YMMV / Scream 4

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: While she could be seen as an Asshole Victim for being greedy, insensitive and exploitative, the brutality of Rebecca's death may be enough to at least consider the idea that she didn't really deserve that.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Given the very brief reveal in Scream (2022) that Kirby survived, does it indicate that Charlie accidentally botched his attempt to kill her, that he resorted to Bond Villain Stupidity and thought she'd bleed out, or that he purposely didn't go as far as he could've so as to give her a fighting chance?
• Base-Breaking Character: Charlie. Some viewers feel sorry for him due to the way he was betrayed and killed by Jill while others see it as a Karmic Death. There's also a mixed reception to Charlie as Ghostface. Some see him as an awesome successor since his murders of Olivia and Robbie are among the goriest in the franchise; others think his performance out of the costume is too reserved and unmemorable compared to the other, much more delightfully over-the-top Ghostfaces, including his partner Jill. There is also a third group that believes that he could have been a more interesting character if he had more material to work with.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Jill is the craziest and most bloodthirsty of the Ghostfaces—murdering her own mother, torturing her boyfriend before she frames him, intending to upload videos of the murders to the Internet, and succeeding in something no other Ghostface fully accomplished: murdering her partner! Considering she nearly gets away with everything—and comes closer to doing so than the other killers—it's ungodly satisfying when Sidney electrocutes her with heart paddles and then shoots her dead just to be sure.
  • While less so than Jill, Charlie is one of the most violent killers of the franchise. Seeing him be betrayed by Jill then having Sidney point out he had signed his own death wish by trusting her feels warranted.
• Complete Monster: Jill Roberts, Sidney Prescott's cousin, is a deranged Copycat Killer who wipes out her friends in a twisted attempt to become Sidney and hijack her fame. Deciding to make her "own movie" by filming her vicious murders, Jill manipulates her friend, Charlie Walker, into helping. After Charlie murders the two cops, Jill kills her own mother simply to better emulate Sidney's life with a dead mother, purposely making it so Sidney is Forced to Watch so she can further torment Sidney. Killing Charlie when he's no longer of use, in order to be the sole survivor and the center of attention, Jill kills her ex-boyfriend, Trevor Sheldon, in order to frame him for the massacre, and then tries to kill Sidney to complete the status as the new "valiant Ghostface survivor". When Jill realizes that Sidney survived after they've both been taken to the hospital, the former tries one final time to kill Sidney, in a last attempt to secure fame.
• Contested Sequel: Some Scream fans thought that this was a Surprisingly Improved Sequel to the third film, and liked the subtle Take That! on remade horror movies. Other fans thought this was an unnecessary Trilogy Creep, and that the series should’ve been left alone after the third film.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Jill using her dead boyfriend's hand to scratch herself and tear out a chunk of hair to give herself realistic defensive wounds? Okay. Stabbing herself? Ouch. Smashing her head into a glass-framed poster then backflopping onto a glass coffee table? Darkly hysterical.
• Cult Classic: Despite being the least successful in the series financially including the fifth one, the film is highly praised within the fanbase because Kevin Williamson's return as writer is felt and makes it feel far more in line with the first two, to the point that fans for a while felt it went toe-to-toe with the second one in quality and speak positively of it even when bringing up that its box office returns were not par with the other films. Along with that, praise began popping up again recently just because the success of the fifth one ended up reigniting the desire to defend it.
• Ending Fatigue:
  • It's foreshadowed that the climax of the film won't be the showdown at the house where Jill is revealed as the killer and stabs Sidney, as the film discusses the possibility of "false endings". If the original Scream ended at the house, then if this is a remake, the house is the false ending. That being said, the film still goes on for quite a while in the hospital. The killer of all people lampshades this.
  Killer: The ending of the movie was supposed to be at the house. I mean, this is just silly.
  • Though some argue that this is part of the deconstruction of the genre with the killer having to play by real-life rules. It's not so easy to instantly off someone if they can be rushed to the hospital in time.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Kirby is easily the most popular new character for her spunky, snarky, movie buff personality and Hayden Panetierre's strong performance. A number of fans would have been fine with her becoming a new protagonist for any future movies, in addition to feeling that Kirby's Not Quite Dead and is Just Hiding. They were eventually proven correct; see below. The news that Kirby would be returning for the sixth film was met with cheers of excitement from the fanbase.
• Evil Is Cool: Jill Roberts, who came closer to getting away with the killings than any other Ghostface.
• Fandom Rivalry: An inter-franchise rivalry with fans of Scream (2022) over which sequel is better. Both sides tend to agree that both films are superior to Scream 3, though.
• Fanon: Since Ghostface's final question to Kirby was never fully divulged, some fans complete the question as "Name the remake of the groundbreaking horror movie in which the villain is the new protagonist". If so, this would mean that Kirby got the question right because Halloween (2007) and My Bloody Valentine 3D fit the criteria.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content:
  • Considering how popular the character was, many fans wish that the scene confirming Kirby's survival was kept in the film. Downplayed after the release of 5, which included an Easter Egg confirming that she did in fact survive.
  • The original script has a scene where Sidney cuts her foot during an earlier attack, and is treated by a doctor who turns out to be Steve's older brother (the same guy who later operates on her in the climax) while their conversation sets up a trick question Ghostface uses later on. Many fans feel the scene would have been emotionally powerful and a good Call-Back and wish it had been filmed.
• Friendly Fandoms: With fans of Scream (2022). They argue over which film is better, but they generally agree that both films are superior to Scream 3.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In Brazil, the fourth film is often considered the best one.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Gale and Dewey are seen going through troubles with their marriage. Not long after shooting wrapped, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, the actors who play them, separated after eleven years of marriage.
  • Watching Emma Roberts kicking and haranguing her character's ex-boyfriend can be hard to watch now, considering that, a couple of years later, Roberts would be be arrested in Canada for a domestic dispute with her boyfriend Evan Peters.
  • Also, Emma Roberts commiting Matricide is now cringing when in October 20, 2020, she blocked her Innocently Insensitive mom Kelly Cunningham on Instagram after she accidentally revealed her then-confidential pregnancy. Emma would later unblock Kelly after they reconciled following an eventually mutual understanding about respecting one's child's privacy and how important it is to ask for their consent first before making public announcements. Can also be seen as Hilarious in Hindsight depending on one's perspective due to it being not as cataclysmically serious as other examples of this trope.
  • The killer's Attention Whore Motive Rant, especially the parts about how the internet has created a new breed of Famous for Being Famous celebrities, can come off as frighteningly prescient of various scandals involving social media stars behaving badly in The New '10s.
  • The final scene becomes this after 5, knowing it's the last time we'd see the main Power Trio together.
  • The concept of filming the killings and uploading them to the internet is much, much more disturbing after a number of mass shootings in the late 2010s and early 2020s in which the murders were actually live-streamed over the internet.
  • Kirby's hard partying ways are a bit hard to watch after Hayden Panettiere revealed in 2022 that she had struggled with alcoholism and substance abuse since her teen years and nearly died from liver failure due to her drinking.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Strange as it is to say—and crossed with Tear Jerker—the idea that Charlie backed off when stabbing Kirby to either give her a fighting chance or let her live shows a humanity and vulnerability and it's possibly the one time a Ghostface Pet the Dog too. That also means that if he did intend to let her live, she did after all.
  • The extended ending with Dewey and Gale visiting Sidney in her hospital room post-climax. It's a more positive note to remember the end of the movie by and if this has been the final movie in the series — which it wasn't—it would've been a good final note to conclude on too. More so given (as noted above in Harsher in Hindsight) it's last time the three legacy characters would be onscreen together.
• He's Just Hiding: Kirby, seemingly on the basis that she is "merely" very strongly implied to have died rather than having it outright stated. She is still clearly alive and stirring when Charlie walks away after stabbing her in the stomach, and a noise Sidney hears a bit later could have been a wounded Kirby trying to crawl away. According to Word of God, there would have been a "we got a heartbeat" scene involving her. She is not present at all in the story of Scream (2022), but there's a little Easter Egg in the form of a YouTube video with the title "Woodsboro survivor Kirby Reed" establishing that she did pull through. Scream VI finally confirms Kirby had survived and brings her back to the main cast.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Five years later, Emma Roberts would star in Nerve, which features a supporting character named Sydney (with two Y's) who is best friends with her character. She makes no effort to kill this Sydney, though she does get into a fight with her.
  • Another example from Emma Roberts. In this film, she plays a character who poses as a Final Girl when she's actually the killer herself. On American Horror Story: 1984, she plays a character who genuinely does exhibit all the traits of a Final Girl—and gets framed for the murders committed by Margaret, for whom this is the second time she's posed as a Final Girl while having someone else take the fall for her killing spree.
  • The opening scene features a pointed Take That! at sequels and remakes that feature modern things in a forced way, showing Ghostface in the in-universe Stab 6 taunting his victims through harassing Facebook posts. Four years later, the MTV reboot series had the new Ghostface using social media to harass people, exactly the sort of thing that this film bemoaned.
  • The original Scream saw Courteney Cox, an actress with a Nice Girl reputation thanks to her work as Monica Geller on Friends, Playing Against Type and ending up typecast in "bitch" roles afterwards. Emma Roberts experienced a similar career trajectory after this film, with her own type casting shifting from "sweetheart" to "Alpha Bitch" in a nearly identical manner.
  • This isn't the first time Emma Roberts has donned the Ghostface mask. As a matter of fact, Emma wore it when she was 7 years old. In the way Emma's character is portrayed as a Psychopathic Womanchild and an Evil Is Hammy Fun Personified party animal, it is as though Emma, while playing the killer, darkly gets to be seven years old all over again. Doubles as Heartwarming in Hindsight.
  • At one point, Robbie and Charlie acknowledge how every film in the horror genre is a remake—reflecting how the 2000s saw a glut of inferior remakes of Slasher Movies. The New '10s, however, saw a surge of well-received horror films that were acclaimed for their social commentary (Get Out (2017), A Quiet Place) or simply for being really well done (The VVitch, The Conjuring), as well as It (2017) being hailed as one of the best Stephen King adaptations ever. This was even dubbed the 'Horror Renaissance'.
  • James A. Janisse of Dead Meat expressed confusion at the movie's statement of being gay as the only way to survive a modern horror movie, citing it as an Ass Pull as he was unable to come up with examples of the so-called phenomenon. Come Fear Street, Sam, the only possessed Shadyside killer, is the only one to survive, and her girlfriend is the Final Girl. In addition, the fifth and sixth films have a lesbian character surviving.
    • FunWorld, the makers and copyright holders of the Ghostface mask, would come out with a mask variant adorned with a Pride flag pattern.
  • In a time when slasher remakes were set in an Alternative Continuity from the original movies, Scream 4 subverted the trend, as it was a proper Scream sequel with the new Ghostface replicating the first murder spree and the characters lampshading and mocking remake cliches, all of which render Scream 4 a quasi-remake. Years later, this movie would be considered a requel under the fifth movie's rules.
  • The film is a Take That! and subversion of remakes with the new cast being intentional pale imitations of the originals. After killing one of those newbies who turned out to be the killer, Sidney says: "You forgot the first rule of remakes, Jill. Don't fuck with the original!" 4 years later, MTV would produce a divisive remake of the franchise with an altered Ghostface mask and expies of the original cast, some of whom fans considered to be pale imitations of the originals. In other words, they broke their own rules and fucked with the original.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Trevor is an unrelentingly obnoxious dick who cheated on his girlfriend, but damn he really did not deserve what Jill did to him.
  • Charlie let Jill seduce and talk him into helping her with the Ghostface killings and he was a more than witting participant, but his dying brutally as a helpless pawn and clearly being really broken up about attacking and leaving the girl he actually was interested in for dead is enough to still prompt empathy from the audience.
• Love to Hate:
  • Rebecca Walters is essentially the publicist equivalent of If It Bleeds, It Leads; she's ecstatic that Olivia's death will boost interest in Sidney's book. Damn if Alison Brie doesn't make her adorably pompous.
  • Jill Roberts is a shit-tier human being, but the popular consensus is that she's one of, if not the best Ghostface in the franchise. She has a much simpler motivation than other killers (who usually fail miserably to look even remotely sympathetic after The Reveal in-universe), and her charisma makes her wildly unpredictable.
  • Charlie Walker, like the previous accomplices, is Laughably Evil and fills the audience with giggles and laughter with his quirks.
• Memetic Loser: Charlie is often derided as the "simp" Ghostface due to being played like a fiddle by Jill and ruthlessly stabbed by her without even seeing it coming after The Reveal.
• Moral Event Horizon: Jill's murders to secure herself fame is heinous enough, but when she kills her own mother For the Evulz, it's incontrovertible proof that she's the biggest monster in the franchise.
• Narm:
  • The killer delivers a great threat to Rebecca Walters about being happy to put her in the hospital... and then adds "in the fucking morgue!" as if the audience wouldn't fill in the blanks for themselves.
  • Judy Hicks going out of her way to be creepy when introducing herself to Sidney feels like a very forced attempt at turning her into a Red Herring.
  • Jill's Wounded Gazelle Gambit can appear quite hilarious when it's supposed to be serious.
  • Jill's line about "matching wounds" can seem very forced as a way to conveniently tip off Dewey and Gale that she is the killer.
  • During Ghostface’s call to Kirby, who vehemently believes her caller to be Trevor, Ghostface gets pissed at her and tells her he’s not Trevor. However, the way he tells her is delivered so exasperatedly and impatiently that it just comes off as funny because of his irritation at her.
    Ghostface: This is not FUCKING TREVOR!
• Narm Charm: Kirby rapid-fire listing the names of several remakes uninterrupted in Ghostface's game of horror movie trivia. It's pretty bizarre to answer a question like that, especially since the killer didn't even finish the sentence, so she wasn't even sure what she was answering, but Hayden Panettiere's brilliant performance makes the scene work so well. Plus, listing off every major horror remake of the 2000's in less than thirty seconds is rather impressive.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • Upon finding Olivia's body, it's possible to glimpse intestines spilled out all over the bed, one must wonder how Sidney didn’t puke from seeing it .
  • As part of a Wounded Gazelle Gambit, Jill braces a knife against the wall and rams her shoulder into it.
• Older Than They Think:
  • As a nod to the contemporary popularity of Found Footage Films and as part of the remake rules that the new killer shall utilize the latest technology, Ghostface in Scream 4 records all the murders of the victims before uploading the footage to the Internet. However, this isn't a particularly new idea, as the Ghostface in Scream 2 also utilized cameras to record the victims; the only difference was that the Ghostface in Scream 2 didn't upload the videos to the Internet. Doubles as Hilarious in Hindsight.
  • This isn't the first time Emma Roberts has donned the Ghostface mask. As a matter of fact, Emma wore it when she was 7 years old. Also, doubles as Hilarious in Hindsight and Heartwarming in Hindsight.
  • Also, it turns out this isn't the first time Emma Roberts played a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, as Emma as Addie Singer from Unfabulous made a crossover in an episode of Drake & Josh (which shows Addie's not exactly the goody good girl she is in her home series when conspires with Megan Parker to torment/prank Josh in his sleep).
  • This also isn't the first film to have the apparent Final Girl being revealed as the killer and covering up her crimes to the police. That was done as far back as 2001 with The Hole, although that's more of a thriller than a slasher film. Though 2006's All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, a more traditional slasher, also had the exact same twist.
• Once Original, Now Common: In a sense. The killer being revealed as Jill, the apparent Final Girl, would be less shocking these days for meta reasons. Emma Roberts was a Teen Idol at the time, normally playing various Woobies, so her being revealed as the villain was a big shock. In The New '10s, however, she has found her niche playing Alpha Bitches in American Horror Story and Scream Queens (2015), so it's not quite as surprising. Likewise, the Final Girl trope has been played with numerous times in 2010s horror like The Cabin in the Woods and The Final Girls, so viewers may end up seeing it coming.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Opening victim Jenny, who's a memorable blend of sassy and sympathetic. Aimee Teegarden really brings it in the lead-up to her death, almost making you hope she'll survive.
  • Kristen Bell as the killer in the Stab 7 fake-out. Absolutely perfect casting to sell the Stylistic Suck of the franchise.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: The film received a cell phone tie-in game that had some very wonky controls and featured none of the characters from the films except Ghostface, the player character (who goes unnamed and doesn't employ his trademark tactics). That said, it only costs 99 cents, and it does get some kudos for awarding the player extra points for following the "horror movie rules" in how they kill (getting the slut first, the nerd last, the jock and the cheerleader together), showing that the people who made it at least knew why the films were so popular.
• She Really Can Act:
  • Emma Roberts was suffering from a lot of Hype Backlash to her Teen Idol roles, with many questioning if the hype she was getting was because she was the niece of Julia Roberts. Her performance here was very well-received and kicked off a whole new level of success in American Horror Story and Scream Queens (2015).
  • Hayden Panettiere was widely praised for her performance as Kirby, helping to make her genuinely charasmatic and likeable, whilst also pulling off a convincing dramatic performance in the climax during the phone call. She's part of why the Kirby character became so beloved.
• Signature Scene: There are two scenes that pretty much anyone who's seen the film remembers.
  • Olivia's extremely gruesome death by disembowelment. To this day it's widely regarded by fans as the single most brutal death in the entire franchise.
  • Jill staging the crime scene to make herself look like a victim.
• Squick: Officer Perkins lusting over the high-school aged Olivia.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: To the third film, whose Ghostface reveal and various plot twists were controversial among critics and fans. Scream 4 is often regarded as an improvement because, like the first two films, it satirizes an actual horror movie trend, which in this case would be horror remakes and reboots, and has Ghostface reveals and plot twists that don't rely on Asspulls.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Kate Roberts is introduced as Maureen's sister, and alludes to having dealt with a lot for having such an infamous sister—"no one ever asks me about my scars". Having a character that had another connection to Maureen in her youth would have made for an interesting story in its own right—especially as women over forty rarely get much attention in the slasher genre. Having her discover her daughter is the killer could have made for some great drama. Instead she has just two scenes, and merely exists to explain how Jill and Sidney are related. The original actress Lauren Graham even dropped out of the role after it was rewritten partly because of this.
  • Despite casting name actors Adam Brody and Anthony Anderson, the cops Hoss and Perkins do surprisingly little in the film. They mostly just patrol outside Jill's house, get one scene where they riff on cop cliches, and then are killed off very suddenly. Perkins at least gets the memorable death, making him close to a One-Scene Wonder. Hoss in particular feels wasted, given how he's Genre Savvy about the fact that he's probably a Red Shirt and tries to take steps to avoid this, while still having a good sense of humor and being a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for 1996 Dewey in some ways.
  • Trevor likewise feels very vanilla as he's the Expy to both Billy Loomis and Derek from the second movie in the 'boyfriend who seems like a Nice Guy but could be the killer'. No effort is made to get to know him as an independent person, and he seems to be there to fill a quota and get framed by Jill.
  • Olivia's Unresolved Sexual Tension with the Ambiguously Gay Robbie and genre savviness about the original survivors being Doom Magnets make some fans feel that she could have been in a lot more scenes.
  • Charlie is easily the Ghostface with the least amount of screen time after the unmasking since he dies surprisingly quick. Even in his time alive, the movie focuses mainly on his partner, which ultimately means that he doesn't get many stand-out moments especially when compared to previous Ghostface Mickey, who dies early as well but still gets a solo Motive Rant that explains his plan to become famous, a personal duel against Sidney, and a cheeky Not Quite Dead moment as well.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The film satirizes the glut of horror remakes that started popping up in the 2000s — even getting a sequence where Kirby lists all the notable ones by name. It's mentioned how studios have nothing original when it comes to horror, which ended up changing in the 2010s — with the 'Horror Renaissance' and the likes of Get Out (2017) getting an Oscar nomination. There are Take Thats to Torture Porn, which died pretty quickly not long after the film came out (although since that is only in Stab 7, that could be handwaved as an in-universe dated reaction). Internet technology is introduced into the plot — with the killers planning to upload videos of the murders to the internet - but it is done primarily through webcams and videos that have to be edited later. While Facebook and Twitter are name-dropped, social media and the internet are treated as mainly for teens — when even five years later Sidney would have likely had to do a lot of online marketing for her book.
• Vindicated by History: While Scream 4 was more divisive than outright panned, it had a strong set of detractors who viewed it as an inferior follow-up for its out-of-place comedy for certain kills and criticized the main Ghostface's motive as weak and unbelieveable; furthermore, its box office failure killed plans for two direct sequels. As the years have gone by, however, it's been met with a more positive reappraisal, and is among many fans' favorite Scream movies. Likewise, the main Ghostface's motive, which was initially perceived as unrealistic, is now considered to be very ahead of its time in predicting how social media would evolve in the 2010s. Plus, the success of Scream (2022) also helps to give it more attention and focus too.

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