I didn’t really know what to expect from Submarine. The writer-director, Richard Ayoade, is best know for his roll as Moss in the IT Crowd, and I had my doubts about his abilities in a role behind the camera. Perhaps I was expecting the IT crowd, along with all its silliness, but in a different setting; well this isn’t that at all, but for all the right reasons.
Scream 4, simply put, is Meta out the arse, but once you get past this perfect storm of self-referential madness, there isn’t all that much to write home about.
It’s strange to see scream 4 in 2011, or should I say SCRE4M (its always cool when they do that right?…). It’s been over fourteen years since the original and that is a lot of time to leave between a sequel, especially one that is so referential to the genre within which it is couched, and one that has gone through somewhat of a metamorphosis in the intervening decade. Gone are the days of the Slasher flick that characterised horror genre back in the days of Scream 1. Replacing it are other forms of horror, the torture porn genre (probably the worst name you could give anything ever) with films like SAW and Hostel , though even that has probably seen its end. As well as that you have the videotaped, home-made style of horror; starting with Blair Witch in 1999, but more recently seen in the Paranormal Activity films. Alongside these two ‘bastions’ of horror film making you have the rise of the remake, Nightmare on Elm’s street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror and Dawn of the Dead to name but a few. Scream 4 then, attempts, like its predecessors, to de-construct the slasher flick, while also attempting to de-construct these newer horror genre quirks, most notably the idea of a remake.
