It is April of 2011. So why is Scream 4 coming out this weekend?
Don’t get me wrong. I liked Scream as much as any teenager back in 1996. It really did refresh and somewhat redefine horror movies at the time. Scream 2 was alright, back then, and Scream 3 was forgettable.
Sure, Scream sparked the teen horror genre imitators like I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Faculty, and Urban Legend among others, but interestingly enough, the Scream legacy has been carried on the most by the Scary Movie spoofs.
All that being said, do we really need another Scream movie? The third movie came out in 2000. Since then, teen horror movies have been replaced by psychological horror movies like The Ring, The Grudge, and Paranormal Activity, and then by torture-porn horror like Saw, Hostel, and Touristas. (Insert multiple sequels where appropriate.)
Sure, those movies are good and bad to varying degrees, but at this point are we really looking for a quasi-comedy slasher movie? I mean, the Scary Movie franchise has really usurped the Scream franchise. The teenage target audience is actually a lot more familiar with Scary Movie and has probably never seen Scream.
Just think about it, the average Senior in High School was 3 years old when Scream came out. They have no idea who Neve Campbell is, and if you showed them an episode of Party of Five, they would only notice “Jack from Lost.”
Courtney Cox is currently popular again for Cougar Town, but really, do high schoolers and college kids watch Cougar Town?
Basically, there is no way this movie could even remotely be a critical or financial success.
Which is sad.
We just looked at multiple reasons why Scream 4 will fail, and none of them mentioned the fact that because it is a sequel, and a fourth sequel at that, it is inherently bad. Though I will give them credit for not using a stupid sub-title.
It is a known fact to the average movie viewer that Hollywood relies too much on remakes and sequels. The reason studios usually go to this well over and over is because it’s a guaranteed money-maker due to a built-in audience.
The built-in audience for Scream is a bunch of 30-year-olds with families, jobs, and responsibilities that don’t involve paying money for a horror sequel that is ten years too late.
Then again, there are probably a lot of 30-year-old men who still have a crush on Neve Campbell and have been wondering where she has been for ten years.
…I’m just saying.
