Scream 4

For me....I've been counting down the days for this to come out ever since I saw the third one. I love the Scream series and will always be a fan of them. It's cool that even with all the torture, hillbilly, monster, etc franchises out there...there's one that sticks true to its' roots. There is no mystical force or trap that will cut you apart limb by limb this movie. It's just an old-fashioned killing spree done by people that you probably know and have close contact with.

First off, the positives. Well, in addition to loving the original three, I really liked some of the new cast members as well. I thought Kirby was a breath of fresh air in the series, and I also enjoyed Allison Brie's role as Sid's publicist and I liked the movie geek as well (can't remember his name at the moment). As for the entertainment level, I believe it was very high. The beginning is absolutely perfect. You're holding your breath and laughing your ass off at the same time. The first 10 minutes is spot on in its' hilarity and chills.

 I was entertained from beginning to end, and actually appreciated that the characters had dialogue that just wasn't focused on sex and swearing like a lot of other teen horror movies. It's cool that Wes Craven actually depicts these teenagers as people with....well, brains. The kills are pretty graphic as well, I'll go out on a limb and say that Olivia's death is easily the most brutal murder of the four movies. And that's a pretty big accomplishment considering some of the harsh murders in the past (Tatum, Casey and Steve, the couple in the beginning of Scream 2, and...well, nothing in Scream 3).

The identity of the killers is pretty surprising as well, and I found their motive to be, well, relevant. It's all about fame these days, and what people will be wiling to go to in order to achieve it. I liked how the reasoning was simple and straight-forward, as opposed to Scream 3 where it was this fairly lame, kinda ridiculous explanation. Scream 4 achieves frights and humor, which seems to be something that many recent horror movies try to do...but end up failing at.

Now, for the negatives. First off, I read that there were a ton of reshoots for certain scenes, and well...i think that hurt the movie at times. If you watch the trailers, several parts were cut out that I think could have given more characterization to Scream. After all, the Scream series has always been about giving you characters that you care about, so when they meet their bloody demises...you actually feel something when they die. Several characters in this movie might as well have been called, "That soon to be dead dude/chick".Another thing that kinda bugged me was the ending, well, in certain aspects of the ending. Like I said before, I liked being surprised with who the killer was and I found the scenes where they were recreating the scene from the original movie to be quite hilarious. But, I felt like it went on for way too long. The scenes in the hospital just seemed so unnecessary to me.

Overall though, I was quite impressed with Scream 4 and consider it to be a solid entry into the Scream franchise. Bring on number 5!

3/4