Scream 4

Ten years later, Ghostface is back. So is the series’ mojo.

Wes Craven’s final film opens with a triple-decker fake-out. We get three cold opens nested like Russian dolls—movie within a movie within a movie. It’s series creator Kevin Williamson correcting course after the muddled third entry, and Craven announcing the series’ return to its gorier roots. Some will groan. I grinned.

Neve Campbell is back as Sidney Prescott. The plot sees her return to Woodsboro hawking her memoir, Out of Darkness. Naturally, the murders start again. Her niece Jill steps into the ingénue role. The template is familiar. The execution isn’t.

Williamson has gotten better. His dialogue no longer sounds like film students showing off. Characters act smart without announcing they’re being smart. Watch Alison Brie check her backseat. Twice. Then crouch to peer under the car before exiting. No speeches. Just common sense we’ve been screaming at horror movies to employ for decades.

Hayden Panettiere’s Kirby is a revelation—the franchise’s most charismatic character. She’s got Randy’s horror knowledge minus the desperation. When she rattles off the rules, you believe she actually watched those movies instead of memorized Wikipedia entries. Rory Culkin shines as the shy horror geek pining for her. When characters this watchable populate the margins, you root harder for their survival.

David Arquette’s Dewey is now sheriff, which returns him to the near criminally inept status he occupied in the original film. He’s always headed the wrong direction, always answering his phone while the killer strikes elsewhere. And the limp and paralyzed arm from parts 2 and 3? Gone. Good riddance to bad affectations.

Courteney Cox returns as Gale, now Mrs. Dewey. Both slide into supporting roles for the younger cast. Time’s passage shows: Cox and Arquette met on the first film, married before the third, and divorced before this one. The franchise has aged with us.

Even the peripheral players get moments. Two cops—Adam Brody and Anthony Anderson—discuss the mortality rate of officers in horror films, then act accordingly. Brody calls for backup immediately. Anderson’s death is among the series’ most memorable.

But the script isn’t without its missteps. One sequence traps Sidney and her aunt in their house while racing to save Jill—but if Ghostface is there, Jill is safe. Call the cops. Use those cell phones. Elementary stuff fumbled for convenience.

But the finale delivers. After two entries withholding information, this one plays fair. I saw it coming and relished every moment. Alert viewers get every clue. Better still, it works as delicious payback for fan complaints about a certain death in part two. The hospital coda goes gloriously bonkers. Dewey takes a bedpan to the head with such cartoonish brutality I laughed out loud.

This might top the original.

Heresy? Maybe. But, at minimum, they’re equals. Push me to choose today, and Panettiere’s Kirby tips the scale. She’s the spark this series needed but never knew it was missing.