SCREAM 4

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Wes Craven's fourth installment in the "Scream" franchise is yet another scattershot postmodern comic play on the slasher sub-genre of horror.

Still, it's an improvement on the disgraceful "Scream 3." Torture porn may have gotten serious traction at the box office in the last decade but Craven is clear that such bloody body modification has no place in his ironic micro/meta slasher movie.

"Scream 4" racks up an impressive body count early on even if a Russian-doll narrative aspect lessens the sting of losing so many nubile girls before the opening credits roll. In the small town of Woodsboro it's the 10th anniversary of a series of knife murders that crippled the community.

Smartass college kids mock the event by hanging black shrouds with the killer's trademark screaming ghost mask from light posts. Then a new set of murders begin. No one knows that they know what they know anymore than ex-journalist and author Gale (Courtney Cox Arquette), the wife of bumbling police chief Dewey (David Arquette). Without her husband's support Gale sets out to track down the killer by herself. Franchise soul survivor Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) has recently returned to town, and once again she on the killer's hit list. 

The premise of the Scream movies is admirable. The filmmakers set out to upend every cliché of the slasher genre they can get their fake-blood soaked hands on. The effect is akin to watching a magician show you how a trick is done, only to be caught off-guard when the explanation still fools you in a similar way. It's a parlor game similar to the old fashioned who-done-it murder mystery, except there are no butlers to blame.

Here, everyone is a horror movie geek. In one self-referential scene, Hayden Panettiere's confident character reels off the names of seemingly every slasher movie ever made. Even if you've seen every one, chances are you won't guess the killer here.  

Rated R. 110 mins.