: (Marco Beltrami) Once thought stabbed to
death and buried as a relic of the slasher era's resurrection in the
1990's, the
franchise was up to its old tricks in the
2010's once again, destined for decades worth of pilfering. Director Wes
Craven and writer Kevin Williamson return from the first two features to
reprise their roles for this fourth entry, along with other crew that
include lead actors Neve Campbell, David Arquette, and Courteney Cox.
While there was originally no intent to bring the franchise back to
life, Craven was convinced of its renewed viability after reading
Williamson's fresh script, and, undaunted by a lawsuit from the producer
of the original three films, the Weinsteins and Dimension Films pressed
forward with the idea of creating an entire second trilogy if grosses
permitted. Performance by
at the box office was
initially considered disappointing, critics and audiences both
respectful of the concept's important role in the history of modern
slasher films but lamenting a lack of originality and a story that
doesn't seem to really take itself seriously. That plot details the
return of Campbell's character, Sidney Prescott, to the town of
Woodsboro on the fifteenth anniversary of the killings so she can
promote her new book. Upon her arrival, however, a mysterious reprise of
murders conducted in trademark form by the "Ghostface" killer
immediately causes Sidney to become a suspect. The situation is
complicated by both a plethora of new characters, many of them simply
extras to thrust sharp objects into, and a new era of technology at
play. The entire scenario is entirely pedestrian and predictable, an
attempt by Craven to recapture old glory without enough revision in the
basic premise to retain much interest. Continuing his role as the
composer for the franchise is Marco Beltrami, whose career owes much to
his ability to excel in the modern horror genre during the 1990's.
The announcement of Beltrami's return to the concept was
met with general applause and fairly heightened expectations. The music
for the
Scream movies in general has been a rather muddy
prospect, pop song placements and the lifting of some of Beltrami's
music in
Scream 2 in favor of music by Danny Elfman and Hans
Zimmer hovering like clouds over the continuity sought by the composer.
Beltrami still succeeded quite well in the franchise despite the
meddling, actually incorporating the style of Zimmer's material into his
own for
Scream 3. A downright gorgeous theme for Sidney has
always defined the whole concept musically, whether expressed by
solitary female voice in supreme elegance, stoic brass in statements of
resounding dread, or in cooler choral shades. When last audiences left
Scream 3 on the big screen, Beltrami had successfully translated
this theme into the major key for a surprisingly uplifting, contemporary
farewell. But despite the memorable history Beltrami had afforded the
franchise musically,
Scream 4 is a substantially disappointing
continuation of the narrative. The recording budget for the fourth entry
was substantially smaller than that of the prior two, emulating the
situation he faced with the initial film and forcing him to seek a lower
cost orchestra in Europe as a result. He and four assistant composers
handled the 2011 entry from a purely functional stance, tackling
individual scenes with stylistic remnants of the previous scores while
accomplishing absolutely nothing new. There exists no forward movement
in the score for
Scream 4, no intriguing maturation of ideas from
the previous scores to reflect fifteen years of additional age. The
application of existing ideas isn't particularly interesting, either,
with no intelligent sense of hindsight to carry Sidney through her new
nightmare. Beltrami and his crew seem to have tackled the assignment by
simply extending the composer's proven slasher style in ways perceived
to be acceptably effective.
Nothing screams the word "token" in
Scream 4
like the very short nod to the existing identity for Arquette's Dewey
Riley in "Dewey in the Morning." Rather than find a creative way to
re-phrase Zimmer's theme on guitar from
Broken Arrow or even his
own material for the character, Beltrami instead toys around with the
guitar in nebulous light-hearted fashion to suggest only a basic
connection of identity but not actually develop it. (Honestly, more
thought seems to have gone into the cue title). Similarly recognizable
but not very appealing is how Beltrami's team handles the more
aggressive Woodsboro theme, tinkering around with it in "Woodsboro
2010," "When You Let Someone Go," and "The Media Arrives" but choosing
muted stylistic connections in those performances that obscure its
purpose. The loss of the great, rattling chain effect in this theme is
lamentable. Meanwhile, the primary theme for Sidney is not developed
particularly well in
Scream 4, its occasional references not
worthy of much discussion. It exists in fragments throughout the score,
often on the familiar piano, but only in a few more outwardly robust
fragments at the end of "When You Let Someone Go" and beginning of
"Touch and Go" does the idea receive major performances. Even in the
female solos in the former and ensemble force of the latter, however,
the theme is still only partially stated. As in "How's Gale," this theme
is often mutilated by the composer's team, notes in the melody altered
to dilute it rather than enhance it, as had been explored briefly in
Scream 3. Hints of that more elegant variation do make a brief
appearance in "I Know How You Feel" and "Sid's Advice," which closes the
score on a more dramatic note. The entire work teases you with the
theme, likely intentionally, and this move is fine as a fundamental
choice, but Beltrami doesn't revise or replace it with anything else to
carry the melodic load. The bulk of the score consists of tired
references to dissonant, prickling, shrieking, and pounding techniques
of the era past, with a little manipulation to make terrifying hits more
sudden.
Some of the horror cues in
Scream 4 contain
passages of interesting textures, including an enhanced role for
metallic percussion worth some attention, but otherwise the score is a
somewhat pointless listening experience. There are only so many ways
brass can be slurred in ensemble crashes before you lose interest.
Choral tones are used sparingly, a disappointment given how well they
enhance short snippets of certain cues. There are brief moments of
subtle comedy, as in "Working Together," and the first third of the
score struggles compared to its predecessors in that it is slim on
suspense and horror material during this time. The false resolution
technique is also abused here, so much so that there's a hidden track of
"Stab" movie-within-a-movie music at the very end of the initial 2011
score-only album for the soundtrack. That Beltrami product is a chore to
tolerate for over an hour, especially for the few payoffs in terms of
sustained action or reprises of Sidney's theme. The quality of the
recording is adequate, though it's somewhat baffling to hear the
contemporary synthetic elements play such a minor role despite increased
awareness of technology in the plot. The four cues of suspenseful setup
up front, from "Cheating on My Diet" and "Woodsboro 2010" to "You Were
Busy," contain seven minutes of palatable music worth adding to a
compilation of the other three scores. In 2022, the Varèse
Sarabande released a 6-CD set containing music from all four of
Beltrami's scores for the franchise, with one expanded disc dedicated to
Scream 4 and three really brief demo cues on the 6th disc. The
additional sixteen minutes of unreleased music from this score on the
set help establish the early suspense and add redundant action cues to
the third act. The three demos are of little consequence. In fact, the
whole 6th disc in this set has little value. Don't seek the 2022 set for
the additional
Scream 4 material, as the original 62-minute
presentation was more than adequate and contains all the highlights.
Brian Tyler took the composing duties for 2022's fifth entry in the
franchise,
Scream, with results no better than this. In the end,
revisit
Scream 3 for the best memories from the concept's music,
because frightfully little of interest remains in this ghost from the
past.
** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Marco Beltrami reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 2.75
(in 28 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 2.8
(in 19,011 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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