"What is your favorite scary movie: Yes, again."

Title: Scream 4
Year: 2011
Genre: Horror, Mistery, Thriller
Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Kevin Williamson
Runtime: 111min
Cast: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere, Rory Culkin
Produc.: Dimension Films, Corvus Corax Productions, Outerbanks Entertainment, The Weinstein Company, Midnight Entertainment
Budget: $40 million approx.

In the year 2000, director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson put an end to a trilogy that had managed to gain fans around the world, by telling in another way the typical story of the serial killer.

As is well known, giving the green light to a movie is almost always complicated. However, after many twists and turns, Dimension Films decided to hire Williamson again to write a fourth installment with the same main characters, except that this time it would be approached in a different way for new audiences.

So with Scream 4 it was intended to change the formula, but failing dramatically. What is it, if you will, the most interesting thing of the film? That in the end the script is in line with what are today the relationships among adolescents: the characters are constantly texting each other and the murderer films his crimes with a sophisticated little camera. However, this aspect, which happens to be the greatest novelty of the film, is overshadowed by a script that lacks of truly original ideas, something that happens simply because "there are none." Already from the first scene there is an attempt to be original, applying the concept of meta-television (a movie within a movie), but that remains completely out of context, giving us nothing more than a little surprise.

Beyond this situation, there is a constant playing with the handling of the dialogues which aims to give nods to other horror films and to the previous films in the series. It is evident at all times, how Williamson must have said to himself that he had to change the rules of survival within the genre, while writing this film. Each of the deaths we see occurs in pure cliché, when what they´re trying is not to be it; it only makes one to lose respect for the actors.

Finally, what everyone wants to know is who the killer is. When we discover who it is, we find another flaw in the film, since the choice of the villain and the motive for killing is only held with tweezers.

In this way, is it worth going to see it to the cinema? I think that if what one is looking for is to be entertained with the typical little story, then there would be no trouble. But if instead, one wants something new, then it´s not worth it.

My rating: 3/10

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