After 11 years Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson return to the franchise that reinvented slasher movies in the 90’s and miraculously deliver a film on par with the original: scary, funny and innovative for a new era of horror movies.

In the interest of full disclosure, I adore Scream. When it was first released in theaters I was working at Blockbuster and thought the trailers looked pretty stupid. Some of my co-workers went and when they came back demanded I see it mostly, I think, off the resemblance they felt I shared with Randy. I went reluctantly and loved it. A lot. It took all the standard horror conventions and turned them on their ear. It was a strong mystery and I went to see it several times with people who hadn’t seen it just to see the looks on their faces when the big reveal happened. Weak follow ups, particularly the third installment, tarnished the brand and has made people cynical over time but the first Scream was terrific and was a refreshing departure from the norm in horror.

Scream 4 finds series heroine Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) returning to Woodsboro as the last stop of her book tour. Sid has written a self help book about going from victim to survivor and her publicist (Alison Brie) thought it would be great publicity to have the final stop be the town where it all started on the anniversary of the original murders. Upon entering town she reconnects with Dewey (David Arquette) and Gail (Courtney Cox) who have now married. Dewey is the town sheriff and Gale is languishing in the small town while trying to write a fiction novel. Unfortunately for Sid and the gang, the event also kicks off a new string of Ghostface murders with Sidney’s niece Jill (Emma Roberts) and her friends at the center of it. The two generations are forced to try to solve the murders which are following a new set of rules for a new era as it appears the killer is trying to remake the original Stab movie (which is in turn based on the events of the first Scream).

Going in to this Scream, especially given my fandom, I was nervous. Sure Kevin Williamson was back writing the script and Wes Craven was back behind the camera but Ehren Kruger,who pretty much ruined Scream 3,  did a polish on the script and holy shit did you see Wes Craven’s last movie My Soul to Take? And after 11 years would they be able to bring back any magic at all? And the landscape of horror has changed a lot since the Scream movies were good so what place would it have in a field dominated by remakes and torture porn. As it turns out, that change in landscape is exactly what gives the movie it’s spark and allows it to deconstruct horror again while reconstructing it however it would like.

We see now that the Stab series that started in Scream 2 has grown to seven installments, each more ridiculous than the last until they are nothing more than parodies of themselves. Through this Scream 4 has a perfect vehicle for being even more self-referential and more directly comment on what is wrong with horror and what is ridiculous. This then allows the movie to turn those things on their ear and break all the rules. And there are new rules.

One of the interesting things that Scream 4 looks into is the new technology available and how that and the prevalence of social networking changes this kind of a situation. Getting a call from a strange guy asking about your favorite scary movie is much freakier in 96 when not everyone had caller id and cell phones were pretty scarce. Now, especially in a world where everyone knows about this particular killer, it is much more difficult to keep people on the phone and much more difficult to scare them when there is a Ghostface app to change your voice to sound like him. Scream 4 plays with this a lot and while some of the characters are still complete fucking idiots and will occasionally do stupid things, they are by and large much more savvy than past installments and give Ghostface a much better run for his money. At this stage of the game, though, Ghostface’s biggest asset is that everyone generally thinks they are too smart and too on top of things to get killed and he uses that to great effect. This works on a secondary level on an audience going in thinking they know what to expect.

Scream 4 is pretty intense with the kills and the gore is jacked up quite a lot. I am not sure how many gallons of blood were used here but I am pretty sure it is a huge step up from the last installment which didn’t use as much as the previous films. The kills are also generally creative while still recalling the kills from the first movie. The killer is trying to make a remake so there are shades of what came before with new twists along the way. The kills are very suspenseful as well and Craven has definitely gotten his groove back showing a steady and patient hand with the scares. The set ups work well even when you know what is coming. That is one of the great things about a Scream movie done well…you are completely off balance because anything at all could happen.

That was one of the things I loved about the first movie. The mystery aspect of it was so well done with such a large slate of suspects and a deft way of giving clues and then taking them away that it was hard not to feel unbalanced and tense upon your first viewing. The second two tried to do this but got so far up their own asses that when the reveal happened it was more or less nonsense and you weren’t given the tools necessary to actually figure it out. Scream 4 returns to its roots and delivers an engaging mystery that similarly offers up and takes away suspects and while I figured it out just before the reveal, I felt a similar sense of being off balance through the whole picture. You add to that a constant tension regarding whether or not any of the returning cast will die and you have a very successfully suspenseful picture.

It isn’t all peaches and cream though. As with just about all horror movies there are some ridiculous things that happen that break suspension of disbelief and yank you out of the movie. It doesn’t happen a lot but there are moments where you have to go ‘okay that is a bit much even for this.’ It is too bad too because the majority is so good that these bits can’t just be written off as being part of B-movie tradition because this is not that kind of horror movie. Still, it is not enough to derail the experience and by the time it starts happening the movie has earned enough equity that it doesn’t matter too much. Also the dumbest moments of this one still kick the ass of the entire third installment.

Conclusion [9.5 out of 10]

As with anything, your mileage may vary here. I am a fan of the original and as such could be pre-disposed to like it. On the other hand, I feel like I would be harder on it if it sucked so take that for what it is worth. If you like self-referential genre deconstruction and are into gore and violence then it is hard to go wrong here. If you find the whole Scream thing irritating and smug then you really won’t dig this one. For me, I loved it and I can’t wait to see it again.