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Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) struggles to keep an edge on her relationship with a serial killer in “Scream 4.” |
I realize that “Scream 4” is supposed to be a self-aware post-modernistic comic horror film, because two soon-to-be skewered blondes tell us this in the film’s fatal opening segment.
But must all the characters in “Scream 4” be as clueless as the camping teens in “Friday the 13th,” when they’re supposed to be aware of the very horror film clichés that they’re now propagating?
Take Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott, who has already survived longer than most of her peers from three previous “Scream” movies. She should be proud of her track record and cash in her chips.
Sidney is in a house when she sees a reflection of a dark silhouette behind her.
Does she run? Call the cops? Arm herself?
Nope.
She investigates and, finding nobody, simply shrugs and goes about her business, despite the fact that she just saw someone in her house while a sadistic serial killer wearing a ghostface mask is butchering the good people of Woodsboro.
The “Scream” movies have finally exhausted writer/producer Kevin Williamson’s original premise to parody mad slasher movie clichés while simultaneously entertaining us with those very same elements.
Creative rigor mortis has set in. (Read more…)