Thoughts on Scream 4

In which I had to fight very hard with myself not to yell "[Expletive] YEAH FINAL GIRLS!" over and over again.


Scream was the horror flick that (good Lord, nearly fifteen years ago, how time does fly) began the ultra-meta kick when it comes to blood and gore, should it be any shock that in it's (presumably) final chapter it's going to dial things up even harder?  We open with a fake hook, which I was able to spot as a fake.  We then move into another fake hook, which I didn't spot as fake and which nearly made me jump out of my seat.  This second hook, by the way, includes two pretty blondes (Anna Paquin and Kristen Bell, clearly just taking the cameos for the giggles) ripping the unlikelihood that any teenagers would ever speak or act like the Scream kids.  Yes, Kevin Williamson is using a fiction to laugh at his own fiction.  It's far from the only time that he does it, either.  He also giggles at the whole "door closes/opens to shock the audience with a completely harmless character" schtick, the overdone Darth Vader "NOOOOO!", and the plausibility of Neve Campbell continuing to play a Final Girl when her character is supposed to be around thirty-two.

Speaking of: Sidney Prescott for President of the World, everyone else get in line.  Her opening fight involves kicking Ghostface down a flight of stairs so hard that I spent the rest of the flick looking for suspects based upon whether or not they had a broken nose.  Her ending fight involves hurling her cousin Julie (excellently played as the ultimate fame-seeking villain by Emma Roberts) into glass cabinets, attempting to gouge out her eye with a thumb, taking a knee to the abdomen that pops the stitches from the gut wound she took a few hours earlier, defibrillating Julie in the head, and then ultimately shooting our dear villain when the electricity doesn't take.  Earlier in the movie, Julie taunts Sidney by saying that survival is all that she's really good at.  Darlin', you don't have to have a much bigger skill-set when you're just that badass.


It's a good horror movie, especially to watch in a crowded theater that will shout along with you.  It's funny and fairly smart, the gore isn't too terrible (worst moment is very early on), and you're so invested in our principle trio of Sid, Gail, and Dewie that you can't help but cheer when they pull through one more time.

(And, oh, Gail.  Sidney gets the ultimate Final Girl prize, but I love Gail's lines.)