Happy slice and dice anniversary to Scream 4, a film in the Scream franchise that garnered appreciation long after it was initially released. And despite the long stretch of time between now and then, the film remains quite topical in our social media and digital age. After what was the supposed end to the Scream films, the franchise was revived and thus Scream 4 was born and released in April 2011. There’s enough meat on this plate to dig into, so get your napkins prepared.
Scream 4 is set 10 years after Scream 3 and follows a new generation of teens who are enduring a Ghostface killing spree in Woodsboro. When Sidney (Neve Campbell) returns to town, she helps her cousin Jill (Emma Roberts) and her friends uncover who is behind this murder spree. Since every Scream film is providing commentary on horror fandom in its respective decade, Scream 4 tackles the rise of social media, internet stardom, and capitalizing off of tragedy.
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The film is very on point about how culture fails to learn that some events can simply be tragedies and not something to garner success from. During the opening sequence, love it or not, the film within a film within a film comments on the way horror franchises occasionally milk things to death.
And with the current state of the Scream franchise, it’s somewhat ironic. After Melissa Barrera was unjustly fired and received a lot of hate, Scream 7 is still trudging on and is trying to avoid further boycotting by bringing back fan favorites in some capacity.
Scream continues to be a franchise ahead of its time, but not for the reasons you think.
Scream 4 remains ahead of its time with its look into what some young people aspire towards. Social media wasn’t nearly in the same position in 2011 it is now, especially not when it comes to how lucrative influence culture can be. But the concept of throwing or staging yourself in dangerous situations for fame isn’t even far-fetched nowadays. It’s why Jill’s reason for being the primary Ghostface in Scream 4 is so genius and iconic because of her speech.
My friends? What world are you living in? I don’t need friends; I need fans. Don’t you get it? This has never been about killing you. It’s about… becoming you. I mean for f____ sake my own mother had to die, no great loss there, so I could stay true to the original. It’s sick, right? Well, sick is the new sane. You had your fifteen minutes, now I want mine!
I mean what am I supposed to do? Go to college? Grad school? Work? Look around. We all live in public now; we’re all on the internet. How do you think people get famous anymore? You don’t have to achieve anything! You just got to have f_____ up s___ happen to you. So, you do have to die Sid. Those are the rules. New movie, new franchise. There’s only room for one lead and let’s face it. Your ingenue days – they’re over.
Why is the quote so iconic? It aptly highlights the side of influencer culture that goes to the extreme. Manufacturing trauma like Jill tries to do is typically detrimental and works against true survivors. Yet the general public would likely not question the convenience of her surviving such an ordeal. Especially not when she’s the cousin of Sidney, a survivor of extreme circumstances who happened to become famous in their world.
Throughout Scream 4, we get to see the downside of fame, with Sidney becoming a sensation because of her self-help book. She’s no longer able to hide in the shadows or attempt to avoid the press like in previous films. Instead, she’s everything Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) was during the trilogy: acclaimed. Sidney’s reluctance to exploit the murder spree and the reveal that Jill hopes to capitalize on her killings is in direct contrast to the killer reveal. Sidney serves as the polar opposite of Jill in the sense that she’s not trying to be a survivor; she simply is one by unfortunate circumstances.
Scream 4‘s look into what it means to be the final girl and the survivor is also on full display. It isn’t inherently triumphant to survive terror and trauma. Occasionally, horror films fail to capture the uncomfortable realism that comes with surviving what Sidney and other final girls (or boys) have. Sometimes they have their own celebrity status, if you will, and it doesn’t always garner positive attention.
At least the final girl becomes a celebrity?
A few modern examples of that can be found in David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy, Maxxxine, Scream VI, and others. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is seen as as a paranoid mess in the Halloween H40 trilogy, Maxine Minx (Mia Goth)’s past as a sex worker and survivor of a farm massacre is used against her, and Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) has rumors spread about her being the real killer for the events of Scream 5.
Internet fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and yet Jill commits to her plan and seduces Charlie (Rory Culkin) into being the other Ghostface in her mild reenactment of the original. It’s perfectly sinister, especially her quotes “Sick is the new sane” and “I don’t need friends, I need fans!” The latter sentiment being a likely mantra for the extraordinarily unlikable internet personalities. But Jill is likable as a Ghostface killer and an iconic character in the franchise for being so unapologetic.
After Jill seemingly gets away with everything, she stages her own attack and as she’s taken to the hospital, she is branded a survivor. She’s brave and a final girl in the minds of the press that takes her photo and asks her a million questions. Even though Jill is taken down by Sidney and Gale in the divisive hospital showdown, she still gets her 15 minutes of fame.
Jill captures our obsession with fame, and that’s more topical than ever.
Looking back on this and knowing what happens to Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) in Scream VI, she likely garnered fans posthumously who believed she was innocent, which is the opposite of Sam’s experience post Scream 5. As mentioned earlier, Sam was anonymously blamed for being the real killer in Scream 5, instead of Amber (Mikey Madison) and Richie (Jack Quaid). It’s later that the killers in Scream VI were the ones who started the rumors. But it’s unfortunately easy to paint a woman of color as the villain, over the white girl with a good reputation.
Despite the downside to Sidney’s fame in the world of Scream, she’s also an inspiration for people in the Scream universe. And that’s likely all she wanted to do in the first place, rather than become a beacon of stability because she’s far from it. She still deals with everything she endured throughout the first three films, and the pain lingers. Being a survivor isn’t meant to be hollow. It’s meant to be about survival and doing your best in spite of it all.
Scream 4 might be a throwback with the glossiest looking filter over the entire film, but it still has relevance in our current timeline. It’s unlikely it’ll age badly anytime soon as far as its ideas about social media and what the desire for internet fame can do to young people. The accessibility of social media and how people can become famous in an instant is enticing, but there’s always a chance of becoming too fixated on that idea. Which isn’t worth all the trouble that might bring.
Scream 4 is available to watch or stream in the US on Prime Video and VOD.
