Retro Reviews:
This
is not the first time Wes Craven attempted to challenge and rebuke the
tropes of his genre- Wes Craven’s New Nightmare also attempted to use a
meta-plot to push forth a similar narrative, but ultimately failed to
achieve what it set out to do. And the mid-90’s was a place that had a
definite lack of horror, most often attributed to the dot-com boom in
the economy, the genre suffered from a number of lackluster blockbuster
performances and a veritable sea of goofball clichés and direct-to-video
failures. Craven was eventually approached to tackle screenwriter Kevin (Dawsons Creek) Williamson ’s script, and the film became a huge commercial and critical
success. It has, since, spawned three sequels, several parodies, and a
series of knock-off attempts to follow this films “formula” in order to
cash in.
I’m not a
huge fan of the film and honestly was not very impressed with the 1996
offering, but stuck around long enough to check out the first sequel
before tapping out for the other films. And it’s been well over a decade
since I last saw any of the films, so I largely checked out on the
franchise in general by the time the third film came out and barely
registered the blip on my radar when the fourth film was released. But
with the recent passing of Wes Craven and a recent discussion on my
favorite podcast (www.horrormoviepodcast.com),
I thought it might be time to revisit some of the films from the
series. Luckily, three of the films first films are available on
Netflix…
Also, beware- there may be some spoilers here if you haven’t seen the film.
SCREAM
The
film opens with Drew Barrymore receiving a phone call. And I’m not
going to lie, this is one of the most chilling openings to a horror
movie ever made. Much of the success of the film depends on this scene,
where Barrymore is harassed, pursued, and brutally murdered in the
opening minutes of the picture. It’s a horrific scene that’s further
escalated when the girls’ parents are just outside of earshot to hear
her cries for help, but they’re able to hear her brutal murder when they
pick up the phone. It’s a nasty scene and could have set the mood for
the rest of the film-
Then
we are introduced to Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a young girl
coping with the recent murder of her mother one year prior. It was her
eye-witness testimony that put away Cotton Whirry (Leiv Schreiber), and
the sensational story brought her to the attention of Gail Weathers
(Courtney Cox), a tabloid reporter. Sid is struggling with her loss and
an insistent boyfriend, Billy (Skeet Ulrich). And she’s the main focal point for
the rest of this picture when the killer starts to target her-
harassing, taunting, attacking, and ultimately attempting to murder Sid
and her friends. She’s a strong character with decent motivation, and
her initial dismissal of horror tropes is well-played, even as she falls
victim to one trope after another.
The
film is very tongue-in-cheek in its approach to the horror genre,
providing you with complete details of precisely what is happening at
every point in the film and precisely why these tropes tend to work. It
challenges several of them- the guilt of “sin” (drug use, sex, nudity)
is directly referenced by our film geek “nerd” character, Randy (Jamie Kennedy). Why the
trope doesn’t work anymore is obvious, but the film shows us precisely
why the trope needed to be challenged in the first place. In a very
“Penn&Teller”-esque way, the film tells us precisely what is going
to happen every single step of the way, and we are constantly told what
is going to scare us and when but the audience is expected to fall for
every trick in the book anyway. And then we’re supposed to laugh at
ourselves in falling for precisely what we’ve been told is going to
happen.
Perhaps the
most audacious scene takes place in the video store where a number of
“facts” are revealed but quickly obscured in a deluge of “cute talk”
designed to distract from everything we’re actually being told. It
worked for many- it’s a well shot, well-acted scene with just enough
humor to relieve the tension that’s being built in that one moment.
Where
the film falls apart, for me, is in the characters themselves. The
performances are a direct reflection of the characters presented on
film- The “bad” girl, the insensitive “goof-off”, and the general
atmosphere of teenagers present in the film is a direct reflection of
the writers later work on “Dawson’s Creek” and other top WB-related Teen
“Dramadies”. The characters are spoiled, entitled, arrogant little
jerks who I have very little compassion for and ultimately couldn’t care
less when each one faces their tragic end. The dialogue is filled with
“cute-talk” moments designed to make us remember “Oh, yeah, tha
exists!” in a series of film references and in-jokes that the audience
is expected to laugh along to or to feel as if they are “missing out”
on. Wes Craven, himself, makes a cameo appearance as a Christmas
sweater-wearing janitor named “Fred”… yeah, that happens. And when I
don’t care what happens to the characters, I’m ultimately not caught up
in the suspense that the film is attempting to create and therefore only
left with the comedy- which is really just a series of reference points
that would later become a genre in and of itself with the parody
spin-off; “Scary Movie”.
The
movie isn’t “awful”, though- it just failed to hit several marks for
me, as a viewer. But, ultimately, the film tends to work far more than
it fails and is a decent addition to the slasher genre. Considering the
amount of money it made, one lone dissension in a sea of praise is
probably not worth much in the long range of things- but this is my
opinion.
3.5 and probably a must-see for horror purists looking to get a complete vocabulary of knowledge regarding the genre.
SCREAM 3
Having
given up on the series after the first sequel (which I’m not going to
review here), I decided to forego the third film in the planned trilogy
and instead write letters to my favorite soap dish company in order to
explain how much I love and enjoy their product. So, now that it’s 2015
and Wes Craven has passed and it’s being offered on Netflix, I figured-
“what the heck, the company never wrote me back anyway” and decided to
give Scream 3 a whirl. And so this is a review of the third film that
has, so far, gone sight unseen.
Leiv
Schreiber reprises his role of Cotton Whirry from the first two films
and becomes the first victim in what is likely the least impressive
opening scene in the Scream franchise. It’s convoluted, overblown, and
ultimately fails to really set the stage for anything that will even
closely resemble a moment of suspense. And this is how the film pretty
much goes from here on out, because now it’s going to be a trilogy and
we have simply got to see how closely tied to horror franchises this
film is going to be. This will include celebrity cameos from Jay and
Silent Bob amongst others.
Okay-
this film pulls a couple of interesting tricks, the most key amongst
them being that they change the focus from Sidney Prescott and instead
turn it on Deputy Dewey and Gail while they try to figure out who the
killer is for this third installment. Sidney is relegated to the
background through much of the film, a woman in hiding after the events
of the first two films and someone who only really comes into the film
when the Killer eventually taunts her out of hiding. The cast is joined
by actors playing new roles in the “movie-within-the-movie” and a pair
of cops, one of which is played by Patrick Dempsey (star of the
Meatballs 3 movie). And this movie doesn’t even pretend to be a horror
film at this point- the self referencing is way over the top, the deaths
are cliché, and the Red Herrings go so far as to have a literal sign
(“I KILLED HER!”) pointing at the most obvious choice so as to render
that choice completely moot.
I
did, however, have a full expectation that the “killer” would be two
people- and in this I was wrong, though only half so much in that I
guessed the identity (including the motive) of the killer within three
minutes of having seen that character on the screen. Where the first
film created moments of tension, horror, and an eventual release this
film just wanted to be “clever” and completely fell apart for me within
moments of the opening kill.
The
film’s not a complete loss, however. Cox and Arquette have great
chemistry in their scenes together and it was nice to see Dewey sort of
take center stage for as long as he does. He’s a good cop, a good
friend, and a good character that I was happy to see more of- it goes to
show that David Arquette has a lot of charisma and can occasionally
deliver a good performance. Their scenes of investigating the great
“mystery” of the film are good to watch, even if the ending is fairly
predictable.
2.5 out of 5.
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