Changing the rules won’t make “Scream 4” as good as the first.
This was my first thought upon watching the newly-released trailer. I’ll get to that later. A couple days prior to the trailer’s official release, a shorter and shaky version was taken over the weekend during the taping of the Spike TV Scream Awards and uploaded to the net via cell phone. Met with applause and, of course, screams from the audience, it’s pretty clear a fourth film is what many fans have been waiting for. Can’t say that I’m surprised. The original “Scream” rocked after all. I mean, who can forget the chilling opening scene with Drew Barrymore? It was intense and scary.
Second to the many deaths, the rules were the best part of the horror trilogy. Usually recited by a horror aficionado, the guidelines were used as a means of survival and if you don’t follow them, you’re as good as dead. It’s as simple as that. Now, a decade after the third “Scream” opened, “Scream 4” introduces a new set of rules with new faces to go along with them. In addition to alums Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette, we now have Hayden Panettiere, Emma Roberts, Rory Culkin, Anna Paquin, Adam Brody and Kristen Bell. The newbies will probably end up dead and to follow the formula of the other “Scream” films, a couple will die within the first few minutes. It is rumored Bell and Paquin bite it rather early.
Compared to the teaser, which debuted during the Scream Awards, the longer trailer didn’t grab me as much. I wasn’t the slightest bit creeped out. As one of the new rules states, “The Kills have gotta be more extreme,” this installment will be bloodier and more violent, perhaps at the sake of suspense. Disappointment aside, I will catch “Scream 4” when it opens April 15, 2011, out of morbid curiosity. Besides, it has to be better than the third one — which I still haven’t watched all the way through.
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