'Scream 4' A Review

Sidney's back in Woodsboro promoting her new self help book. Surprise! Murder! The formula is the same as the previous movies but whats interesting is how Scream 4 plays with and comments on that formula and movies in general. I won't go into details with the plot and honestly that wasn't what held my interest. What was interesting was how meta the movie was. Probably the most meta movie I've ever seen. When I say meta I mean something that refers to itself as what it is. A movie referring to itself as a movie, a play referring it to itself as a play, etc.

The interesting parts of this film are the parts where you see Wes Craven struggling with his own franchise. Within the movie we see Craven struggling with making his movie new and fresh. See him struggling to the next logical progression in his movies given the technological and societal advances that have been made in the last ten years. Maybe I'm giving him more credit than he deserves but there are a couple of great ideas hidden in this film.

(spoilers)
The idea that the logical progression of a slasher movie nut would be to film all their kills and cut a movie from the footage and release it on the Internet. Imagine that movie. The idea of a movie nut streaming his entire experience from a camera headset straight to the Internet. The killers desire to orchestrate a series of murders, frame someone, and then become famous from them. What does that say about fame?

The movie was good just for nostalgic sake. It was nice to see Neve, Courtney, and David again. There were a lot of fun 'Easter eggs', some cool false turns, and a decent pay off. What was really cool were some of the ideas about the series in general. What is horror. How does this fit in. What is the next step. The logical progression.

If you're a movie buff or a horror fan. See it.