Scream 4 gets a mediocre, generic teaser.

This thing, or a version of it, premiered last week at the 2010 Scream Awards, which are airing tonight on Spike TV. I wish I could say that this teaser gave me a renewed confidence for a project that was made purely as a money grab, and has been plagued by all kinds of studio tinkering from the get-go (the Weinsteins interfering in a horror film... no!). But this frankly looks as generic as can be, feeling less like a genuine sequel than a remake that they really wanted to make but didn't have the guts to. It feels like a mishmash of all three Scream films (high-school murder spree, tie-in movie being filmed/released, Sydney suffering from survivor's guilt), with a token nod to the last ten years of grindhouse-type horror. I'll happily eat crow if this turns out to be as good as the first two films, and the final bit with Lucy Hale is worth a chuckle. But with Lauren Graham leaving because her character had allegedly been dumbed-down, with Hayden Panettiere allegedly furious that her character had been bimbo-ized, and with original writer Kevin Williamson being tossed off the project and replaced by Scream 3-scribe Ehren Kruger, this feels like a cold-hearted cash grab for all who remain onboard. Oh, and unless they do what I thought they were going to do in Scream 3 (make Dewey the killer), my money is on Allison Brie. She currently stars on Community and co-stars on Mad Men, how much time will she have to become a cornerstone of the new Scream series?. This nostalgia-fueled retread opens April 15th.

Scott Mendelson