Scream 4

0% fear, 100% playful (sub)genre tongue in cheek. If Craven and Williamson hadn’t missed the European train, or else if they had had the courage to work with it, this could have been better. Much better, if they had left out the superfluous “alternative ending". They aren’t resuscitating the American teenager slasher with this, they are simply proving that it is long since dead and can’t be approached otherwise than by making a comedy. (14/04/2011)

A pleasant meeting with old friends and a much better film than could be expected after My Soul to Take; I liked it as much as the first part. Craven and Williams deliver a pretty effective reflection on the last decades in horror, without altering the spirit of the franchise. It’s still playful and full of references to the genre, some of which are fun, while others are tense. It also makes quite some sense and has a pinch of social satire. I have to say that without that “alternative ending” I would have been shocked and would have admired the courage of the creators, not only to reboot the series, but actually to update it to a 2.0 version. As it is, I’m “only” a satisfied viewer. (14/04/2011)

After a very long hiatus, the regular fourth film has indeed arrived. It’s not a reboot, but a normal old-world sequel. And while no one would have expected it, the film works well as a standalone horror film and as a new installment in a long-running franchise. The film series Stab got its seventh sequel, and the times have changed, but the main thing has remained the same. The main trio works well together. Sidney has written a new book, Out of the Darkness, and it serves as the perfect reason to come home. The younger generation can't do without their phones anymore, everyone is online 24/7, and the dynamics of killing are changing. Excellent supporting roles are played by Shenae Grimes, Anna Paquin, and Kristen Bell. Of the newcomers, Hayden Panettiere and Emma Roberts are very good. And it looks like there will be a regular fifth film after the series. Maybe in 2022. (14/04/2011)

Hayden Panettiere and her Hitchcock-Lady hairstyle is the highlight of the film for me. :-) This juicy slasher tops the previous installments by increasing the body count as well as the number of jokes and film references (both in the dialogue and in the form of posters on the walls). Too bad it came out eleven years after the third Scream and thus serves only as a nostalgic reminder of the famous franchise. The tastes of today’s horror audience have evolved since then. (08/05/2011)

There's a lot of things to highlight here (again, the supremely evocative and increasingly gory murders, the perfectly working old/new casting, or the very imaginative pop culture references), but I honestly appreciated the topical commentary on the online environment the most. "Depravity has become the new norm" is an almost painful statement about the ideological emptiness of our times. I wouldn't have expected a now classic 90's horror film to get this good an update, providing a satirical look at today's (post-factual) society in addition to being entertaining again. Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven have pulled it off in a way they certainly have nothing to be ashamed of. They may not have generated the mass response of the latter half of the 90s, nor have they spawned a new phenomenon, but as a nostalgic close to the franchise, Scream 4 works reliably well. (27/10/2020)