Scream 4 Recut

March 23, 2012
*This rating was given before reviews were required*

March 29, 2012

One of the things I enjoy most about Neglify’s edits is that he always knows when to chop, when to add, and when to leave well enough alone. As the saying goes, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Rather than chop the film to pieces (sorry), he edits with restraint, allowing the better parts of the film to remain intact, and only the most cheesy, offensive, distracting elements are removed.

Technically, Neglify’s edits are of a very high quality, and Scream 4 is another great example of that. The picture quality is excellent for a DVD release, and the editing is mostly seamless. The picture quality was slightly worse for the deleted scenes, but the content was nice and these were welcome additions to the movie. I also noticed a couple of minor lip sync issues in the deleted scenes only. The rest of the movie flowed really smoothly and without any technical issues.

As for the edits themselves, I really liked the choices made, especially those that brought the film closer to the shooting script (i.e., infused the movie with more subtlety). The best change imo is the ending. When I read that Neglify had made the ending more ambiguous/ending on a cliffhanger, I was worried there would be no resolution, or the film would suddenly cut as the killer was about to be revealed. Without giving away what Neglify actually achieves, I can say I was totally satisfied and felt the film ended exactly where it should.

Neglify, I totally agree – I want to see the Scream 5 that follows this film! Had the original team made this choice, it would have been a brave and impressive decision. Alas, Hollywood is not as intelligent as you are. Well done.

August 12, 2012

The first Scream movie was really entertaining and original. With the second one the filmmakers could have easily fallen into the trap they themselves created but Scream 2 turned out to be almost as good as the first one. Scream 3 was the first sequel that felt like they started to milk the concept, and it was more a spoof movie of the previous Scream movies than a smart satire on horror movies. But at least I was entertained. Then came Scream 4...

Here is what I liked about Scream 4: The scenes leading up to Olivia’s death and aftermath (although there was too much blood on the walls, this isn’t a Rob Zombie movie) the scenes with Sidney and Jill (“you remind me of me” and “I know how you feel”) and the idea of the ending (but it wasn’t executed well IMO)

Now to Neglify’s fanedit; I wish I had seen this version in theaters instead of the Black Christmas (remake) ending we got. And the deleted scenes that were added in work perfectly. Although the movie still sucks (this is why the rating for "Enjoyment" was only "6", no fault on Neglify's part) and because I (sometimes) have a hard time expressing myself I’m going to paste something here that Neglify himself wrote in a review, where he quoted something that geminigod wrote in a review (how meta can you get?)

“It is much much improved now but still something I don’t have much fondness for.
I’m going pull a page out of the geminigod review playbook...
(Fanedit rating focuses on technical and creative criteria that pertain specifically to the scope and depth of changes made from the source material by the faneditor. In other words, I might hate the movie but still give a high fanedit rating if I really respect the re-editing work done to it.
Movie rating judges on traditional criteria of quality/enjoyment as if this were an original theatrical release being seen for the first time.)”

I guess it all comes down to this: If you really disliked Scream4 then this fanedit won’t save it for you, but if you half liked it than you want to download this because it is a more polished and thought through version. And this being the best version of Scream4 got to be worth something, right?

Scream 4’s ending is overblown and annoyingly dragged out. Fortunately, Neg applies his digital knife to the movie to give us a proper cliffhanger and a vastly improved ending.

As per usual, Neg’s audio surgery is complicated (just reading the cut list makes me lightheaded in a blood-loss kind of way), but the transplants and sutures are largely indiscernible to the viewer, as they should be.

I actually liked the first couple tunes in the original end credits, but Neg’s choice of closing music is simply groovy.

If I were King of da Planet, I would demand that Neg work on Scream 5. Or else I’d send Ghost Face after the producers.