Here's a take: the Scream movies were good actually. Back in 2011 when Scream 4/Scre4m came out, these movies seemed done, out of style, and sequel seemed pointless. Honestly, I don't remember why we horror fans turned on these movies. I loved Scream as a little kid. I like a lot of the movies Scream inspired. Urban Legend is great. Young adult mystery slashers with a cool, sexy, meta edge? Why would we hate that? I was an asshole in college, probably.
Or maybe it was the lingering bad memory of Scream 3...
So, I did not see Scre4m back in 2011 since I thought I was too good for it. And as an unprofessional critic, in every sense, let me tell you: you are not too good for anything. Especially not horror. Horror is for everybody.
Every Scream movie tries to be a satire on some aspect of a horror franchise. Scream 2 was about sequels, Scream 3 said it was about trilogies but really was about nothing since that movie sucks, and now Scre4m is about remakes. Ten years ago every horror movie was a remake, it was a plague. Scre4m is set in Woodsboro, a generation after the first massacre. We have a new cast of media and genre-savvy teenagers who find themselves replaying the events of the first movie. So instead of Sidney (Neve Campbell), the heroine is her baby cousin, Jill (Emma Roberts). The Ghostface killer is back, and with him comes the key trio of all these movies, Sidney, Gale (Courteney Cox), and Dewey (David Arquette).
If there's an issue here, it is that Scre4m has to be a remake and a sequel at the same time. The old cast really have nothing to do except hang around. Unfortunately, they take up too much time away from the new cast, who are mostly great. I love Emma Roberts. Joining her is Hayden Panettiere, Rory Culkin, Alison Brie, and Marielle Jaffe, who are all pretty great. Erik Knudsen's character of Robbie is a fucking obnoxious shithead who is livestreaming his entire life. He's an unfortunate reminder that this movie was made by very old, out-of-touch people who think kids say words like "cyberspace". Ultimately, I wish the new cast had more screentime. The second hour mostly goes to them and it is the best half of Scre4m.
In remake terms, I'm a bit unimpressed. Scream 1 had star power, man. Emma Roberts is way underrated but still, Hayden Panettiere is the only big-ish name in this new cast. Where is the early 2010s version of Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, or Drew Barrymore? I suppose all the big names were busy making Scott Pilgrim or Twilight instead. We needed a Robert Pattinson in this, is what I'm saying. Kristen Bell and Anna Paquin show up, but only as joke cameos in a movie-within-a-movie.
Still, Scre4m is pretty good. These movies are never not fun. Even Scream 3 had fun parts in it. There is actually gore this time. You see intestines. The mystery has good surprises and some great satire at the end. The idea of teenage murder sprees is as edgy today as it was in the Nineties With so many shootings now, there is a lot of dark ground to cover. Emma Robert is fantastic in this and gets the best and funniest scenes. The older cast might not have much to do but they're still putting in good acting. Courteney Cox can still do it, man.
And yeah, if you love Wes Craven at all, you need to see this. It is his last movie and not a bad one. Plus, Scream 5 is coming in 2022. I hope they finally just go full supernatural with it and give us a zombie Matthew Lillard.
Next time: Eyes Without a Face (1960), AKA: The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus.
No comments:
Post a Comment