|
In order to view this object you need Flash Player 9+ support! 
|
Cinema and Social Media: Whats Your Favourite Scary Movie?
You would be forgiven if you were sick to death of all of the talk of how social media is ‘taking over the world’. Now social networking references are cropping up where you would least expect them as I found out during a trip to the cinema to watch the latest instalment of the Scream franchise. Wes Craven’s Ghostface killer has entered the modern world in Scre4m proving that there really is no escape from the digital age, even if your name is Sidney Prescott.
Without giving away too much of the plot, Scre4m combines its usual comedy horror with more than a few nods to the development of both the technological and social world. From the outset, Craven changes the viewer’s perspective on the typical Scream genre by creating another medium for the killer’s sinister threats. No longer is the killer confined to a dated flip phone, instead he crops up on Facebook as an anonymous ‘stalker’ using a fake identity to infiltrate the life of a teenage girl. iPhones are the new landlines in this instalment with many of the main characters opting for a smart phone.
Fans of the Scream films will be familiar with the ‘movie within a movie’ concept that is present in each of the follow ups to the original. Craven cleverly picks up on today’s cinema promotional tools with the inclusion of the Ghostface ‘app’ in Scream 4. The ‘app’, which transforms any voice into the familiar voice of the killer, is shown to be a must have in the movie.
One of the main themes in the film and perhaps one of the biggest questions for any fan of the horror genre is, ‘where can it go from here?’ The use of digital cameras and video streaming are just two of the features within the film which illustrate how both the killer and cinema in general are developing their techniques. After the success of The Social Network, the film industry is definitely ushering in a new wave of films that embrace the growing dependence on digital communication. So what’s next? A romantic comedy based purely on the Skype conversations of loved up teenagers or perhaps an animated adventure centred on a particularly tense game of Farmville? Whatever it is one thing is for sure, it will definitely not be short on viewers.