- Title: Scream 4
- IMDb: link
Scream Sunday takes us back to the world of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) in the worst movie (at least so far) of the 30 year-old franchise. The characters feel far too long-in-the tooth at this point as the film goes extra-hard with Stab parody sequel cameos (featuring the likes of Anna Paquin, Kristen Bell, Shenae Grimes, and Lucy Hale) and new Ghostface killings (this time with the killer filming their own murders) while limping to an unsatisfying twist ending that ties in social media feeding narcissism and fame-seeking without delivering a satisfying conclusion.
The story has Sidney returning to Woodsboro after writing a best-seller about her experiences. Her return, and the anniversary of the murders, fuels new murdering shenanigans around town involving Sidney and fellow Scream staples Dewey (David Arquette) and Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) who are somehow always broken up but still end up together. In terms of new characters we get Sidney’s younger cousin Jill (Emma Roberts) and her best-friend Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) along new movie nerds Charlie (Rory Culkin) and Robbie (Erik Knudsen) and Deputy Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton). As for stabbing fodder we also get Alison Brie, Aimee Teegarden, Anthony Anderson, Adam Brody, Marielle Jaffe, and Nico Tortorella as Jill’s ex-boyfriend.
Panettiere’s character is really the only addition of note with Kirby living into the next iteration of the franchise. Much of Scream 4 feels like a half-hearted cash-grab following the “finished trilogy” of the first three Scream films, reuniting the characters fans love with mostly regurgitated events already explored while offering only a slightly different flavor of crazy for our killer.
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