The Shrieks Continue

Like its predecessors, “Scream 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.

The writer Kevin Williamson, the director Wes Craven and the stars Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, the core “Scream” team, has reassembled, and the action has returned to Woodsboro, scene of the original 1996 film. Sidney (Ms. Campbell) comes home to promote her book on surviving improbable personal tragedy, spurring the return of Ghostface — surely the least interesting killer in a successful horror-movie franchise — and setting the scene for another mélange of movie references and flatly staged chases and killings.

There are flashes of wit in the opening film-within-a-film-within-a-film sequence, which uses bankable blondes like Anna Paquin and Kristen Bell as Ghostface fodder. And some later jokes, like a visual jab at the director Robert Rodriguez, are funny. Others, like naming a minor character Anthony Perkins, are just dumb.

But the central conceit of the characters’ fates being determined by the “rules” of horror movies feels irredeemably tired; a clever idea that was worth one movie. When a character comments on how meta everything is, the audience laughs, but why? Only because it’s been conditioned to, just as it’s been conditioned to think that the intellectual window dressing makes the “Scream” movies something more than slasher films. Or scary movies for a generation of filmgoers who don’t like being scared.

“Scream 4” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Stabbing, impaling, crushing and disemboweling, but as several self-deprecating on-screen jokes point out, no nudity.

SCREAM 4

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Wes Craven; written by Kevin Williamson; director of photography, Peter Deming; costumes by Debra McGuire; produced by Mr. Williamson and Iya Labunka; released by Dimension Films. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes.

WITH: Neve Campbell (Sidney Prescott), Courteney Cox (Gale Weathers), David Arquette (Dewey Riley), Emma Roberts (Jill Roberts), Hayden Panettierre (Kirby Reed), Mary McDonnell (Aunt Kate), Rory Culkin (Charlie), Nico Tortorella (Trevor Sheldon), Marley Shelton (Deputy Hicks), Alison Brie (Rebecca), Anthony Anderson (Deputy Perkins) and Adam Brody (Deputy Hoss).