Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is back in Woodsboro, to promote her new self-help book, on the anniversary of the original Woodsboro murders... and surprise, surprise it all starts up again.
The new 'Ghostface' killer in town is trying to 'remake' the original Scream (or in the context of the movie, Stab) and while it does have some interesting - some heavy-handed - things to say about the changing face of horror movies, celebrity culture etc there's no escaping the feeling that maybe all concerned should stop flogging this horse. I think it's long dead.
At the start of the movie there are suggestions of marital strife between Dewey and Gale, but this never really develops and while, in a roundabout way, this might be a motive for his new deputy Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton) - who has an obvious crush on him and was a student with Sidney - to be Ghostface, this emotional sub-plot kinda trails off.
There's the usual shocks and twists, celebrity cameos and hot young things for the chopping block (particularly pleasant to see Heroes' Hayden Panettiere as sexy horror fan Kirby, even with an unflattering hairdo) and at least fifty percent of the game is trying to guess the identity of the killer.
It may claim "new decade, new rules" but series creator Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven still won't take that final step and create their own rules - possibly, once and for all, killing off the indestructible Sidney.
Scream 4 is (perhaps overly) self-aware and post-modern, but also a solid, fun slasher movie in its own right, with a clever ending that doesn't quite capture the genius and originality of the first film in the franchise.
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