Do you like (total franchise reboots of) scary movies? Then here’s your first look at Scream 4, which spells out the outdated nature of its own self-aware premise via a speech by Rory Culkin, who’s obviously inherited Jamie Kennedy’s role as “Meta Explainer Guy”: “The unexpected is the new cliché,” Culkin says while pointing out that in the “2.0.” version, Scream’s stock serial killer Ghostface should be doing what seemingly every other horror movie does these days: filming his murders, giving director Wes Craven the opportunity to use some of that very voguish “found footage” look to create some of the scares for this savvy, modern generation Culkin is warning us about. Also, all the kids have cell phones now; look, Hayden Panettiere even caught Ghostface on her iPhone! It is truly “the natural next step in psycho-slasher innovation.” We’re guessing the actual film will explain why Lil’ Liev Schreiber here is always wearing what looks like an air traffic controller’s headset, like maybe he’s got a constantly running webcam feed or something very “2.0” like that.
Anyway, annoying nods to the new kids aside, it’s nice to see someone terrorizing Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox again, while the brief glimpse of Kristen Bell and Anna Paquin—playing this installment’s ass-kicking blonde heroines who are ironically reduced to (presumably) quickly offed victims—suggests their scene might be enough to justify the whole shebang.
UPDATE: Looks like The Weinstein Company has already yanked it from the Internet. We'll let you know if we find another one.