Monday
08Jun2009
Craven Talks 'Scream 4'...As Part of a New Trilogy
Monday, June 8, 2009 at 7:45PM
The long-rumored fourth Scream movie has been repositioned as the beginning of a new trilogy, according to Wes Craven. Craven directed the first three movies and tells Digital Spy, "I'm not closed to it, I'm not open to it. I'll be perfectly happy to read a script and tell [Bob Weinstein] what I think."
"You don't want to drive it into the ground. You're avoiding those kind of dangers, hopefully, making the kind of film that has self-awareness from the characters where they're talking about film. I'm sure you can run that into the ground very quickly. I don't have a clue what Kevin is writing. He might be completely going around me, I don’t know."The first Scream is a better exercise than it is a movie, and it's a pretty good movie. The thing is, the self-awareness Craven mentions - the stuff that kind of sets it apart - got old in a hurry. The third film just exists because movies come in three-packs now. I have trouble buying that three more will reverse those fortunes, but I must confess I'm interested to see where Williamson's mind is for the storyline. Perhaps he can find a way to make it all work.
Colin Boyd | Permalink | in Horror Movies, Scream, Sequels, Wes Craven | Print Article | Email Article | 2 Comments | Share Article
Reader Comments (2)
The original Scream was Nirvana to say, Def Leppard. People were generally tired of how formulaic the horror genre had become. The post Scream era generated some pretty good fruit, perhaps because Craven and Williamson forced horror movies to try a little harder.
But, what's old is new again, and we are seeing the old guard return (Freddie, Jason, M. Myers, etc) and even Saw is an aging franchise.
So what are Craven and Williamson setting out to do? Slap the genre on the wrist for getting lazy again? Or are they simply part of the problem?
The original both celebrated and condemned the slasher film genre spawned mostly by Friday the 13th. In order for this new one to be relevant, it needs to be some sort of statement on the current state of horror, which has evolved ironically from the tweaking of conventions brought to light by the original Scream.