The title tells no lies. Scream 4 is overrated, overdone, overappreciated and completely unnecessary to the Scream franchise.
The Scream franchise has existed since 1996. The movie had two sequels one in 1997 titled Scream 2 and one a few years later called Scream 3. The series declared it was over with Scream 3, however, it continued 10 years later in 2011 when Scream 4 was released. The movie was portrayed as a hot new film in the Scream franchise. It utilized technology and used more blood and props to try to better the ambiance. This film however failed me. The official 4/5 rating is completely undeserved and this movie doesn’t add anything new to the series. The movie is just the first Scream, with all the fun removed and a bunch of “2010-2011” jokes put in its place.
To begin, let’s review the limited things to like about Scream 4. The gore in this series is some of the best out of the franchise. They have the usual legacy characters of Gale, Dewey and, of course, Sydney. The characters try their best to make this movie something unique and their characters are the only reason I could sit through this movie. And of course, the Ghostface voice played by Robert L. Jackson. The iconic voice is my favorite, as usual. The 3rd movie didn’t use the Ghostface voice as much as the other ones. However, in this movie, his voice is used much more. Now, let’s get to this movie’s faults.
THE. HORRIBLE. REVEAL. This paragraph will spoil the Ghostface reveal so skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know. The Ghostface reveal of Jill and Charlie is the worst reveal I have ever seen, even worse than Roman in Scream 3. The reveal of Jill and Charlie makes no sense and they’re both very weak which shows that Ghostface is “stronger” than Sydney. Charlie being the “muscle” makes no sense as he is skinny and doesn’t appear to have visible strength. Also, the Ghostface is shown to be taller than Sydney and Gale when Jill and Charlie are actually shorter than Sydney. The movie can’t spend 10 seconds showing platform boots or something like that. Even further, the motives are lackluster. Charlie was only there because they needed another killer. Jill’s motive is that she wants to become famous, so she naturally decides to go on a mass murdering spree instead of uploading a makeup tutorial. When looking at reviews for the movie, I found that most viewers thought that “Jill is a good killer since Jill and Sydney are related, and when we get the reveal it’s like Sydney is the killer, which is what fans have been wanting for years.” This is a terrible reason to like the motive. It’s not Sydney being revealed as the killer, it’s a low-budget version if anything.
The cast of this movie is horrible, and the characters aren’t even legacy characters. The only enjoyable character is Kirby, who is a well-written horror fan. While she doesn’t make the best choices to survive, she still ends up surviving. I have already gone over Jill and Charlie’s painful characters. Other characters include a boring boyfriend, a boring neighbor, a one-dimensional tech kid and a boring best friend of Jill. The cast is all one-dimensional and only exists to increase the death count.
The side-plot about the movie marathon. There is a side plot where the Ghostface killer tries to lure everyone to a STAB movie marathon, a fictional movie franchise in the Scream universe based on the events of Scream. It’s hyped up for most of the first act but once we get to it, no one dies. Gale gets stabbed in the shoulder and hospitalized but otherwise, no one gets injured or hurt by the Ghostface killer. The movies are also 2hrs each and there are seven of them. So they started the marathon at 8 pm and they were going to get out around probably 11 am the next morning? Also, who lets their kids go to an all-night movie marathon when there’s a killer on the loose? Even if this was a minor part of the movie, it was still frustrating how unrealistic it was.
The opening was also horrendous. It starts with the twist that it’s in a movie, and then that movie is also in a movie, so there are two fakeouts. Also, the killer tricks real people. The killer does get some good gore, but instead of the handheld voice changer, suddenly it’s an app on the phone and you can just enable it randomly.
All in all, Scream 4 is a dumpster pile of trash, and I give it a 1/10. I wish this movie had just as much soul as the others in the series. The movie needed a better cast and a longer time in the oven. This movie was not the best in the end but it is still a Scream, but just the worst one ever made.
