Sidney bite it. When they didn't--despite ALL three having multiple chances--I was annoyed, but kind of resigned. Once you THOUGHT Sidney was dead, I actually did feel sad. But then she wasn't and I huffed again.

That being said, I had fun in a crowded theater, chuckling at some of the dialogue and jumping on the rare effective jump scare. I liked the film more than 3 and less than 2, and wouldn't mind a 5th installment. That is the beauty of low expectations.

[Golden J]

I saw this movie at the midnight opening and LOVED it. Certainly helped that the theater felt almost like a Rocky Horror experience (just as it makes the "Slash"-fest out to be) as people were laughing and joining in on the fun. It was hilarious!

[Bellaplex]

I like horror movies who has lots of drama and horrable face . i watch horror shows at night .

[Johan]

The original Scream was life-changing for me. I am not really exaggerating. Scre4m was clearly less so. I didn't really love it but it was earnest and, I think, relevant in a certain way. Visual homages to the previous movies and to other horror movies are indeed relevant in days when your Lady Gagas incorporate their pop-culture references so obligingly. Also in the wake of, perhaps, a Jesse Slaughter, or the recent attack on the trans woman at a McDonalds that was taped, and the significance of this strange internet culture, I don't think it was missing the mark in terms of social commentary. It's just too bad they didn't work hard to be scary.

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[A.Jaye]

Scream 4 is like a middle aged comedian coming out of retirement now the kids are in Harvard and trying it on in the clubs at the wrong end of town.

"My people... you are still my people?"