Wes Craven Skillfully Professes His Love for His 15-Year-Old Self
Sidney Prescott, who has managed to survive five maniacs and several dozen friends over three films, returns to Woodsboro precisely on the fifteenth anniversary of the first massacre (the first “Scream” (1996)). In the time that has passed since the last murders (the third “Scream 3” (2000)), she has managed to write a book and is now touring the country with a press tour. However, the idea of stopping by her homeland along the way turns out to be not very successful: another Mask copycat greets Sidney with bloody murders of local teenagers, among whom may be Sidney’s newly appeared cousin.
What’s your favorite scary movie? – the maniac inquired at the beginning of the very first “Scream.” What’s your favorite scary movie? – reads the bloody inscription left by the killer on the wall of one of his new victims’ house. And even though over the years since the release of the original film, the public’s tastes in this matter have changed repeatedly, the wording itself will not lose its relevance as long as the “terrible” genre is alive. Which Wes Craven has been using for the fourth “Scream” in a row.
In the 10-minute scene that opened the first film, Drew Barrymore called “Halloween”. The heroes of the new “Scream” prefer “Stab”, staged based on the events in Woodsboro. However, they have their own opinion on almost every horror film that has been released in recent years. For example, they believe that a modern killer should film his atrocities on camera, watch “Shaun of the Dead” (2004) at their leisure, and criticize “Saw” for excessive cruelty.
Key Facts About Scream
- “Scream” is the only horror franchise that has retained the same main characters throughout four films.
- David Arquette and Courteney Cox are actually married, but decided to separate this fall.
- Ashley Greene (“Twilight”) was originally going to play Sidney’s cousin.
- The film’s budget is 40 million dollars.
Meta-Horror at Its Finest
Moreover, these moviegoers, all as one, habitually measure their own chances of survival according to the laws of the horrors they watch. They constantly flirt with us, the viewers, but never dare to speak out. Actually, it is this “meta” component (and not the maniac in a cheap Halloween mask at all) that made the previous films so special. Craven remained true to her in the new “Scream” as well. In addition, he managed to return the entire surviving cast of the previous ones to the fourth part. Everything is correct: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, the characteristic fatigue on whose faces, nevertheless, evokes vivid pictures in the imagination of how the “veterans” begged screenwriter Kevin Williamson to finally send their characters to eternal rest.
A New Generation of Victims
A new generation of high school students, providing their bodies to illustrate the updated laws of the genre, are played by various pleasant young people like Hayden Panettiere, Anna Paquin and Emma Roberts, whose most active participation boils down to showing respect for the veterans. And here would be the very moment to reproach Wes Craven for self-parody. However, in the first film, he mocked his characters quite mercilessly (for example, Sidney’s boyfriend compared their platonic relationship with the television version of “The Exorcist”, from which all the most interesting things were cut out). It’s just that then it was the first time, and in the current version it looks like a meeting of an extremely strange film club, where sexy blondes “know” the biography of Mike Myers no worse than bearded geeks from the Bloody Disgusting website, and incorrect answers regarding the fate of Sidney Prescott are punished by exclusion. Because “don’t touch the original!”