Sidney Prescott: You sick fucks, you've seen one too many movies! Billy: Now Sid, don't you blame the movies, movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos more creative!
I've always been in awe of
Kevin Williamson's original screenplay for
Scream - greatly admiring it for not only being a very clever 'whodunnit' mystery, but also for it's ability to exist both as a love-letter to the horror genre and also for it's use of in-jokes, self-aware humour, satire and witty characters to point out the absurdity of most horror films, including it's own. And not only that - Scream also manages to be an effective critique on the late 20th century culture of mindless teenage violence and explore the effects of film & the media not only on our up-bringings but also through the character of Gale Weathers, our opportunistic and cold reporter who is never too shy to go in search of a scoop! Scream is one of the smartest written screenplays of the 90's and Williamson's much rushed sequel (after such a pop culture hit, The Weinsteins weren't going to let Williamson spend as much time crafting a follow-up) is pretty good too. By the third, much-maligned Scream 3 (though I still enjoy it), a new screenwriter had been hired and the films stopped being so smart. Now that there's been a decade's break since the last movie, Williamson/Craven and The Weinsteins are about to unleash a new Scream on us, a movie that will hopefully start a new trilogy and further expand the mythology of the original saga.
Scream 4 will open April 15th, in just over a month's time and hot off the news that the film will gloriously be R-Rated, here's a set of
brand new stills from the movie.
