Review - Scream 4

So here we are looking at a deconstructed horror film, deconstructing the franchise it created in an age of reboots and remakes, the film itself coming fifteen years after the original.

If that sounds confusing don't worry because its not. It is a fairly perfunctory slasher, riffing off its own rules whilst trying (and occasionally succeeding) to be funny and make a point. 

Once again, Woodsboro is host to a bunch of horrific slayings (I mean seriously this place is a death trap, why would anyone live there?) and coincidentally Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is coming back to town, to promote a new book about surviving or something like that. So, with the angel of death's arrival comes the bloodshed and some pithy remarks about horror films. So the old crew, Sidney, Gail (Courtney Cox, looking ridiculously skinny yet full in the face - yay for botox) and Dewey who is now the sheriff of murderville USA.

With a new bunch of meatbag victims (Emma Roberts is probably the best of them), the killer is trying to reboot the franchise but following the rules of reboots/remakes. Thus begins the killing, phone calls etc, till we get to the reveal of whom the killer is.

Wes Craven once again directs this, probably with his eyes closed as he knows the slasher genre inside and out and knows how these things work.

A great opening sequence has a stab at the Saw films many, many sequels and the ending if it had ended more ambiguously could have been one of the all time great endings in slasher movie history.
The middle of the film however is fairly ho-hum with no scares at all, which might be the ultimate satire on the horror remake phase but I doubt it.