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The weather was soggy and gloomy and miserable yesterday, but fortunately, it wasn't as fearsome as predicted. I did, however, unplug everything but the television. I went to see Scream 4 just to see who Ghostface was this time. Fannish speculation had it that it would be one of the original three-Sidney, Dewey, or Gail--and was profoundly disappointed. Oh, it was a perfectly serviceable slasher flick, and it was faithful to its established canon, but the rules that were so original in 1996 have now become as hackneyed and ossified as the rules they once mocked. I knew that because this was a Scream movie, it would absolutely follow a certain, fixed structure, and it did.
For those who are curious as to whom Ghostface turned out to be this time, it was Jill, Sidney's cousin. Why? Because who wants to have to go to college and grad school and work in sad anonymity when they can get famous through the Internet and news media? Jill had grown up hearing all about Sidney's tale of survival and watched her achieve fame solely by dint of that survival, and she wanted the same immortality. It was your typical hip Hollywood commentary on the decline of civilization and the fact that America's Internet-obsessed culture is raising a generation of narcissistic, lazy sociopaths. Oh, how cutting. Oh, how edgy. If Hollywood and the media were truly concerned about this disturbing phenomenon, then they would stop tripping over themselves to interview every Internet sensation and option the movie rights to every grisly murder. They'd let twelve-year-old ply the blogosphere with their emo Youtube videos in peace, and rather than obsessing over whether Johnny Axemurderer wet his pants or jerked off the cat as a kid, they'd focus on the victims whose lives they snuffed out. But they won't, because our obsession with the media has created a nation of ghouls, and like the folks who once clustered avidly around the sideshow tent, we want to see the monsters and see the geek bite the head off a helpless, panicked chicken. We don't care about who you were before the monster got you. We just want to see your blood in his teeth.
It was a run-of-the-mill slasher flick that discovered its grandmother's issue bloomers in the bottom of the laundry pile. Not bad, but certainly not must-see. B-
For those who are curious as to whom Ghostface turned out to be this time, it was Jill, Sidney's cousin. Why? Because who wants to have to go to college and grad school and work in sad anonymity when they can get famous through the Internet and news media? Jill had grown up hearing all about Sidney's tale of survival and watched her achieve fame solely by dint of that survival, and she wanted the same immortality. It was your typical hip Hollywood commentary on the decline of civilization and the fact that America's Internet-obsessed culture is raising a generation of narcissistic, lazy sociopaths. Oh, how cutting. Oh, how edgy. If Hollywood and the media were truly concerned about this disturbing phenomenon, then they would stop tripping over themselves to interview every Internet sensation and option the movie rights to every grisly murder. They'd let twelve-year-old ply the blogosphere with their emo Youtube videos in peace, and rather than obsessing over whether Johnny Axemurderer wet his pants or jerked off the cat as a kid, they'd focus on the victims whose lives they snuffed out. But they won't, because our obsession with the media has created a nation of ghouls, and like the folks who once clustered avidly around the sideshow tent, we want to see the monsters and see the geek bite the head off a helpless, panicked chicken. We don't care about who you were before the monster got you. We just want to see your blood in his teeth.
It was a run-of-the-mill slasher flick that discovered its grandmother's issue bloomers in the bottom of the laundry pile. Not bad, but certainly not must-see. B-
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