Scream 4

So I've reported on the films that I have seen at Glasgow Cineworld so in the next few blogs I'm going to talk about films I want to see. The first film that I've been dying to see (quite ironic, you'll see why) is Scream 4 and it is an upcoming slasher film which is the fourth installment in the Scream series. It was directed by Wes Craven and it stars David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Emma Roberts and Hayden Panettiere. Campbell, Arquette and Cox are the only returning cast members from the previous films. Originally, the series was intended to be a trilogy, but after ten years, Bob Weinstein thought it was time for another film. It is intended to be the first of a new trilogy, with Wes Craven signed on for the duration. It is due to be released on April 15, 2011.

The original Scream film tells the story of the fictional town Woodsboro, California being terrorized by a masked killer who enjoys tormenting his victims with phone calls and movie references. The killer's main target is Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a teenage girl whose mother, Maureen, fell victim to a brutal murder one year earlier. The film takes the form of a "whodunit" mystery, with many of her friends and townspeople being fellow targets and suspects. After the original film Scream 2 and Scream 3 were released following the same base storyline of Sidney Prescot being stalked by a killer known as 'Ghostface'.

Scream 4 commences several years after the events of Scream 3, where Sidney Prescott returns to her home town of Woodsboro on the 15th anniversary of the first Woodsboro Murders for a tour of her new self-help book, where she encounters former allies Sheriff "Dewey" Riley (David Arquette) and entertainment journalist Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), as well as her younger cousin Jill Roberts (Emma Roberts), her best friend Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere), aunt Kate Roberts (Mary McDonnell), and several of Jill's high school friends. However, with her return to Woodsboro also comes the return of past slasher-killer Ghostface, who is starting to stalk and kill Jill's friends and several other people in the Woodsboro area. The killer is now taking reference from horror-movie remakes by basing their murders on those similar to ones committed in the movie Stab, only with more twists on the 21st-century horror movie: in order to survive, Sidney, Dewey, Gale, Jill, and her friends must band together and follow the conventions of 21st-century horror movies to determine who the killer is and stop them before the murders spiral out of their control.

I am a big fan of the Scream films as they are old school horror as they don't need: brutal torture, rape, horrificly disfigured villains or anything else disturbing to make it interesting. Instead the genious of the film comes from: the many tense moments, some slight gore (to keep up with the times), the tounge-and-cheek humour about following traditional horror movie rules to not get killed and the fact that the murderer is just someone in a mask.

I love how the movie has still included the three main characters along with introducing new, younger characters to attract a new generation. I grew up watching old school slasher films and really enjoyed the Scream trilogy so this makes me really excited to embark on a new direction to horror.