Wes Craven's Scream franchise certainly had a lot more legs than many people expected - the postmodern horror series has been running for over 15 years and received critical acclaim over its run. By the fourth installment it was clear though that Scream had run out of steam. One of the aspects which made the earlier installments in the franchise so entertaining was the clever plotting - audiences were genuinely engrossed in trying to figure out which character (or characters) were behind the Ghostface mask. By Scream 4, however, not only was it lazily written but the postmodern commentary which had felt so on the ball back in the days of the original release now felt hackneyed and outdated. The film industry tends to move from one trend to another very quickly, and while Craven deserves credit for lambasting horror conventions earlier in his career, by Scream 4 the series had turned into an unintentional parody of itself still trapped in a 1990s aesthetic.
