Scre4m (2011)
After an eleven year hiatus Woodsboro’s clumsiest Edvard Munch aficionado returns to test drive his (or hers, or maybe even their) bowie knives on a new generation of unfortunate adolescents and adults. Almost twenty years ago the first Scream film signalled a new strand of self referential and self-aware film-making, its bravura prologue hacking its way into the annals of classic horror through a deft combination of slasher movie tropes, of sassy references to the activities of Michael and Jason’s Rabelaisian homicides, of terrified pretty new young things from the big and small screen, and the horrific and shocking dispatch of a named star that harkens back to Janet Leigh’s death in the slasher genre’s psychotic progenitor. Although there are inevitable nods to the first installment in this latest episode of the franchise Scre4m also decides to season the mix with a plethora of social and new media implications to garnish a new banquet of serial slayings which are thankfully integral to the plot and drive the motives of certain figures, not merely cynical ciphers to display some transparent ‘edginess’ as illuminated in some of Uncle Georges recent mis-fires. In Scre4m, ostentatiously a re-imaging of the franchise under its new sobriquet ‘New Decade, New Rules’ the filmmakers are risking a tricky balancing act – of keeping the franchise fans happy and capturing a new generation of fans to ensure its longevity – a task which one has to judge as a failure given the films poor box office and divided critical response.
After a strong if faintly predictable russian doll opening the films arc settles into a gossamer thin narrative that is more predictable than a North Korean by-election. Sidney Bristow (Neve Campbell, what happened to her career eh?) is back in town on the anniversary of the original carnage to promote the publication of her new self-help book that centres on survival in the face of homicidal odds. Returning with her from the original cast are the ineffectual Officer Riley (David Arquette who spends most of the film anxiously answering his phone and fruitlessly driving from murder scene to murder scene) and his wife Gale Weathers (a Botox enhanced Courteney Cox), the original muck-racking journalist whose career has stalled – perhaps she has a nefarious scheme to rescue her ailing vocation? A clutch of potential suspects and red herrings swiftly emerge in order to keep the audience guessing of the murderous perpetrators identity, amongst them Sidney’s mercenary literary agent who seems capable of doing anything in order to drive up sales of her clients scribblings, Riley’s new police partner Deputy Hicks (which is has just occurred to me is Marley Shelton from Planet Terror) appears to harbour a grudge against Sydney for her invisible status when they were growing up in High School together, the two high school horror film society buffs are always viable suspects (they include a lesser Culkin) and Sidney’s cousin Jill (Emma Roberts, cousin to Julia Roberts apparently) has a moodily suspicious ex-boyfriend named Trevor who seems to be reprising the Skeet Ulrich role from episode uno. The clumsy Ghostface has a different agenda this time around however, yearning to make Sidney pay for her imperiousness by despatching her family and their friends with his/her/its customary void of dexterity, as the body count mounts the potential felon(s) are whittled away until a shocking revelation is made, I could tell you more but then I’d have to kill you….
Scre4m, like its stalemates isn’t in the slightest bit scary and the only real tension is derived from the inevitable parlor game of guessing who or whom the culprits may be. It’s quite unfortunate then that once the film moves into its cruising mode events degenerate into a somewhat turgid parade of frankly unimaginative and dull kills, this franchise lives or dies on the strengths of the affection for the slasher genre and both returning director Wes Craven – who limits proceedings to Dutch angles and murky interiors – and screenwriter Kevin Walker are simply not quite up to the task on this carve of the knife, given the lack of imagination or originality on display for the majority of the movie. That said the opening of the film is laceratingly efficient and immediately sets the post modern tone of the piece, more importantly this episode may just be saved by a final arc that is well executed with a reveal that foxed my amateur visual sleuthing, its contemporary affectation to the cult of celebrity is logical and doesn’t feel like some artificial stab at au courant resonance, and at least one cast member gets a decent enough pay-off line at the apex of the films bloodily enjoyable conclusion. I can’t see any sequels on the horizon and this may be the franchises final death throes, if you’re in a patient mood for two reasonably crafted bookends bisected by an hour or so of tedium then Scre4m is hesitantly recommended.
So that’s the first review in a couple of weeks, forgive me if I’m a bit rusty but hey this movie is yesterdays papers now. From a diary perspective I’ll be putting a few paragraphs together on the holiday – it was pretty epic – before launching into a pretty daunting schedule of reviews that I have planned over the next couple of months, starting with the London Australian Film festival which kicks off toward the end of the week. I’ve got to smuggle in a viewing of the new digital print of Apocalypse Now of course – I’m positively lunatic about seeing that again on the big screen and giving it the epic review that it deserves – whilst also making some plans to see Tree Of Life somehow since the inevitable has occurred and the film now lacks a UK release schedule. It’s enough to make me want to kill someone but Paris beckons…
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