This is why door-to-door salesmanship is in decline.

SCREAM 4

The Abridged Script

FADE IN:

INT. SUBURBAN HOUSE

AIMEE TEEGARDEN and BRITT ROBERTSON are watching a horror movie.

AIMEE TEEGARDEN

What the hell is going on? Two girls got murdered by Ghostface but it turned out to be Anna Paquin and Kristen Bell watching a movie?

BRITT ROBERTSON

And then they killed each other and THAT was a movie too! Screenwriter Kevin Williamson sure is meta!

AIMEE TEEGARDEN

I guess brevity isn't the soul of wit anymore since Shakespeare's legacy is being raped by Roland Emmerich.

GHOSTFACE arrives and murders them both.

GHOSTFACE

I wonder if my chasing and stabbing people will still carry tension after it's happened six times in the opening twenty minutes.

It DOESN'T.

INT. WOODSBORO BOOKSTORE

NEVE CAMPBELL is autographing copies of her book with her publicist, ALISON BRIE.

ALISON BRIE

Writing a self-help book was a brilliant idea! You can makes tons of money without writing anything of actual worth, just like Dr. Phil!

NEVE CAMPBELL

Hey, I'm not in this for money. I want to help people by showing them that they don't have to be dominated by their traumatic pasts.

ALISON BRIE

So you scheduled a book signing in the town whose claim to fame is the first killing spree targeting you, mere days before its anniversary, WITHOUT trying to make money? Did Ken Jeong teach all your business classes too?

COURTNEY COX comes up to NEVE.

NEVE CAMPBELL

Courtney! Since all my real friends have been brutally murdered by now I'll forget that I used to hate you. What have you been up to?

COURTNEY COX

I married David Arquette.

NEVE CAMPBELL

But you're separated in real life! How clever! No wait it's just really awkward.

COURTNEY COX

Anyway, we moved back to this town where we first met and got stabbed together.

(sighing romantically)

I left journalism for some unexplained reason but I really miss it.

NEVE CAMPBELL

Yeah the career that almost got you killed three times sounds like the right choice.

Sheriff DAVID ARQUETTE arrives.

DAVID ARQUETTE

Two twenty something "high school" girls were slaughtered last night and we found an imperial fuckton of evidence in Neve's car.

NEVE CAMPBELL

Holy shit! Am I under arrest?

DAVID ARQUETTE

No, I'm far too incompetent to do that.  You just aren't allowed to leave the town, so you'll stay within the killer's reach without being protected from him.

NEVE CAMPBELL

Yeah I know the drill.

EXT. WOODSBORO

GHOSTFACE attacks ALISON in a parking garage.

ALISON BRIE

I can't believe he disabled my car's engine and more surprisingly the horn by yanking out two random wires!

She runs to the STAIRWELL but the DOORKNOB breaks off.

ALISON BRIE

How did you manage to cut through the knob without anyone noticing or finding out about it when they tried to park here?

GHOSTFACE

Is the girl who participated in a campus-wide paintball game asking about plausibility? Anyway, I've decided to substitute outrageously excessive kills for tense ones so off you go!

GHOSTFACE throws ALISON off the roof and spots officers ADAM BRODY and ANTHONY ANDERSON patrolling the area.

ADAM BRODY

So according to the rules of a Scream movie, distracting cameos like ours have no chance of surviving.

ANTHONY ANDERSON

I know what you mean. Plus you're a rookie cop on your first assignment, you show lots of potential, you were top of your class at the academy, you just got married to your true love from high school and you have a daughter named 'Eternity'.

ADAM BRODY

And you're black. So we're both pretty much asking for it.

Unable to resist, GHOSTFACE kills ADAM and stabs ANTHONY in the BRAIN. In a masterful satire of his own career, ANTHONY drunkenly stumbles around much longer than necessary before giving up and DYING.

INT. EMMA ROBERTS' HOUSE

EMMA ROBERTS and HAYDEN PANETTIERE are watching a horror movie.

HAYDEN PANETTIERE

Screenwriter Kevin Williamson sure is meta.

MARIELLE JAFFE calls them from her house, which is next door.

MARIELLE JAFFE

Hey someone just sent me a text message: "What's your favorite scary movie?"

HAYDEN PANETTIERE

Oh crap this is how Ghostface threatens people before he kills them!

EMMA ROBERTS

Well I'm pretty undeveloped but people keep comparing me to my cousin Neve Campbell; that link is too important to kill off this early, so I'm safe.

HAYDEN PANETTIERE

While I'm Emma's best friend, usually a death sentence, I have short hair and wear a leather jacket so I stand out just enough to make it to the third act.

MARIELLE JAFFE

Yeah and I'll live because...uh-oh...

GHOSTFACE jumps out, stabs MARIELLE and pulls out her organs while EMMA and HAYDEN watch from their window.

HAYDEN PANETTIERE

I can't believe our loyal friend what's-her-name is being murdered before our eyes!

EMMA ROBERTS

I can't believe she was talking to us on the phone instead of walking the extra 20 feet to see us in person! Seriously, how contrived can you get?

GHOSTFACE continues dissecting MARIELLE'S corpse, making her ROOM look like FREDDY KRUGER'S wet dream.

HAYDEN PANETTIERE

What's really upsetting is that somewhere out there Eli Roth is getting an erection because of this.

NEVE runs up to check on the girls.

NEVE CAMPBELL

I was passing by when I heard what was going on. I'm going to go after the killer alone and unarmed because I've built up an immunity to being murdered after being in three slasher movies.

NEVE rushes to confront the killer, who has just finished hanging bits of MARIELLE from the rafters.

GHOSTFACE

Hello Neve. Good to see you again. Don't worry I'll do ten times worse to you eventually.

NEVE CAMPBELL

Why are you pretending to be a single person I've foiled three times before? You're using the same costume and voice fuckafier doohickey that makes you sound like Cole MacGrath but you're a completely different person each time.

GHOSTFACE

That's what you think Neve!

(escapes)

NEVE CAMPBELL

What subtle foreshadowing.

INT. "HIGH SCHOOL"

EMMA and HAYDEN attend a horror film club meeting hosted by fellow twentysomething "high schoolers" ERIK KRUDSEN and RORY CULKIN.

RORY CULKIN

Let's discuss how the "rules of surviving a horror movie" have changed since other horror franchises made more money than this one.

ERIK KRUDSEN

It used to mean defying slasher movie stereotypes but now that we're into the fourth of these increasingly unnecessary sequels it means being as predictably unpredictable as possible.

RORY CULKIN

Screenwriter Kevin Williamson sure is meta.

NEVE CAMPBELL and COURTNEY COX show up to keep anyone else from getting too much SCREEN TIME.

ERIK KRUDSEN

Wow, Monica Geller! You were my fourth favorite Friend!

COURTNEY COX

Come on, doesn't anyone watch Cougar Town? No? Well anyway tell us about the killer's MO.

RORY CULKIN

The killer is taping the murders as he commits them. Don't ask why I know that. Also, please ignore this glaring implication of Erik, who tapes everything he does with his camcorder/headset.

ERIK KRUDSEN

Instead come to a party in a barn outside of town where we watch a bunch of horror movies in a row!

COURTNEY COX

Sounds like a complete dead end of a lead. My whipped husband and I are in!

NEVE CAMPBELL

I appreciate this shitshow within a shitshow thing the script is doing but I'm too important to be sidetracked by it.

INT. HAYDEN PANETTIERE'S HOUSE

The "high school" cast members have an after-shitshow party where they get drunk and watch, what else, horror movies.

ERIK KRUDSEN

I'm gonna excuse myself for some vaguely suspicious reason.

EMMA ROBERTS

Me too!

RORY and HAYDEN are left alone.

HAYDEN PANETTIERE

So since I'm drunk and you're the only one here I guess I have a crush on you. Let's make out.

RORY CULKIN

Holy shit the girl I've always apparently liked is coming on to me because of my undying persistence! Nerds in the audience, take note!

(stabs Hayden)

HAYDEN PANETTIERE

Holy shit the creepy nerd with one friend who's been awkwardly hitting on me the entire time is actually a murderous psychopath! Ladies in the audience, take note!

(dies)

NEVE arrives.

RORY CULKIN

How did you know to show up? Did you read the script?

NEVE CAMPBELL

Better! I read The Abridged Script! How THAT for meta!

EMMA shows up dragging ERIK'S corpse.

EMMA ROBERTS

Surprise! Instead of the innocent last girl,I'm the psychopath mastermind! Now to dispatch my flunky!

(shoots Rory)

RORY CULKIN

How predictably unpredictable!

(dies)

EMMA ROBERTS

Now I'll make it look like I'm the lone survivor of a killing spree and become famous just like you Neve!

NEVE CAMPBELL

So you're a distant relation that's never been mentioned before like Roman from the third movie. You want to be famous like Mickey from the second movie. Finally you blame me for something that really wasn't my fault like Billy from the first movie.

EMMA ROBERTS

Yep. I'm a mash up of several killers from earlier movies. See? I'm not a different person each time after all, just like I said!

NEVE CAMPBELL

Yeah thanks. Hey, if becoming famous is your motive why don't you just make an ass out of yourself on the internet and then get featured on Tosh.0?

EMMA ROBERTS

My way is much less painful.

(stabs herself multiple times)

Oh I also have to kill you.

(stabs Neve)

The POLICE, PARAMEDICS and MEDIA arrive.

DAVID ARQUETTE

Wow, everyone thinks Emma is a heroic survivor and Neve appears to be dead. This could actually be an effectively disturbing ending if we stop right here-

INT. HOSPITAL

DAVID ARQUETTE

-or not. Everything's okay Emma, Neve lived.

EMMA ROBERTS

Damn what a bitch! She'll ruin everything! Where's her room?

DAVID ARQUETTE

Just down the hall. Also, Courtney got stabbed at that idiotic barn party but she'll live too.

EMMA ROBERTS

I know. I'm the one who stabbed her. How's her shoulder?

DAVID ARQUETTE

I'll ask her right now!

DAVID goes to COURTNEY'S room while EMMA goes to murder NEVE.

COURTNEY COX

How did you not pick up on Emma's obvious implications of herself?

DAVID ARQUETTE

Give me a break, I had severe but apparently not permanent nerve damage two movies ago!

DAVID and COURTNEY run to NEVE'S room, where she is wrestling unsexily with EMMA.

DAVID ARQUETTE

Crazy psychopath vs. someone who had enough dignity to keep her shirt on in "Wild Things" but not enough to turn down that movie all together. Who do we root for here?

EMMA ROBERTS

Once I kill you my master plan will go off without a hitch!

COURTNEY COX

Actually, your plan is stupid as hell. How are you going to explain the three extra murders you now have to commit if you want to get away with this?

DAVID ARQUETTE

Also you left fingerprints all over the knife and gun you used to kill everyone.

COURTNEY COX

And if the killer is supposed to be taping the murders it'll be really suspicious when no footage of you or Rory shows up.

NEVE CAMPBELL

And you forgot that I'M IMMUNE TO BEING MURDERED!

NEVE beats EMMA up, shoots her, and uses a DEFIBRILLATOR on her HEAD.

NEVE CAMPBELL

There, that was over the top enough for this movie. Are we done?

DAVID ARQUETTE

With Scre4m. They're already working on a sequel, Scr5am.

NEVE CAMPBELL

Seriously? Doesn't Kevin Williamson have anything better to do than rehash the same jokes over and over again?

SCREENWRITER KEVIN WILLIAMSON

Do any of you have anything better to do than act as a mouthpiece for said jokes? Didn't think so.

END

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