Scream 4 / Scre4m, The Woodsboro Murders Hardcover Book

original movie prop

This 9 ½” x 7 ½” hardcover book was made for the production of Scream 4 (2011). The prop, which contains pages from a real published book called The Terrorist Next Door, appears outside the bookstore where Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) goes to promote her self-help autobiography, Out of the Darkness: A True Story of Survival, as well as on Gale Weathers-Riley’s (Courtney Cox) computer writing desk. Gale’s first best-seller, The Woodsboro Murders details the events of Scream (1996) and becomes a pivotal part of the franchise in that it inspires the creation of the movie-within-a-movie Stab franchise. In Scream 3 (2000), Dewey (David Arquette) uses a hollowed out copy of the book to propose to Gale. In the ten years since Scream 3, no other murders have occurred for her to cover, forcing Gale to then turn to writing a series of fictional novels (Knife of Doom, Clock of Doom, Ghostface Returns, and Knife of the Hunter) to keep captivated a blood-thirsty audience wanting more. Now struggling with a serious case of writer’s block, Gale’s confidence worsens when she sees Sidney’s authorial debut making big waves in the publishing world, further pushing her work into the bargain bins. When new Ghostface killings suddenly hit the town of Woodsboro again, Gale sets out to investigate in the hopes of scaring up some inspiration that will put her back on top.