by Chris Vegvary
Over the years, Wes Craven has given us some pretty powerful
stuff. He made a film in 1977 called The
Hills Have Eyes that showed us what a bunch of mutated, sick freaks out
that live in the desert are capable of doing to a suburban family. In 1984, he
gave the world Freddy Krueger, a child killer who is burned alive by a mob of
angry parents, only to return in the dreams of their children to take his
revenge. In 1996, the rules of horror movies were changed forever with Wes
Craven’s film, Scream.
In Scream, the
town of Woodsboro is under attack by a killer in a black costume who wears a
ghost-faced mask, and who calls his victims on the phone, asking them "What's your favorite scary movie?" followed by a horror movie quiz and then death, or just taunting and death. Sidney Prescott, played by Neve Campbell, is the central
character of all four films in the series. In the first film, she discovers
that not only did she accuse the wrong man of murdering her mother previous to
the events of the movie, but the one actually responsible for that murder as
well as the outbreak of murders in the film is none other than her boyfriend
and one of her good friends. They are, of course, dispatched in the end.
In the second film, Sidney goes off to college, having left
her old life behind after most of her friends were killed in the Woodsboro
murder spree. Unfortunately for her, Ghostface is not finished with her yet,
and another killing spree is set into motion. This one also features two
killers, revealed to be Sidney’s former serial-killing boyfriend’s mother and
one of Sidney’s own classmates, and was the last of the good films in the
series, in my opinion.
Scream 3 felt to
me like it got way off track. Sidney secretly has a half-brother who’s jealous
of her life or something to that effect? Come on. By this point in the series,
it was almost too predictable, not to mention that it just wasn’t that good. We
know certain characters just aren’t going to die, so we’re not super worried
about their fates. What else is there? Do we care if all these new people
introduced in this film die? Since none of them are particularly likeable, then
no, not really.
Scream 4 was Wes
Craven’s most recent attempt at recapturing the magic from the first film.
Unfortunately, it fell flat. Feels to me like it tried to recreate the formula
of horror movies first seen in Scream
for a new generation of people who are glued to computers, tablets, iPhones,
and so on. While there were some interesting ideas, it just seems like it’s not
working anymore. Sorry, Sidney Prescott, but I think your adventuring days are
over.
Will there be a Scream
5? Only time will tell on that one, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Scream 4 was the final nail in the
franchise’s coffin. I've heard rumors of a remake, and I'm like "Whaaaaat? Way too soon." It was fun while it lasted, for the first two films anyway,
but now it’s time to move on.
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