Scream 4 (2011)

The kindest thing I can say about Scream 4 is that it isn’t terrible. That is hardly a recommendation, but given the circumstances, it could have been a lot worse.  There a few touches here and there that help make it watchable – Marley Shelton’s awkward deputy; Hayden Panetierre’s likable turn as the horror fanatic, Kirby; a few humorous moments involving Gale Weathers and two members of the high school AV Club; and the unmasking of the killer, which is genuinely surprising.  The problem is that we have seen it all before and even the reveal at the end isn’t enough to overcome the familiarity. Though, one could argue that the familiarity is the entire point of Scream 4 – the killer is essentially doing a “remake” by recording the murders and posting them online. 

What’s even more irritating is that original characters in the first film seem to have regressed since the third movie – Dewey and Gale once again are at odds with one another.  How did Dewey get promoted to Sheriff? In Scream 3, at least Dewey was slightly competent – he is the one that notices the photographs of Maureen Prescott, Sidney’s deceased mother, were taken on the same studio back lot where STAB 3 is being filmed.  He also manages to save Gale from certain death by firing his revolver at the killer. Unfortunately, in Scream 4, he just stumbles around the scenery and makes a complete ass of himself. Even more embarrassing is the fact that, in the movie’s climax, he is incapacitated with a bed pan. Dewey and Gale’s story line ended in Scream 3, there was really no reason to have them in the movie, other than the fact that they are “fan favorites.”   Gale’s redemption in the original Scream was an inspired idea; a lesser movie would have predictably killed off the character.  The problem is that, in each sequel, she has the same damn character arc – she goes from a bitchy tabloid journalist to being a more compassionate heroine.  Granted, Scream 4 does a clever variation on the character – she is so desperate to get back into journalism that she is willing to team up with two nerdy high school students, Charlie and Robbie, who have their own podcast.  This leads a few amusing scenes between Gale and the two students, but for all principle purposes, it’s the same story we have seen in the previous movies.  Just like in the first movie, Gale plants hidden cameras at a party hoping that something big will happen.

The character of Sidney is far less interesting to watch, despite being a “ stronger” character she still makes questionable decisions that endanger her and the lives of the others.  As flawed as Scream 3 was it, at least, gave Sidney a strong character arc; she begins the film as a complete recluse that is highly paranoid of the outside world (she has a fence around her property and arms her house with a security system).  Her only contact with the outside world is through the telephone – she counsels abused women on a hotline. She occasionally visits her dad and talks to Dewey, but otherwise she lives a lonely existence. Eventually, after learning about the murders of set the set of STAB 3, Sidney chooses to come out of hiding and face her fears. More importantly, she is opening herself up to other people. Scream 3 may be the weakest out of the original trilogy, but Sidney does make for a compelling heroine.  In Scream 4, Sidney has become a best selling author of a self help book and her hometown, Woodsboro, is the final stop on her book signing tour.  She finds, much to her horror, that her much younger cousin, Jill, and friends are being terrorized by a killer donning the “Ghostface” mask.  Given Sidney’s past experiences with serial killers, you would think she would be a more formidable opponent for the killer, but she is fairly useless for the most part. Sidney is not that engaging of a protagonist and this is largely due to her passivity this time around; it doesn't help that she is often pushed to the sidelines to make room for her younger and “more attractive” co-stars.

Scream 4 opens with not one, not two, but three pre-credits scenes. In the first scene two girls are watching a horror movie in a house and receive a threatening phone call. They, naturally, bite the big one, but it is all revealed to be a movie being watch by two blondes sitting on a couch. One of blondes, Rachel, complains about how stupid the movie is, only to be stabbed by other blonde, Chloe, who tells her she talks too much. However, this is also revealed to be a movie (a movie within a movie within a movie) being watched by two teenage girls, Jenny and Marnie, hanging out in the living room.  Jenny plays a prank on Marnie by calling her cell phone and impersonating “The Voice.”  Needless to say, both girls are promptly disposed of and then the SCREAM 4 title card flashes across the scene. This is meant to be hip, but it completely undermines the horror of the scene – the deaths of Jenny and Marnie are too abrupt to have any real impact.  In the first movie, the death of Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) was so unnerving because it slowly built to that moment. It was a rare instance in which stunt casting great benefited the movie–Drew Barrymore, the biggest star in the cast, is killed off in the first ten minutes, thus letting the audience know in the advance that NO ONE is safe. The opening to Scream 4 makes me yawn with indifference. WHO ARE THESE GIRLS?  I admit I’m out of tune with the times, therefore I have no clue if the two actresses cast in this scene (Aimee Teegarden, Britt Robertson) are big named television actresses, or if this was a movie they happened to get cast in. Were their deaths supposed to be shocking? It lacks the freshness of the first movie and the shock value of the second film – the first two victims are murdered (in a movie theater) during a screening of the movie STAB. Hell, even the much maligned Scream 3 had an interesting variation on this formula – the opening scene is a (failed) chase to the rescue; Cotton Weary, while stuck in traffic, receives a phone call from the killer and races to his apartment to save his girlfriend.  Naturally, it turns out disastrous for both of them. The whole “movie within a movie” idea was amusing in Scream 2, especially with Tori Spelling playing the “movie” Sidney, but it is pretty tiresome this time around.

Scream 4 reflects Wes Craven’s, and Kevin Williamson’s, contempt for the endless horror remakes that have plagued the cinemas over the last decade; three of them being  updates of Craven films (The Hills Have Eyes, The Last House on the Left, and The Nightmare on Elm Street). Hence, it is no coincidence that practically all the young, NEW characters come to horrible ends, while the original cast members (Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette) survive the ordeal with a few injuries.  Sidney sums up everything perfectly when she tells the killer, “You forgot the first rule of remakes, __. DON’T FUCK WITH THE ORIGINAL!”  It is also not too surprising that the teenagers in Scream 4 are meant to be pale imitations of the characters in the original – Jill (Sidney), Kirby (Tatum), Charlie (Randy), Trevor (Billy), and Deputy Judy Hicks (Dewey).  Though, I would argue that Kirby is superior to Tatum, however, I’m probably in the minority on this one.  It also a tad bit ironic seeing Craven being critical of remakes considering he was a producer on a few of them; the aforementioned The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left, as well as a dreadful remake of the 1962 classic, Carnival of Souls. 

This is one of the few instances where a downbeat ending might have worked better; it would have been genuinely shocking if Sidney had been killed off at the end, thus forcing one of the younger cast members to take up the torch. Sure, it would be a cheap shock, but it would also be quite unexpected. 

 Initially, this is what Kevin Williamson seems to be setting up in his script -the character of Kirby is pretty savvy when it comes to horror movies and is, probably, the most sympathetic character in the entire movie, but this turns out to be a ruse. Plus, making Kirby the heroine would contradict the whole “anti-remake” theme that pervades the movie.  

Also, like other slasher movies, Scream 4 is loaded with pretty useless characters, the most obvious being Rebecca, Sidney’s publicist, played by Allison Brie. Rebecca is excited by the murders in Woodsboro and hopes to exploit them for her, and Sidney’s, benefit. Sidney is appalled by her attitude and fires Rebecca. We know that her time is brief and she is killed in a particularly brutal fashion – stabbed multiple times and thrown from the roof of a parking garage.  There are also the extremely inept police officers, Perkins and Hoss, who are assigned to guard Sidney and her relatives. They have a horrible habit letting their guard down – people are murdered on their watch and they allow the killer to sneak up on them.  How many bumbling police officers can one movie have? There’s Dewey, Deputy Hicks, and these two idiots. It would be far more interesting if the police were actually presented in a more competent manner, yet still at loss when it came to the murders (see John Saxon in Black Christmas). As a result, there are a lot of pointless, and redundant, scenes of police officers puttering about, while teenagers are getting butchered at an alarming rate. Who knows? Maybe Wes Craven is paying homage to his first movie The Last House on the Left – which features similar scenes of lawmen acting like idiots.

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It’s hard to do a review of Scream 4 without revealing the killer’s identity, so if you still haven’t seen it (and desperately want to), then I suggest you skip this section of the review, because I will RUIN it  for you.  If you have seen Scream 4, or have no desire to see, or simply don’t care, then READ ON. 

Finally, after all the bodies have piled up, it is revealed that the killers are Jill and Charlie. The reveal of Charlie itself isn’t too surprising, but the unmasking of Jill was a jaw dropping moment, at least for me.  Jill proves to be an extremely ruthless villain and even murders Charlie once she no longer has any use for him.  Why commit all these murders? MEDIA ATTENTION!  Growing up, Jill was jealous of all the attention that Sidney got in the family and decided that turning to murder would be an ideal way to direct the spotlight towards her.  After bumping off her friends at a party, and believing she killed Sidney, Jill inflicts injuries on herself and frames her ex-boyfriend Trevor by planting a gun on his corpse to make it seem that she is the sole surviving victim of the night’s atrocities. Ironically, at the movie’s end, Jill is given the media attention she always craved, but isn’t alive to enjoy it.  I like the reveal of Jill being “Ghostface”– it is hard to believe that such a sweet faced, innocent looking, girl could be a cold blooded killer. The critical flaw is that Emma Roberts doesn't have the acting chops to pull off the transformation; she plays the “psychopathic” Jill by acting all fidgety, shouting her lines, and emphasizing certain words (“Sidney THIS! And Sidney THAT!”). Also, she isn’t remotely intimidating in any of her later scenes, and it is completely baffling how the survivors have such a hard time taking Jill down – she is so tiny.

It is hard to swallow that the scrawny Charlie and petite Jill were capable of committing the murders that “Ghostface” does throughout the course of the movie – that’s the disadvantage of having a stuntman donning the “Ghostface” costume. I also have a hard time believing that Charlie would murder Kirby. She  is, essentially, Charlie’s dream girl and her finally showing interest in him would, at the very least, give him second thoughts about carrying on with the whole“let’s murder everyone” plan. It would be more interesting if Kirby became a source of friction between Charlie and Jill, 

 which, in turn,  allows for Sidney to take advantage of the situation. The whole finale in the hospital is so silly that it undermines the tension that Wes Craven was trying to create - Dewey gets hit in the head with a bed pan; Gale and Deputy Hicks stumble into the room in the nick of time; Sidney takes out Jill by shocking her head with a defibrillator; Jill some how survives the shock and comes at Sidney with a knife, then Sidney shoots her in the head with Deputy Hicks’ gun. It’s easily the weakest ending in the entire series – yes, it is even weaker than the ending to Scream 3.

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Scream 4 was a flop at the domestic box office; grossing 38 million on a 40 million budget. This was a huge come down from the previous entries in the series (the first two grossed over a 100 million, while Scream 3 made 89 million). Its poor performance at the box office almost guarantees no more Scream sequels; though, I guess a Scream TV series is in the works.  Maybe I am being too hard on Scream 4 – it’s not a great movie, but it is certainly better than the Slasher genre dictates.  It is overly familiar at times, but it moves a long at a fairly swift pace and is never boring.  I have no desire to own it on DVD/Blu-ray, but if it’s on television, or Netflix, it is worth a look – there are certainly worse ways to spend 111 min. If you go in with extremely low expectations, then you will be pleasantly surprised that it isn’t terrible. Again, that’s not exactly high praise, but that is about the best I can do.

Credits

Cast: Neve Campbell (Sidney), Emma Roberts (Jill Roberts), Hayden Panetierre (Kirby), Courtney Cox (Gale), David Arquette (Dewey), Rory Culkin (Charlie), Allison Brie (Rebecca), Nico Tortorella (Trevor), Erik Knudson(Robbie), Marley Shelton (Deputy Judy Hicks), Mariella Jaffe (Olivia), Anthony Anderson (Deputy Perkins), Adam Brody (Deputy Hoss), Mary McDonnell (Kate Roberts), Lucy Hale (Sherrie), Shenae Grimes – Beach (Trudie), Anna Paquin (Rachel), Kristen Bell (Chloe), Aimee Teegarden (Jenny), Britt Robertson (Marnie), Roger Jackson (The Voice).

Director: Wes Craven
Screenplay: Kevin Williamson
Running Time: 111 min. 

Son of Dracula (1943)

Son of Dracula is one of the most unusual entries in the Universal Monster franchise.  It was released at a time when the series became more kid friendly and usually devolved into a full out monster brawls; the franchise would end on a fairly low note with the ridiculous (but amusing) House of Dracula, in which the Wolf Man is cured of his lycanthropy, the Frankenstein Monster stumbles around for a few seconds, and Dracula, despite being the title villain, is killed off half way through the movie.  Therefore, it is genuinely surprising how sophisticated Son of Dracula is on both a technical and thematic level.

The biggest flaw (and it’s a huge one) is the casting of Lon Chaney, Jr in the role of Count Alucard. Chaney was at his best when playing blue collar simpletons, or lumbering brutes, but is completely out of his element when playing the aristocratic Alucard – he lacks the sophistication and mystique that the role desperately needs.  It is interesting to note that Chaney was only actor to play The Wolf Man, Dracula, The Mummy, and The Frankenstein Monster – no doubt this was a ploy by the studio to capitalize on the famous Chaney name and prove the Junior was just as versatile of an actor as his  prolific father.  The problem is, with the exception of Larry Talbot/ The Wolf Man, there is nothing distinguishable about Chaney’s performances in any of these movies – his portrayal as the Frankenstein Monster is adequate, but it lacks the pathos that Karloff brought to the role.  His performance as the mummy, Kharis, in The Mummy’s Tomb, The Mummy’s Ghost, and The Mummy’s Curse is so lackluster that it could have easily been played by a stuntman. The only memorable thing about Count Alucard is that he possesses super strength, which he never fully uses to his advantage – he throws Frank across a room.  Thankfully, Chaney has very little screen time (about ten minutes total) that is doesn't heavily damage the movie. If one can overlook Chaney’s awkward performance, then you will be rewarded by a genuinely interesting movie.

The movie gets a huge boast by Louise Allbritton, who is excellent as the morbid Kay – one of the more complex women in the Universal Monster series.  At first, Kay doesn’t seem to be any different from any of the other heroines the populated the franchise – she has an interest in the occult, but is happily engaged to her childhood sweet heart, Frank.  When she unexpectedly elopes with Count Alucard, we naturally assume that he has placed her under his spell and is using her to further his own goals– Alucard wants to use Kay’s family plantation for his base of operation.  We, naturally, sympathize with Frank for losing the love of his life to an absolute monster; we hope that he can wrestle Kay from the hypnotic hold that Alucard has over her. After all, Jonathan Harker, with an assist from Professor Van Helsing, was able to rescue Mina from Dracula’s satanic grip, so it is plausible that Frank, with help from Doctor Brewster, can do the same for Kay.  Our happy ending goes straight out the window when Frank accidentally kills Kay while attempting to shoot the Count with the gun – the bullets pass straight through Alucard and strike down Kay. Frank ,on the verge of insanity, confesses his crime to Dr. Brewster, the kindly town physician. Brewster goes to the plantation to check out Frank’s story and, much to his surprise, finds that Kay is very much alive. She tells Brewster that visitors will no longer be welcomed at the plantation and that she can never see Frank again. 

This is a great piece of misdirection by the filmmakers, because the audience naturally assumes that Kay is the victim in all of this and Alucard is the loathsome parasite leeching off her status in life.  However, this proves to be entirely FALSE, Kay is the loathsome parasite and it is Alucard who is being played for a sap – Kay is using him to gain immortality for her and Frank.  She explains her plan to Frank, while he is locked up in a jail cell, and convinces him that he must kill Alucard; she tells Frank the Count’s weaknesses and where to find him.  Kay turns out to be extremely ruthless in her ambition and even tells Frank that they must eliminate anyone that stands in her way - including her sister, Claire. Kay is one of the all time great femme fatales – after all, this isn’t some sleazy insurance salesman that she is duping, but the son of friggin’ Dracula. Allbritton plays the role to absolute perfection; she is vulnerable in the early scenes, but becomes a commanding presence as the movie progresses. It’s easy to believe that the savvy Alucard could fall victim to such a woman, she is pure ice.  Son of Dracula is essentially the inverse of the previous movie, Dracula’s Daughter; the latter is about a woman who desperately wants to be cured of her vampirism, while the former is about a woman who desperately wants to become a vampire.  Both movies greatly benefit from strong female leads and rather downbeat endings.

Robert Paige, as Frank, is a much more interesting than the usual romantic male leads you find in these movies. For instance, compare Paige’s Frank to David Manners’ Jonathan Harker and you will find that Paige brings far more intensity to the role than Manners.  In Dracula, Jonathan Harker is slightly annoyed that Dracula has eyes for his fiancée, Mina – but he never takes any real action. In Son of Dracula, when Frank learns that Kay has eloped with Alucard, he is seething with hatred and is willing to commit murder; Harker probably would have just shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room slightly irritated. Also, Frank nearly loses his mind after believing that he has killed Kay; she was the crux of his existence and now he has absolutely nothing. When he tells Claire and others that Kay has visited him in his jail cell, they, understandably, believe that he is just hallucinating. 

Evelyn Ankers is given the less showy role as Kay’s concerned sister, Claire. Ankers is, probably, the best known scream queen of the 1940s, and co-starred in seven movies with Lon Chaney, Jr.  It’s odd seeing her in a role that isn’t the love interest; as she was in The Wolf Man, Hold That Ghost, Ghost of Frankenstein, and in many other Universal movies.  Claire isn’t an especially interesting character, but she is at least likable and, more importantly, never grinds the movie to a halt. At least Claire takes action in the story – on the advice of Dr. Brewster, she orders the body of Kay to be cremated. Ankers was a much better actress than given credit for and gives an excellent performance in the Sherlock Holmes thriller, The Pearl of Death, as the obsequious Naomi Drake – a villainess with a penchant for disguises. She must have relished the opportunity to play an unsavory character as opposed to the glamorous goody two shoes she played in most movies. 

There are a few interesting touches that separate Son of Dracula from all the other, run of the mill, monster movies from the 1940s.  For instance, the entire middle of the movie is shown from the perspective of Doctor Brewster. At this point in the story, Kay is a vampire and Frank has been drive to madness, so Doctor Brewster becomes the audience surrogate. He is the first, and only, character to realize that Alucard is an anagram and promptly seeks out Professor Lazlo, an expert on the occult, for advice.  It is also one of the first movies, if not the first, to show a physical vampire transformation; there a few scenes where a bat changes into Count Alucard. This effect was achieved through animation and a jump cut, and, while not up to the standards of today effects, is pretty effective.  The most memorable moment is of Count Alucard hovering over a swamp and slowly approaching Kay.  

Son of Dracula is loaded with so many wonderful visuals, and interesting characters, that I believe it is a superior movie to the Tod Browning-Bela Lugosi original. Lugosi is certainly a better lead than Chaney, but once Dracula moves its setting from Transylvania to London, it turns monotonous – the direction and acting, other than Dwight Frye, is extremely lifeless.  Son of Dracula is a much more cinematic movie and goes by at a rather quick pace.  Robert Siodmak’s direction is top notch and he rarely gives the audience a moment to breathe; there is always a surprise waiting around the corner.  Son of Dracula may not be a classic, but it is easily one of the better Universal monster movies of the 1940s. 

Credits

Cast:  Lon Chaney, Jr. (Count Alucard), Louise Allbritton (Kay), Robert Paige (Frank), Evelyn Ankers (Claire), Frank Craven (Doctor Brewster), J. Edward Blomberg (Prof. Lazlo), Samuel S. Hinds (Judge Simmons), Pat Moriarty (Sheriff Dawes), Etta McDaniel (Sarah), Adeline De Walt Reynolds (Madame Zimba), George Irving (Col. Caldwell).

Director: Robert Siodmak
Screenplay: Eric Taylor. Curt Siodmak (story)
Running Time: 81 min.