 Lisa Kennedy from the "Denver Post" stated that "Scream 4" "pays plenty of homage to their 1996 original", but that it is not close to its greatness, despite calling it a "cut above most slasher flicks".Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" praised the film, stating "It's a giddy reminder of everything that made "Scream" such a fresh scream in the first place," while Betsy Sharkey of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that ""Scream 4" finds a way to live up to its gory past while it carves out new terrors in new ways.