Scream 4

You can't keep a good franchise down. When Scre4m hits theaters in April, 2011, it will have been eleven years since the last installment of the series. However in the era of digging up the corpses of 80's flicks and adding new installments (Rambo, Rocky, Indiana Jones) this is hardly a record. Blessedly, Scream is a 90's franchise, so the kitsch of "oh, they're bringing this back?" isn't quite as, well... kitschy.

The three surviving cast members from the original trilogy, Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette, return for this fourth jaunt. Also returning is Roger Jackson, the 'voice' of the ghost-face killer from the originals.

My first observation has to be that this preview feels oddly unexcited to be a Scream movie. I recall the previews for 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park,' 'Terminator 2,' or even something as silly as 'Bad Boys II,' and there was once a delight in announcing that a sequel was upon us.





Scre4m's trailer starts right off with the familiar, "Hello, Sydney." Boom, Neve Campbell. Boom, phone voice. Hm. We must be watching another Scream movie.

Anyway, aside from that disappointment, the teaser sticks to the rules (ha! See what I did there? Cause it's a scream movie?) that it has set up for its trailers. The trailer just shows the movie geek sharing the 'rules' of the latest installment while footage of people running from Ghostface play over it. Scream 2 had a very similar teaser with Jamie Kennedy explaining the rules of the sequel to Arquette.

Interestingly, the trailer walks the line of major spoilers, yet like the True Grit trailer, I suspect these are mis-leading at best. Especially considering that within the span of the same preview, we see Courtney Cox apparently being killed by Ghostface, and then taking off the mask, revealing herself as Ghostface.

While I suspect that one of the survivors (likely Cox) gets offed in this installment, I doubt very much they would show us any of her death scene in the preview. And while it's fun to imagine Cox and Arquette being the killers this time, I highly doubt that as well.

Meta-movie references, pretty girls, silly jokes, and mass murder aplenty, this looks like, dare-I-say, just another installment in yet another horror franchise. What will be interesting to see is how the film acknowledges the era of horror films today (a hint of which is seen as Cox finds a camera, over the suggestions that the killer today films his murders).

I enjoy the Scream movies, and I'm sure I will enjoy Scre4m. On the interest in a new installment, I will give it high marks, but on the strength of the trailer alone, this one gets an 'In Theaters.'

Pic opens April 15, 2011.