Where Scream 4 should have ended, an otherwise strong entry hurt by its formulaic ending.

Sorry if I'm late on this. I'm just catching up on all the Screams after 3 I haven't seen before.

I watched 4 and it is a step up from 3 and one of the stronger entries. Jill is an iconic Ghostface.

The action-heavy ending battle at the hospital felt off to me. It is the weakest part of this movie. What transpired before this was clever writing for a Scream entry, with Jill staging herself as the lone survivor and the commentary on fame. This ending formulaic battle tacked on to satisfy American audiences to give a conclusive good guy vs. bad guy showdown.

Back at the house, Jill is smart and calculated. She strategically and cleverly injures herself in coordinated ways to make her appear as a victim. Her scheme is organized and planned in advance. She's psychotic yet intelligent. Her plan works. She succeeds. She's famous.

At the hospital, Jill is reduced to a cloddish cliche horror villain. The foolish decisions she was making here undermine her character back at the house.

1. She leaves her bed to go into Sidney's room to kill her immediately after Dewey, a cop, has left. She doesn't even wait until Dewey has left the building. Maybe wait a few hours?

2. She wants to give Sidney another monologue here (thus conveniently giving Sidney the opportunity to fight back) instead of just sneaking in while Sidney is asleep and quietly smothering her with a pillow.

3. Once the fight starts, and noises are made, and supplies are thrown around, Jill is in a point of no return. Even if Jill succeeds in killing Sidney here, there're going to be questions why Jill entered her room in the first place. There's going to evidence Jill killed her. Jill's entire motive for wanting to be known as the lone survivor is gone. Jill takes this rather calmy as if her entire plan wasn't foiled by the stupid decision to enter Sidney's room.

4. Then there's the absurdity of Dewey, conveniently, hearing the noise from a different part of the hospital and rushing to Sidney's aid. The man who just left Jill's room is conveniently the only person in this hospital who hears this noise in Sidney's room and runs to it. Then this leads to an absurd battle where Jill is up against Sidney, Gail, and two police officers in the same room. It's funny that a teenage girl who's a hospital patient can hold her own against two trained police officers.

The image I enclosed is where the film should have ended. Jill goes to the hospital. Dewey tells her Sidney is in ICU. We get that scared look from Jill. Cue credits. This would be a stronger, cathartic ending. It's both a cliffhanger but also gives just enough information to allow the audience to interpret Sidney will live and Jill will be caught. If it ended here, it would a much more iconic entry today.