Tag Archives: Scream

Premature Endgame

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SCREAM 3

 3.5 Stars  2000/18/112m

“Welcome to the final act.”

Director: Wes Craven / Writer: Ehren Kruger / Cast: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox Arquette, David Arquette, Patrick Dempsey, Parker Posey, Jenny McCarthy, Scott Foley, Liev Schrieber, Lance Henriksen, Deon Richmond, Emily Mortimer, Matt Keeslar, Kelly Rutherford, Patrick Warburton, Roger Jackson.

Body Count: 10

Dire-logue: (after the murder of a Stab cast member) “He was making a movie called Stab. He was stabbed.”

The problem with Scream 3 is that it had a clever joke threaded through it that got lost in the blur of a new writer trying to make ends meet. What is it? It’s that there’s two mysteries at play: Who is the killer in Scream 3 and who is the killer in Stab 3? There are two Sidney’s, two Gail’s, two Dewey’s. One might be a killer or victim in either. Sadly, Ehren Kruger couldn’t make it work right and most people ignored it.

What’s left is a respectable effort all the same. Compared to 90% of slasher films, Scream 3 is still top-notch stuff but there’s a definite sense of boredom on behalf of the returning cast and crew that drowns that enthusiasm of the newcomers. Kevin Williamson’s long-delayed treatment was finally handed to Kruger, possibly something that’s been repeated in the imminent Scream 4 if production rumours are to be believed.

Neve Campbell also seemed tired of going through the motions as it-girl Sidney, who is also (understandbly) sick and tired of being chased by loons in Father Death masks. So a lot rests on the shoulders of Courteney and David, by then finally married off screen, playing ever-bickering Gail and Dewey, this time split up asnd reunited on set after Cotton Weary is slain in the pre-credits slaughterhouse, which is one of the better moments.

Fictional follow-up Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro is immediately thrown into jeopardy by the news, which pulls in Hollywood detective Dempsey and his sarcastic partner. Meanwhile, Sidney is hidden away in the Californian wilderness with her dog and a dial-in job as a crisis counsellor.

A second murder shuts down the film and the killer manages to contact Sidney, who takes the bait and joins her old buddies to once and for all find out who the fuck is dicking with her and end the madness.

The subtlety of the first two films is out the window as almost every utterance by the new cast members is tainted with suspicion. Even with a crowbarred-in cameo by Randy, the cast seem oblivious to horror movie rules and split up time and time again once they’ve been gathered in a Beverly Hills mansion for the homerun.

Still, there are some great touches: Sidney’s exploration of the set of her old house nicely echoes events of the original film and once the killer reveals themself and spits out another long-winded motive (you gotta wonder why these guys spent so much time trying to kill her if all along they planned on giving a lecture on the whys, hows and whos?) she fights hard, even saying she doesn’t care about the reasons as she’s heard it all before.

Parker Posey supplies some good comic moments as Gale’s fictional counterpart who thinks she can do a better job of investigating and then cementing herself to Gale’s side when the killer targets her. The other actors and crew members of Stab 3 fulfil their marginal walking-corpse roles without much ado. They exist purely to say a couple of witty things and then die.

“It’s all about MEEEE!”

Williamson’s schtick of trilogies is played out quite pointlessly (made all the more redundant by the arrival of the fourth film) with a lot of blah about rules n’ stuff that don’t apply convincingly. Yes, it all harks back to the start and Sidney’s mom (shown in a creepily close close-up from the photo Sidney had in the first film) but it’s clear that, despite his insistence otherwise, Scream was not designed to be a trilogy. You only have to scan the unused script for the second film where Sidney dies at the end to realise that.

As usual, cameos from industry friends are littered throughout: Jay and Silent Bob turn up (with Craven in the background); the Carrie Fisher exchange is fittingly amusing.

The film also felt the force of a screen-violence clampdown in the wake of the Columbine massacre in 1999 and the amount of claret on show is reduced from the first two, with quick cuts away from fatal slashes and stabbings or attacks obscured by the position of the camera or people/objects in the frame.

Looking at Gail’s hair, Dewey wondered what he ever saw in her

So it’s drier, unsubtle, a little all over the place and, surprisingly, occasionally badly acted. Plus Courteney Cox sports one ugly-ass yellow suit and seems to have had her hair cut by Stevie Wonder. Kruger’s dialogue isn’t as sharp as Williamson’s and his reasons for jockeying victims into position have become the cliches that the first film made fun of. This is not to say he’s a bad writer by any stance; Arlington Road was awesome and I really liked The Skeleton Key. The poor guy was handed the biggest horror franchise going and told to wrap it up. Had it been ‘just another sequel’ the results might’ve been very different.

A disappointing finale and one that hasn’t aged very well but its enjoyable elements outweigh the sluggish ones. I’d recommend watching it after sitting through something like I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, just to appreciate that they made a decent flick, just not a wonderful one.

Blurbs-of-interest: the Arquettes were later in The Tripper (which he directed); Patrick Dempsey was in Thanksgiving; Henriksen was also in The Horror Show, Color of Night and Madhouse (2003); Matt Keeslar was in Psycho Beach Party; Deon Richmond was in Hatchet; Carrie Fisher was the housemother in Sorority Row.

Legacies of the 90s: Mental Motives

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While 90s slasher films attempted to intellectualize the dead teenager opus, there’s only so much you can with such generic material. One area where things shifted dramatically was the Why is this happening? element of the plot. Essentially, nothing had really changed from the pictures of yore: I Know What You Did Last Summer featured the same basic set up as Prom Night.

In the horror realm, there are limited reasons why killers go ape and slay a string of teenagers but after Scream‘s extended, smartified attempt at making the killer’s motive seem more than it was, the ensuing studio slasher films did their best to follow suit.

Without giving away the farm (yeah, sorry about the screenshots), here are some of the best 90s horror motives, simplified. Can you guess which films they belong to?

  • You ran me over and tossed me in the sea. Even though I wasn’t dead, this upset me somewhat.
  • Your parent is a person of loose morals who had sex with my parent, causing them to leave. Never mind my parent being of loose morals also, this is all about YOUR parent. Thus, I’m killing people.
  • I’m passing off this product as my own and so must kill everyone associated with it.
  • I am a force of nature and therefore cannot have a motive so to speak, I just am. Zen, huh?
  • You killed my offspring in self-defence. Nevertheless, this is my motive for wanting to kill you and several bystanders.
  • You ate the last biscuit at a business meeting four years ago and I wanted it!
  • I’m made of celluloid therefore cannot be responsible for my homicidal actions.
  • I am jealous of you and your life even though I’ve never actually met you.
  • You were in the car that caused an accident which killed someone I love. You weren’t driving but it’s still your fault and I’ve gone massively out of my way to set up all these elaborate murders to freak you out and frame someone else.

  • You said you wouldn’t dance with me in junior high then some boys kicked the shit out of me. Never mind that though, being told ‘no’ to a dance is far worse and therefore I’m killing you and not the boys.
  • I loved your mum but she didn’t love me, so I killed her and blamed someone else. Now you’re here, I will start killing again and blame someone else. Again.
  • I loved your mum but she didn’t love me, so I killed her and blamed… Hey, I’m totally ripping off the motive from another naff rip-off!
  • I am still pissed that you ran me over and got away with it, foiling my attempt to kill you in the process. Therefore I will try and kill you again.
  • I am a possessed doll who kills people – deal with it.
  • I like killing people.

…OK, I made the biscuit one up but you get the point.

Second time’s a charm

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SCREAM 2

4.5 Stars  1997/18/115m

“Someone has taken their love of sequels too far.”

Director: Wes Craven / Writer: Kevin Williamson / Cast: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Liev Schreiber, Jerry O’Connell, Jamie Kennedy, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Timothy Olyphant, Laurie Metcalf, Elise Neal, Jada Pinkett, Omar Epps, Lewis Arquette, Duane Martin, Portia De Rossi, Rebecca Gayheart, Tori Spelling, Heather Graham, Roger Jackson, Christopher Doyle, Philip Pavel.

Body Count: 10

Dire-logue: “Is that the best you can do? ‘Cos Billy and Stu were much more original.”

With slight improvement on the original, Scream 2 is my favourite in the series …so far. Who knows what the fourth movie will have in store? Well, we all will this time next month.

A year or maybe two after the events of the first movie, a trashy slasher flick, Stab, based on Gale Weathers’ book, The Woodsboro Murders, sees its opening weekend thwarted by the gruesome double murder of a couple in the cinema. The scene brings back memories of the prologue from He Knows You’re Alone but is ultimately ruined by the frankly hilarious death-face of Jada Pinkett who manages to make her character one of the most annoying in little more than a few minutes on screen.

Turns out that the dead kids went to the same college as Sidney Prescott and also film geek extraordinaire Randy, who find moving on with their lives difficult with all the attention garnered by the book, the movie and now the murders, which sucks in Gale Weathers, Deputy Dewey and also Cotton Weary, he who served time for the murder of Sid’s mom before it was revealed he was innocent. And now he wants compensating.

It becomes apparent that the killer – or killers – is keen on picking up where Billy and Stu left off, taking out college kids, eventually cutting closer to Sidney. But who? And why? And who?

Scream 2 was released at the very peak of the genre resurgence, quick on the heels of its predecessor to keep the various other high-budget slasher flicks trailing behind, rapidly building a name for itself by upping the ante rather than merely replicating the formula.

The schtick they pedal this time is all to do with sequels, follow-ups and such, from Randy’s explanation of how horror sequels work (during which he drops a subtle hint at who the killer actually is before we even know), to Sidney’s drama production of Cassandra of Troy – Troy of course being famously built of the remains of the destroyed city just as a sequel is built on the foundations of the previous film.

Craven and Williamson flourish here, both in content and presentation, giving Scream 2 the same sort of zenith as Final Destination 2 and Friday the 13th Part 2. Not to say those films are necessarily the best of their respective series’ but they both represent their franchises finding their beat, although very few film series’ manage to retain the quality of their better output. In the case of Scream 2, everything is on point, almost perfectly pieced together in a big slasher flick jigsaw of numerous suspects, red herrings, heroes and villains; the body count is liberal without going ballistic and it’s sufficiently grisly and occasionally scary.

Great scenes that play about with bits from the first film include select moments from Stab – which Craven himself said was supposed to represent how a hack director would’ve approached Scream – the best part doubtlessly being when, after Sidney quipped to Tatum and Dewey that a film of her life would end up with Tori Spelling cast as her, who else should turn up in the role but Tori Spelling? Excellent.

Clocking in at five minutes short of the two hour mark (almost unheard of in these parts), there’s lots of time for various sequences to be slowly drawn out, like Gale’s cat and mouse chase through a studio, that massively tense escape from the totalled cop car and, of course, the unmasking ceremony, when Sidney faces up to what the killer, or ers, have in store for her as a motive this time.

The finale is good n’ strong. The revelation concerning the murderers was a wonderful homage to a very influential slasher film of olde and while I smugly guessed one part of the outcome, another part had me going “oh yeah! Duh!” Sidney puts up a good fight, using the props of the Cassandra stage we saw earlier to fight back and is eventually caught up in a bizarre stand-off between unlikely characters.

Of course, lots that happens can be boiled down to huge creative license: how people end up in particular places at just the right time is something that we get used to in any horror film but here it’s not so much that characters make stupid mistakes like splitting up to search for someone or going to find out what that scraping noise outside is, they’re jockeyed into position by the killer and are played, some of them throughout the entire film, by the sociopath.

As before, cameos come thick n’ fast from Buffy herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, in an almost throwaway part as ‘the sorority victim’ – it was difficult not expecting her to whip out a pointy stick and kick ass; Joshua Jackson is in the film class scene and not-then-famous Portia De Rossi and Rebecca Gayheart (the latter turning up in the following year’s Urban Legend) are a couple of dizzy sorority chicks – or are they?

Ultimately marred by the fact that you can’t really see it without knowing the first film, there’s little else to criticize: defenders of the old school had already prepared flimsy arguments against big-budget horror ‘bastardizing’ the legacy of a gazillion skid row projects from fifteen years ago but the fact is that if there was no Scream and Scream 2, slasher films would’ve simply faded away altogether, save for the odd shot-on-camcorder shelf filler and for that they should be lauded rather than lamented.

Girl power!

Blurbs-of-interest: Sarah Michelle Gellar was Helen in I Know What You Did Last Summer; Lewis Arquette was also in The Horror Show; Christopher Doyle was in the Toolbox Murders remake; Rebecca Gayheart was also in Santa’s Slay and had a cameo in Urban Legends: Final Cut; Heather Graham was in From Hell; Elise Neal was in Holla; Omar Epps was the lead in Trick; Joshua Jackson was in Urban Legend.

Legacies of the 90s: Posters with lots of faces on them

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After Scream, gone was artwork with detailed paintings of scary killers brandishing weapons and impressions of scenes from the movie, in came posters with select cast members’ faces all over them – usually in a triangular formation – selling the film on what ‘current’ teen stars were in it rather than how scary or grisly it might be. A lot like this:

90shorror-faces2

Anyone care to take a ‘stab’ (har-de-har-har!) at naming the accompanying films? C’mon… at least four of these are ‘dead’ easy. OK, I’ll stop.

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Please shut down your genre and reboot

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SCREAM

4.5 Stars  1996/18/107m

“Someone has taken their love of scary movies one step too far.”

Director: Wes Craven / Writer: Kevin Williamson / Cast: Courteney Cox, Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Skeet Ulrich, Rose McGowan, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Kennedy, Drew Barrymore, Joseph Whipp, Henry Winkler, W. Earl Brown, Roger Jackson, Linda Blair.

Body Count: 7

Dire-logue: “She wants to kill herself but then she realises that teen suicide is out this year and homicide is a much healthier therapeutic expression.”

Gazillions of people around the world have reviewed Scream so what am I supposed to write that makes a difference? Probably nothing I can write really. It’s influence is undeniable and it was thankfully not a cheap, transparent product that pissed off a generation of horror fans.

What I could knock Scream for is not its fault, more the society that received it. All manner of critics lined up to heap praise on the film for intellectualising dumb slasher films, used a lot of big words in doing so, happy that they were able to say that the genre sucked when, quite apparently, they’d never seen more than a handful of slasher films in the first place.

Post-modernism was the key term linked to mucho reviews of the film when it came out and, yeah, okay, it’s a slasher film where the characters know how slasher scenarios work, but in spite of what everyone said at the time, it certainly wasn’t the first horror movie to be self-aware. Even forgotten gutter dwellers like Blood Sisters had one-liners along the lines of “and just like any horror film, the van won’t start!”

What Kevin Williamson achieved with his screenplay was toying with the audience’s expectations: unlike most critics, they knew more about how these films worked and it was they who the film set out to impress. This was achieved largely by a series of homages to the dead teenager movies of yore, dismissed by many and likely cluttering the resumes of several big Hollywood stars who didn’t want to be associated with that trash. Scream reconciled the genre to this effect, giving it a geek-chic makeover and rendering it cool to like, underscored by the presence of Jamie Kennedy’s Randy – a video store clerk who lectures the teens of Woodsboro on the ‘rules’ of the scary movie. Yes, it was now cool to talk about Prom Night in the light of day. Of course cool defined in a sort of Central-Perk-irony way…

Aided no end by the harvesting of several important players; Wes Craven hadn’t had a box office hit in some while but was still able to surf his I-made-Freddy wave into the directors chair and a horror film that can nab Drew Barrymore for a 12-minute cameo also put bums on seats.

Williamson and Craven adorned their film with young actors plucked from various TV shows, gave them dialogue more substantial than “quit screwing around” and a modicum of intelligence that is fair to say was missing from most of the campers at Crystal Lake. Again, in the wave of films that followed, the Dawson’s Creek-style verbosity of the youthful casts became occasionally annoying, wheeled in to replace the exploitation elements of the 80s – it’s worth noting that in the big studio slasher films of the 90s movement, there was hardly any skin on show at all.

Neve Campbell, then on Party of Five, was cast as the put-upon final girl, Sidney Prescott, whose mom was raped and murdered the previous year. With the case shut and bolted, Sid’s happy to get on with her life until a ghost-masked killer begins playing with her and laying to waste random townsfolk, including some of her friends, eventually causing her enough grief to question the truth about her mother’s death…and life.

Almost every character who appears is a suspect to some degree: Sidney’s nemesis, cheesy reporter Gale Weathers (Cox, borrowed from Friends) is back stirring up shit she doesn’t want to face and her ‘bubble-butt’ boyfriend Billy (Ulrich) is handily on scene to rescue her after the killer takes his first swipe – coincidence? Even ancillary cast members employ suspicious expressions here and there, wear boots that look similar to the killer’s and say things, meaningless things, that cast the smallest of shadows over their trustworthiness.

suspects-2
The climax may look like standard fare now but at the time was something new, down to the exposition and the why’s, how’s and when’s that fill in all the blanks neatly and it’s then down to Sidney to survive. And survive she does, with more grit and gusto than most final girl’s since Heather Langenkamp rigged a whole Home Alone full of tricks to hurt Freddy Krueger.

The end of Scream is especially interesting in comparison to its 80s ancestors, where the victims were interchangeable clones of those from the previous sequel. Here it was the survivors who moved intact from film to film while the killers identities were altered, although always related to earlier events. Scream was the first slasher flick in a long time to allow more than one female character to survive, ushering in a new breed of heroines who were smarter, harder and always more personally involved with the killer than before.

There was no doubt Scream would be successful: it had stars, bankable production talent and a budget large enough that would’ve made half a dozen indie films of the same ilk. But even cumulatively they would’ve grossed only a fraction of the box office if they’d made it past video releases at all. Besides Barrymore’s turn at the beginning, there are cameos from Linda Blair as a pushy news anchor and Henry ‘The Fonz’ Winkler as Sidney’s high school principal.

Beyond the ka-ching of its big screen run, Scream has become synonymous with almost every slasher film that’s followed it. Dusty old scripts were soon dug out of vaults and flung into production; I Know What You Did Last Summer appeared only months later, more traditional in its plot but taking on board much of the formula. Halloween was resurrected; Urban Legend pulled together every cliche in the book and gave them a good varnish; and as movie magazines declared teen horror ‘out’ around the release of Scream 3 – which, for the time being, wrapped it up – Final Destination appeared and started its own cycle.

The good done by the film far outweighs the bad, which, to some was a kind of cover-up of embarrassing old cliches in favour of trendy dialogue and depth of character where there sometimes didn’t need to be, but also its ongoing position as “the only slasher film you need to see” is detrimental to the myriad of great flicks around, even if they might not take a trip down self-referential alley but the paradox is that if it hadn’t been for Scream they probably wouldn’t have been made in the first place!

And that irksome little thing about referring to horror movies as “scary movies”, as if the former is a dirty word that one does not utter in high society – what’s with that?

Blurbs-of-interest: Cox, Campbell, Arquette, Kennedy, Jackson, Craven and Williamson all returned for both sequels (in some form or another); Arquette and Cox were in The Tripper (which he directed); Drew Barrymore had previously taken on final girl duties in 1989’s Far From Home; Matthew Lillard was previously in Serial Mom; Joseph Whipp was one of the cops in the original Elm Street; Linda Blair was in Hell Night.

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