Horror Lamb

Scream 4 takes place in 2011. 10 years after the events of Scream 3.
Still directed by Wes Craven and thankfully Kevin Williamson returned to write the script, although Weinstein did hire Kruger from Scream 3 to “polish” the script, which is an odd choice after firing him from that movie.

The movie starts off with a cold open kill just like the other movies, which turns out to be a scene from stab 6, where we get a second cold open kill, which turns out to be a scene from stab 7. Que our 3rd opening kill, but we are finally out of the Stab universe and in Woodsboro with our real Ghostface.

Sidney, who is now a published self help author returns to Woodsboro on the last stop of her book tour conveniently on the anniversary of the massacre. Dewey is now our Sherriff and happily married to Gale. We are also introduced to the rest of our cast.
Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) Jill Roberts(Emma Roberts) who is Sydney’s cousin, Olivia (Marielle Jaffe), Deputy Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton) who is clearly in love with Dewey. Robbie Mercer (Erik Knidsen), our film geek who live streams his entire life. Charlie Walker, (Rory Culkin) Trevor Sheldon (Nico Tortorella) who is Jill’s on again off again boyfriend and Rebecca Walters (Alison Brie) who is Sidney’s publicist.

At Sidney’s book signing, the sheriff department turns up, looking for a cell phone taken from our first murder scene, they trace it to the trunk of Sidney’s rental car where we find a knife and a bunch of blood.

Gale is back to being a hilarious bitch to everyone, but mostly our love sick deputy.
Olivia and Jill start getting threatening phone calls from our killer.
Sidney is forced to stay in Woodsboro while the police investigate so she stays with Jill, who has Kirby over to watch Shaun of the Dead. They decide to prank call Olivia who lives next door, while they’re on the phone, Kirby gets a call from our killer and they watch Olivia get butchered from the window. Sidney runs to help her, but gets there too late, Jill gets a knife to the arm, Sidney and Ghostface tussle and the cops turn up just as he disappears.

Teenagers are always gonna be stupid, but after 4 murders, they still decide to have Stab-A-Thon a yearly event where all the stab movies are played back to back while everyone gets shit faced. Gale infiltrates wearing a Ghostface mask and sets up a bunch of camera’s so she can watch from her car, Ghostface covers all of her camera’s, she calls Dewey who is a bit of a dick and she goes back in to fix her camera’s. while she is there she finds the killers own camera’s before she is attacked by Ghostface, she is stabbed in the shoulder, but we all know Gale is fucking invincible, so she lives.

Jill’s mother is killed, so Sidney goes to protect Jill who is at Kirby’s house with Robbie, Charlie and Trevor, where they are all having a little afterparty and still drinking. Kirby and Charlie almost hook up but Trevor pops up and stops it.
Sorry, but Robbie is now out.
Sidney arrives, grabs Jill and then they’re chased up stairs by Ghostface. Sidney gets a call to Dewey before she is thrown off the roof and runs back in the front door, her and Kirby lock themselves down stairs, where Charlie is outside covered in blood, they don’t trust him so they don’t let him in, he gets attacked right in front of them and tied up like Casey Becker did in the original Scream, we do a bit of movie trivia to see if Kirby can save him, she gets them mostly right and then runs out to save Charlie, who stabs her.
We have our first killer reveal, but who attacked him and tied him up?

Fucking Jill.
They’ve been recording all of their kills.
Trevor is pulled out of the closet, just like Sidney’s dad was, the plan is to frame him for the murders, Jill shoots him in the head.
They want to be the next Sidney and Randy, the famous survivors.
Just like Billy and Stu they planned to stab each other, so it looks like they were attacked and survived, but Jill doesn’t wanna share the spotlight, so sorry Charlie, but you’re out too.
Jill stabs Sidney in the gut and then herself in the shoulder, to really sell the story she runs into a wall and throws herself through a glass table, then collapses next to Sidney.

But that’s not where it ends.
Our survivor Jill is rushed to hospital where she tells her story about Trevor and Robbie. Dewey tells her that Sidney isn’t dead, but in ICU.
Jill very casually walks through the borderline abandoned hospital to Sidney’s room, seriously, you see like 1 nurse, no doctors or anything. While Jill is absolutely wailing on Sidney, Dewey figures out Jill was lying, calls for backup and runs to her rescue, where he promptly get hit in the head with a bed pan. As Jill is about to kill Sid, Gale and Deputy Judy show up, as Jill is distracted by them Sidney grabs the defibrillator puts the paddles on either side of her head and shocks her.
In true Scream fashion, Jill gets up for one last kill and Sidney shoots her.

I love this movie, it felt like a Scream movie, but it also feels modern. It fits in perfectly with the franchise. I feel like the kills are a lot gorier. I mean look at the amount of blood in this scene when Olivia is killed.

And this cop getting a knife to the head.

This was a great addition to the franchise.
Next up is Scream from 2022. Will the new generation live up to the old?
Find out tomorrow.