All 6 Scream movies ranked from worst to best

4. Scream 4 (2011)

Although it was the lowest grossing of all the Scream films, Scream 4 did not get as much credit as it deserves. After all, released 11 years after Scream 3, Craven and his crew were taking a risk with this one, especially after the third instalment neatly wrapped up Sidney’s storyline. But the risk paid off.

This instalment catches us up with our three legacy characters after the events of the last film – Sydney is now an author who has written a book about surviving the last three films, and Dewey and Gale are married, with Dewey serving as sheriff and Gale struggling with writer’s block, which has taken a toll on their marriage (this mirrors the real-life marriage and separation between Arquette and Cox).

But as the legacy characters have all aged since we last saw them in Scream 3, Scream 4 introduces us to new characters to fulfill the horror movie stereotypes, including Kirby (Hayden Pannetierre), a high school teen who fancies herself media-savvy. In one brilliant scene, she interrupts the killer’s question about horror remakes by reeling over a dozen remakes.

What also ranks the film high is how it subverts expectations by taking Sidney’s cousin Jill (Emma Roberts) — who we believe to be next version of Sidney — and turning her into the mastermind behind the film’s killing spree. Jill’s reasoning for doing so, as she claims in the film, is due to her jealousy of Sidney and her attempt at seeking her 15 minutes of fame.

While the original three movies focused on the influence that horror movies have on killers and the immortalization in the media, you could say that this film takes that tone forward by introducing social media and live streaming to bring the franchise into the digital era.