- 8
...may not be the best-made movie in Wes Craven's series, but it is the most entertaining.
—Luke Y. Thompson E!
- 7
...finds a way to live up to its gory past while it carves out new terrors in new ways (new media helps). The kills themselves are both bountiful and bloody, the movie references are brilliant and bloody, the funny is very frequent and very frequently bloody, but to say any more would ruin the boo.
—Betsy Sharkey Los Angeles Times
- 6
...a moderately entertaining exercise in running in circles and chasing one's tail.
—Michael Phillips Chicago Tribune
- 6
...arriving 11 years, seven Saws, four Scary Movies, two Rings, and one Shaun of the Dead after Scream 3, the fourth installment (marketed as a hip "reboot" rather than an average "sequel") responds not with quality logic but with a massive quantity of amusing, winky meta.
—Lisa Schwarzbaum Entertainment Weekly
- 6
...somewhat entertaining, occasionally scary and only sporadically migraine-inducing in its level of Jesuitical, self-referential cleverness...
—Andrew O'Hehir Salon
- 5
The modern homage it pays to its predecessors turns out to be the best thing about the film. Unfortunately, that accounts for only the first 20 minutes.
—Claudia Puig USA Today
- 5
A scattering of amusing bits and clever twists can't forestall the terminal self-deconstruction that dominates Scre4m.
—Todd McCarthy Hollywood Reporter
- 5
...provides exactly what its audience will expect: one victim after another being slashed, skewered, stabbed, gutted and sliced, with everyone in on the joke. Maybe that's your idea of a good time.
—Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times
- 5
Scream 4 goes about its bloody business with impersonal, impatient proficiency: a reasonably clever script, game cast, and assured direction make it only as good as it absolutely has to be.
—Nathan Rabin Onion AV Club
- 5
...provides strong evidence that the meta thing has gone about as far as it can go: With their dying gasps, arterially vented victims make cute pop-culture references.
—Kyle Smith New York Post
- 5
Between a diabolically funny start and a surprise climax, Scream 4 offers nothing more than a series of gory deaths that grow tiresome with repetition.
—Peter Travers Rolling Stone
- 5
This Scream is a lot bloodier than the last three, and while horror fans will enjoy the twisted ride, 4 could use more of that in-on-the-joke comedy that made the original great. [25 April 2011, p.39]
—Alynda Wheat People
- 4
...instead of creating something sensationally subversive like his surreal Freddy Krueger deconstruction Wes Craven's New Nightmare, the director goes back to the dead pool, and the audience can't help but drown.
—Bill Gibron filmcritic.com
- 4
Overblown, overlong and overstuffed with genre self-referentialism, yet undercooked in terms of credibility, worthwhile new characters and memorable scares, it's not the razor-sharp reboot fans were hoping for.
—Dennis Harvey Variety
- 4
...replaces the values of storytelling and suspense with the value of being in on the joke. Unfortunately, in the 11 years since Scream 3, the joke has gotten pretty old.
—Mike Hale New York Times
- 4
As befitting a third sequel that plays by the "rules" of remakes, Scream 4 proves doubly redundant and uninspired...
—Nick Schager Slant Magazine
- 3
...unengaged and overlong...
—Nick Pinkerton LA Weekly
- 3
...unengaged and overlong...
—Nick Pinkerton Village Voice