Director Wes Craven's return to his meta-slasher movie franchise with Scream 4 created the concept of a legacy character returning to heroic form before Blumhouse's 2018 Halloween reboot — and did it better.
After the disappointing Scream 3 in 2000, Craven and writer Kevin Williamson reunited for another Scream movie, which released in 2011. The eleven year gap was notable; fans weren't sure there was ever going to be a continuation to the director's second iconic franchise, which resurrected and reconfigured the slasher movie sub-genre in 1996. Scream 4 might not have been critically acclaimed upon release, and was met with some well-earned disappointment from fans, but has seen a resurgence in both popularity and appreciation in recent years. John Carpenter's Halloween franchise, which began in 1978, has far more movies to boast than the Scream franchise, for better or worse. While Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has returned intermittently throughout the many sequels—across numerous different timelines—director David Gordon Green's decision to retcon the entire Halloween franchise and pick up with Laurie's story 40 years after the original movie, ignoring everything after Carpenter's original movie, was a bold choice.
However, while Halloween 2018 is arguably a better movie than Scream 4, many of its plot elements—which were clearly intended to be unique—were already derivative of Scream 4. Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is the lifeblood of the Scream franchise, so much so that fans were genuinely worried about the direction that 2021's Scream 5 would take without her involvement. Fortunately, Campbell signed on to reprise her role in Scream 5, though many wonder if it'll be for the last time. Halloween wasn't necessarily good without Laurie's character, and her inclusion in the 2018 reboot has become the cornerstone of the new trilogy, which is slated to end in 2022 and forever close the saga of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode. Even so, Scream 4 and the franchise on the whole has been a commentary on slasher movies since its inception, so it's only fitting that the movie commented on a new genre trend before it saw a resurgence in the late 2010s.
Sidney Prescott Was Scream 4's Legacy Before Halloween's Laurie Plot
Upon Scream 4's release in 2011, the legacy plot wasn't wholly unique to the horror genre. A slew of Platinum Dunes reboots—most of which were very unsuccessful—tried to resurrect the most iconic villains in horror. Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre all got the Platinum Dunes treatment in the late 2000s. As such, Scream 4 serves as Craven and Williamson's eagle-eyed commentary on horror movie reboots. Scream was a meta look on the slasher movie on the whole, Scream 2 tackled the subject of the sequel, and Scream 3 showed how—unintentional or not—a horror movie franchise can become stale, quickly.
Laurie Strode's involvement in the Halloween franchise has been interesting, to say the least. She's been killed by Michael Myers numerous times, saw a full character overhaul when Rob Zombie took the director's chair for his Halloween reboot and sequel, and then finally returned to form in Halloween 2018 in survival-mode. Sidney Prescott, on the other hand, has never died. Her character has never wavered. Her return to Woodsboro was sensible, and she even took a backseat—as much as the beating heart of any franchise can—to pave the way for a cast of new, interesting teenagers who reflected those in the original 1996 movie.
Where the focus of Halloween 2018 was on Laurie facing off with Michael for what audiences thought at the time could be the last, Sidney's return to Woodsboro is less triumphant. She's a grizzled veteran and survivor who doesn't want to face another Ghostface. Sidney wants to put the past behind her, but can't seem to ever outrun it and truly get a chance to start over. She has always been the legacy of the Scream movies, but her character clearly has ambition and aspirations outside of her bloody interactions with those who have donned the Ghostface mantle, and that's not only a better look for the genre, but falls in line perfectly with Craven's underlying commentary on how reboots are so overdone.
Scream 4 Had A Family Connection With Sidney & Jill
Another bond Halloween 2018 and Scream 4 share is the familial connection. For Laurie, her paranoia and PTSD have created an environment where she has neglected and emotionally abused her daughter, Karen (Judy Greer), which in turn has trickled down to her granddaughter, Alyson (Andi Matichak), with whom her relationship is less strained, but still tentative and lukewarm.
Sidney, upon her return to Woodsboro, reconnects with her friend Dewey (David Arquette) and frenemy Gale (Courtneney Cox) as well as her aunt Kate (Mary McDonnell) and cousin Jill (Emma Roberts). Sidney is hailed as a hometown hero in the fictional Woodsboro, California; Laurie is something of the town pariah. She has a drinking problem, anger issues, and most people seem to think she's crazy for being convinced that Michael will escape from the sanitarium—again—and go on a killing spree in Haddonfield.
Scream 4 gets the edge on Halloween 2018 in this regard as well — Sidney's family connection was cleverly subverted upon the ending's reveal that her cousin is one of the killers wearing the Ghostface mask. Laurie's story of generational family trauma and hardship creates a more compelling narrative, but the Scream movies have always been about that shocking, last-minute reveal, and delivers here through its less than traditional inclusion of its heroine's family.
Scream 4's New Generation Was More Interesting
Halloween 2018 introduced a new generation by way of Alyson's friends, who were intended to mirror Laurie's from Carpenter's original movie. The remaining two movies in the Blumhouse Halloween trilogy, Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, will bring back additional characters from the original movie, but Scream 4 almost perfectly mirrored the teenagers from Craven's 1996 original movie and made them the focus. Alyson's friends and boyfriend, at times, really seemed like nothing more than characters to pad Michael's rising body count; the teenagers in Scream 4 were more purposeful.
Not only were two of them the killers working together, like how Stu and Billy were in Scream, but Hayden Panettiere's Kirby managed to improve on her original movie doppelgänger, Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy). Kirby's death in Scream 4 was ambiguous enough that it's possible she's not dead at all; many fans hope that she'll somehow find a way to return in the upcoming Scream 5. The teenagers—including Alyson—in Halloween 2018 weren't as interesting, unique, or halfway as integral to the plot as Laurie herself. Sidney, conversely, worked in tandem with not only Woodsboro's teenagers, but with her friends to stop Ghostface — she doesn't need to be the movie's sole hero.
Scream 4 may not have been the Scream franchise's shining star, nor better than Halloween 2018, but its concept was tongue-in-cheek enough to be cutting-edge for its time, and point-for-point still manages to stick the landing on Craven's clever commentary as the late director often sought to achieve in his movies.
