Ten years since Scream 3, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette and the Ghostface Killer are back. The original writer (Kevin Williamson) and director (Wes Craven) also return. New knife fodder includes Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere, Adam Brody and Rory Culkin.
It’s been a long time between drinks for the Scream series and the latest offering starts out strong with an extended movie-within-a-movie sequence. The content it contains will be familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of the earlier versions but this time it is expanded on and the self aware humour is ratcheted up. Fitting, as the movie sticks to this approach throughout the remainder.
Whilst there’s nothing terribly new on offer with regards to the storyline, the whodunit element is well played with plenty of plausible candidates for the killer. The revealed identity is an interesting one and makes a decent comment on fame in modern society. Commentary of a more cultural bent is included via the self-referential black humour, with everything from the horror genre to the cast, to even horror fans themselves, light-heartedly being made fun of. The switching between jokes and traditional horror elements – old-fashioned devices like sudden movement and jarring offscreen noises – is well handled.
This fourth instalment will please the older fans of the series and should make some new ones amongst the audience who were too young to catch Scream on its first go round. There’s not much more you can ask of a sequel ten years removed from its predecessors.
By Andreas Heinemann, Flicks.co.nz
i love the scream movies they're more of a thriller than a horror but som parts are very gruesome :)
predictable, fake and scareless. I think I even fell asleep at one point. waste of time
i reckon by far the best scariest movie ever
I cringed the whole way through. I think they need to stop making this franchise. Or they need to change Wes Craven as the director. It wasn't scary, just lame.
it was funni awsome i loved it
All through the movie, Scream 4 lets us know that it knows exactly what it's up to - and then goes right ahead and gets up to it.
A desire to Know What You Did Last Installment is likely to be the biggest draw for Scream number four, but if this proves to be the last in the series, it's a bloody shame it ended not with a Scream but a whimper.
The kills themselves are both bountiful and bloody, the movie references are brilliant and bloody, the funny is very frequent and very frequently bloody, but to say any more would ruin the boo.
The central conceit of the characters' fates being determined by the "rules" of horror movies feels irredeemably tired; a clever idea that was worth one movie.
Better than the woeful Scream 3, partly thanks to the influx of new faces and the return of Williamson. But really it’s more of the same, as the franchise slips further towards total self-parody.
We've been told the NZ release date for this flick is Thursday, 14th Apr 2011.
Release date: April 14th 2011.
We haven't received times for this movie in this location yet. However these are updated as cinemas announce them, so check back soon. Hopefully the lovely cinemas in your location will choose to play it shortly. ~Ed.
