Have The Critics Stopped Screaming, Craven?

   I'll admit it, I was excited when I saw the trailer for Scream 4. I have seen all my favorite horror films rebooted and unimagined, it's getting old. Having the original director and original actors of Scream reuniting was like a breath of fresh air.

   The film takes place 15 years after the events of Scream 1. Sydney is now survival girl pimping her latest book, when the murders start she becomes something she's never been before, a suspect. Dewey who is now a sheriff forces her to stay in Woodsboro until things clear up. Dewey and Gail are married which is kind of depressing when you remember that David Arquette and Courtney Cox are separated. Gail is bored with her small town life and suffering a case of writer's block.

    Sydney becomes concerned when her niece becomes a target of the new and improved Ghostface. Yes, I said niece. Sydney gets some random family members shoehorned into a script, Maureen apparently had a sister. A sister that is strangely absent from the series considering Maureen and her death was a cornerstone of the original trilogy.

     A major disappointment was the bevvy of known actresses who graced the trailer, Lucy Hale, Shanae Grimes, Anna Paquin, and Kristen Bell are only in the false openings of the films. Yes openings as in plural, one false start is cute but two that's just pushing it.

    As with the other Scream films, people die, the teenagers are precocious and obnoxiously genre savvy, and a killer is revealed. I won't spoil the film with the revelation of the killer I will only say that is was tacked on and dull.

    Logically, Sydney should have been the killer. Come on, for fifteen years, this character watched everyone near and dear to her slaughtered mercilessly. She had to kill her own brother and boyfriend. Death seemingly follows her wherever she goes, she's like a younger bustier Jessica Fletcher in that aspect. It certainly would of been a far more interesting ending.

   Scream 4 isn't bad, it's just not too original and pushes too hard to be trendy and "with it." It's a nice way to spend a couple of hours but don't expect the wit and suspense that made Scream 1 such a hit.