RAISING KANE

No Exits: Why Scream 4 Is A Good Fit For A Leaner, Meaner America

 

Please note that this article contains major spoilers for Scream 4.

The synopsis widely tossed around for the latest Scream film, which arrives 11 years after the main trilogy’s story was definitively tied off in 2000’s Scream 3, seemed reasonable enough: the three aging main cast members would be reunited once more in a film sure to at least partially wrap up their involvement in the series while making room for a new, younger main cast that could herd the still-mooing cash cow forward. That this synopsis, as business-friendly and synergistic as it sounds, turns out to be unreliable is perhaps the most interesting element of the moderately-intriguing Scream 4, which is as generationally skewed a horror sequel as you’re likely to see and one that ultimately succeeds in saying something halfway-coherent about the current national zeitgeist, albeit inelegantly and sourly. It’s also a film that ultimately does what you’d like a Scream film to do: tweak and subvert expectations, but in a punk rock way that seems calculated to irk the film’s producers and financiers rather than create a traditionally satisfying experience for moviegoers.

That the horror genre has spent the intervening decade between Scream films dining on its own innards is something Scream 4 cops to right off the bat with a boilerplate quip about horror films being effectively un-greenlightable these days unless they are remakes of a known title. All credit to Kevin Williamson for more or less internalizing his own idea -- that there is nothing new to be said about the genre – and not proceeding to then beat us over the head regardless with 90 minutes of strained, name-drop zingers. Instead, Scream 4 stops only here and there for nods at obvious targets, like the Saw franchise, and otherwise restricts itself to telling a straightforward story that’s altogether noticeably less perforated with big laughs than the previous films. There’s an unpolished, humorless sheen to this entry that seems intended to reflect the coarsened culture of an America eleven years removed from the peaceful-and-prosperous 90s and stagnating on a number of fronts. 

Archive Interviews: Frank Darabont

 

As someone who practically learned to read by inhaling the Stephen King hardbacks my parents had lying around the house, interviewing long-time King collaborator (and respected filmmaker in his own right) Frank Darabont for The Mist in 2007 was one of the most fun experiences I've had on the job. Darabont was very gracious with his time and unguarded in a way that few filmmakers are, and we talked about the many pitfalls of adapting a beloved King story, as well as the overall partnership that Darabont and King have cultivated in order to continue bringing high-quality adaptations of the maestro's best books to the big screen. Darabont's time in Hollywood is already so storied that I couldn't possibly ask everything I wanted, but for an under-30-minutes interview, it's not bad.

Viewing Log: Eyes of a Stranger (1981)

 

Logline: A semi-bubbleheaded Miami TV news anchor begins to suspect that she knows the identity of the serial killer whose exploits she breathlessly reports on each night. Does she have the investigative chops to catch him? And is it worth putting her blind/deaf sister at risk?

The premise above could be fodder for a good or bad movie in almost any era; what arguably dooms Eyes of a Stranger apart from its gauzy, shot-through-a-wine-glass production values and affectless acting is that it's a serial killer movie made at the apex of the slasher era, instead of, say, in the 90s at which point the serial killer genre would have been well-trodden enough to accommodate its story naturally.