Movie Review: Scream 4 (2011)

Fresh from the theater, my mind is always a tangled web of thoughts and emotions. Therefore, my "review" for Scream 4 will consist of the random thoughts and impressions that have been popping into my head since I left. Yeah yeah, spoilers and all that. Don't I always have spoilers?

- Okay, first things first. The ending pissed me off. Do I even have to explain it? Lame killer reveal and even lamer killer motive. I know, I know. "New decade. New rules." But I was really expecting this movie  to actually be about the main characters/survivors from all the other Scream movies but this one was all over the place. The new characters definitely mimicked ones from the first film, I totally caught on to that, but it still felt weird.

- Most of the previous killers' motives have been really lame too. Or just stupid. Sidney's mom cheated with Billy's dad so Sidney had to pay? Not fair. The only killer with an actual good motive (not that there's really any good motive for mass murder) was Billy's mom. Revenge for the death of her son, caused by Sidney. Stu was a crazy idiot, Mickey was also a crazy idiot, and Roman was a pathetic whiner.

- Going to the beginning of the movie - loved that. For shizz y'all, it pulled me in. The double false start was pretty much a genius move. I think Kevin Williamson knew that everybody was expecting a scene similar to Drew Barrymore's in the first Scream for this movie's opening scene so he decided to totally fuck with our minds but in an awesome way. Thanks, Kevin.

- Hayden Pants-a-lot or whatever her name is wasn't that bad. Secretly, I got a kick out of when she started reeling off the names of horror remakes. I'm pretty sure I was the only one in the theater who has actually seen all of the ones she listed. Oh and by the way, to the giggling teenage girls behind me - FUCK YOU. Fuck you and your skinny jeans and braces and SHUT THE FUCK UP.

- The killer's taunts to the victims on the phone were often, well.... not that great. Something he said to Sidney about slicing up her eyelids got quite a big laugh from the audience I was with. Including me.

- Did I ever mention how much I love the killer's knife in these movies? Well, I love the knife. It's just cool looking, that's all. Shiny.

- Biggest laugh scene in the movie: Cop stabbed in the forehead. I don't know why everyone else was laughing at this scene, but I was laughing because it took him so long to die after getting STABBED IN THE FOREHEAD. If my biology knowledge is correct, your brain is kind of right behind your forehead. I just thought that getting stabbed in the brain would cause you to die almost instantly. Maybe I'm wrong.

- The "movie club" I joined in college was retarded. I needed friends like the ones in the Cinema Club in this movie. Well, you know, except for the one who was a killer.

- Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox-Arquette-minus-the-Arquette are actually way hotter than all the teenage girls in the movie. I know I'm not the only one thinking it.

- A lot of characters. A lot of red herrings. Then the red herrings start getting killed off and we're left with the least likely suspects.

- No, I never guessed who the killer(s) was (were). I tried to suspect everyone and Jill passed through my mind for about a second before I dismissed it as impossible. She's so little. I hope they don't expect us to believe that that skinny bitch was the big stuntman in the Ghostface costume. I'll just assume that the lackey Charlie did all the killing.

- Mmm, bloody aftermath of Olivia's death. Niiiice.

- Dewey's the sheriff now. Yea for him!

- Lots of scenes reminiscent of the first film. My favorite? The first aerial sweeping shot of Woodsboro High that is almost identical to the one in Scream and with similar music. But to reference the first film so much, does this mean that this is really the end? I've seen inklings around the net of more films to come, but seriously. The phrase "beating a dead horse" comes to mind.

- "There's something you forgot about remakes: Don't fuck with the original." Well said, Ms. Prescott. And how wittingly apropos of your current situation. I really liked that about Scream 4. It still kept up with what was "in" about the genre like the first film did. Back then we only knew about the dime a dozen slashers from the 80s and now the big thing is all about remakes. So the Scream franchise is still self-aware of its time and self-aware of the fact that it is self-aware. I'm still into all that. I love it.

- Does everyone in the world have a fucking iPhone besides me? You wanna know what my cell phone can do? It can make calls. And text. And take pictures and movies that I can't send to anyone because I don't pay for internet access. Now I have to have something that has a Ghostface voice app?

- Small word on the trailers I saw before Scream 4. On Priest, those vampires look a helluva lot like the Lickers in the Resident Evil games. On Apollo 18, are you fucking punking us with that shit??? Never thought I would see the day where we have a movie taking place on the moon. On the freaking moon, people.

- On second thought, if the iPhones actually had a Ghostface voice app, I would totally buy one just for that.

- No matter what I just said, I LOVED SCREAM 4.