Tag: Scream 4

Wondering whether you should answer the call and take a chance on “Scream 4” this weekend? Critic Peter Travers writes in Rolling Stone that despite the “diabolically funny start and a surprise climax” the movie isn’t worth your time, and Michael O’Sullivan’s review in the Washington Post offers one of the stranger metaphors in recent cinema criticism by calling the Wes Craven film “a 17-year-old bulimic girl … alternately bingeing on cheesy slasher-flick cliches, purging, by pointing out, over and over, just how gag-me-with-a spoon cheesy they are.” Roger Ebert just seemed weary after seeing the movie, reflecting on “one victim after another being slashed, skewered, stabbed, gutted and sliced, with everyone in on the joke” before shaking his head at the reader with this closing line: “Maybe that’s your idea of a good time.” The “good-start-but-slow-middle” assessment popped up ...

The first three “Scream“ films mocked the cliches of contemporary fright flicks and manufactured a few new ones, but when the credits rolled on the  goofy third edition, everyone involved agreed it was best to send the franchise where killers never really die — the home-video shelf. This Friday, though, the team behind “Scream” takes another stab at success, but will anyone still jump? John Horn has a Calendar cover story in Thursday’s Los Angeles Times examining the brand’s box-office survival chances. Here’s a short excerpt: It’s been 11 years since “Scream 3″ arrived in theaters, and franchises don’t normally relaunch themselves after such a long hiatus. Audience tracking surveys suggest that “Scream 4″ will be eviscerated at the box office by the animated comedy “Rio,” but there are precedents that make “Scream 4″ maker Weinstein Co. optimistic about its long-term prospects. ...

On Friday, legendary horror director Wes Craven will release his latest genre entry and his first project in 3-D, the R-rated thriller “My Soul to Take.” The story focuses on a group of seven teenagers, led by two best friends — Bug (Max Thieriot) and Alex (John Magaro) — struggling to survive the murderous legacy of a local serial killer, Abel Plenkov, a mentally disturbed man known as the Riverton Ripper who allegedly died 16 years earlier. The film marks Craven’s first full-length feature since 2005′s “Red Eye,” but he hasn’t entirely been absent from the screen: Three of his classic movies — “Last House on the Left,” “The Hills Have Eyes” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street” — all got the Hollywood remake treatment (though Craven had no involvement with the last project, which starred Jackie Earle Haley as ...