I never thought I would say this in my entire f**king life, but Halloween: Resurrection did it first.
Honestly, Scream 4 has the most commendable twist out of all the sequels. There’s at least something worthwhile in Wes Craven’s attempt to speak on behalf of both the media and the entertainment industry’s modern obsession with wanting to relive the past success (whether misunderstood or not) of others, therefore influencing the younger generation in burdening ways.
Howbeit, I’m a little disheartened though that this ended up being Wes Craven’s final movie. If you’re familiar with the Scream franchise up until this point, you may know about how it tends to stumble into hypocrisies at times, considering each one strives to be a self-aware take on its genre yet can’t help but fall into the formula it passive-aggressively demeans and celebrates.
Well, the final one takes it to a whole other level… for worse.
I imagine this fourth installment could be considered Craven’s “Michael Haneke” moment where he takes us through over an hour of almost unbearably boring retread just to make a statement on the dull experience that we had by its conclusion. This entire movie basically works as one quirky experiment, one where the movie is mostly the pointless, highly inferior remake-sequel hybrid for which many will hate until *suddenly* it reveals its true colors during a marginal moment of exposition. Yet, that risky elongation of meta to me is not enough to justify the lack of entertainment the build-up of this sequel has especially when in comparison to its flamboyant predecessors, not to also mention the idealistic predictability that ensues after the big twist is revealed. Scream 4 is essentially saying that it’s allowed to be the typical, gore-crazy and visually over-saturated modern reboot because it features once again its self-aware trademark schematics to excuse the bulls**t. However, these genre tricks seem to have reached a dead end for me, as I’ve become far too traditionalized and desensitized from them after watching 3 previous films that committed similar to still care for.
Plus, this one doesn’t give me Raja Gosnell Scooby-Doo vibes so it’s automatically bottom-tier of the franchise for me.
Verdict: D+
“Scream 4” is now available to rent on Amazon Prime.
Burning the Celluloid 
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