As Jenn said, if you’re Sidney, at this point, don’t you move somewhere where nobody has seen a Stab movie?

We’ve watched the previous three movies the last three nights and I discovered that, though I rated Scream 2 and Scream 3 when I was younger, I’m pretty sure I had only seen parts of each. The original film was the only one I had actually watched. Those three movies decline in quality and I guess this one was supposed to be a bit of a return to form, given that Williamson is back.

But, perhaps even more than in 2 and 3, the killer is absurd. In 2, one of the killers is dumb. In 3, the nature of the killer is pretty dumb, as is the lack of the usual pair. But this film…

SPOILERS

It takes us into Urban Legends territory with a small woman doing things that are basically impossible for her. (Also, who was calling her? That was all part of the plan? Okay…) That is always a massive pet peeve of mine and when the reveal happened my eyes rolled way back. Her reasoning isn’t any worse than the killers’ in the original, but it feels like the weakest part of the film as motive was in the original.

Otherwise, I guess it’s well done enough. There are good lines here and there, and the cast is, as always, way better than the cast of any comparable entry in a horror movie franchise. (The casts of these movies are ridiculous.)

There is just a never-ending sense of deja vu about the whole thing and you wonder why the heroes don’t decamp to somewhere else. What could possibly keep them in California given that, every few years, somebody new tries to kill them and manages to kill many other people in the process? And, when Scream 5 comes out, what will be the reason for the killing then? I hope that one is set in Thailand.

5/10