Dan Abel’s review published on Letterboxd:
31 DAYS OF HORROR 2024 - Film 7
"One generation's tragedy is the next one's joke."
Wow. True.
It's been ten years since the events that occurred in Hollywood, and since then Sidney Prescott has made a comfortable life for herself as an author. On her most recent book tour, she makes her return to where it all began, that infamous small town of Woodsboro. She isn't the only one to make a homecoming though. The masked killer Ghostface makes of return of it's own.
It took ten years, a proper amount of time for the series to breathe after being on the verge of going stale, but what should have ended as a trilogy returns with the dreaded "part 4" in Scream 4. I was actually surprised to see Wes Craven take the helm on this one, extending his franchise streak to four films. Is this kudos to him, or just a cash grab? Time to find out.
Scream 4, or Scre4m, takes a step in the right direction as far as runtimes are concerned, clocking in at well under two hours, and does a better job trimming the bloat. We get more of the same core cast that I've grown to love, as well as a solid slate of new faces like Hayden Panettiere and Rory Culkin, brother of the Home Alone legend. It continues the Scream tradition of referencing many other films, with some nice little cameos to boot. While the first act led me to believe this film would crank up the gore and practical FX that were less prevalent in the two sequels before it, we return to more of the same boring stabby-stabby stuff later on. What a missed opportunity. Oh well.
This is a film that tries to do everything bigger than all the previous entries in the franchise in ways that shake out both good and bad. Sometimes it works, and other times... well... it doesn't. The killer’s reveal is among the most surprising in the series, but its lackluster backstory felt like a major missed opportunity. For all the suspense, it lands with more of a shrug than a scream. It's easily my least favorite Ghostface in the series. It took ten years to return to Woodsboro, and while it may not be the perfect return, it was good enough to maintain the ★★★½ rating earned by the films before it. If there's one thing the Scream titles are, it's consistent on a quality level and this time around is no exception.
Onto the next two films. The two not led by the late, great, Wes Craven. I'll try to approach them with an optimistic perspective as I always do.
R.I.P. Wes Craven.
"You forgot the first rule of remakes, [redacted], don't fuck with the original!"
