Harefooted Halloween: Scream (2022)

What I liked: Ghostface is the most threatening he’s ever been.  His victims don’t get in as many blows when they tangle and he doesn’t clumsily knock into shit as much.

Towards the end when the remaining characters are running and hiding from the killer one guy gets spooked when Ghostface pops out from behind a door and he exclaims “holy shit, it’s Ghostface!”  Well, yea ha, I mean who else would it be?  Maybe the funniest joke in the whole series.

Awww yea they bring back the Broken Arrow guitar cue from part 2 when Dewey decides to get off his ass and help out in the investigation.

What I Didn’t Like: Almost everything else.

Overall Impressions: Look guys, this part 5 wore me down a touch.  I’m struggling to find stuff to talk about because this series in general doesn’t give you a ton to analyze and this installment might be the worst offender.  Nothing new is added here.  Ghostface picks off Woodsboro residents one at a time using his trusty knife, he makes menacing phone calls, a group of high school friends along with a cop (or ex-cop in this case) and a reporter work together to solve who’s behind it all, the opening mirrors the original with a high school girl getting harassed on the phone alone at home, one major character dies off, the finale takes place during/after a party, everyone’s a suspect, Ghostface gets knocked out for a moment but nobody disarms him or pulls the mask back, they trot out long time vets Sidney (Neve Campbell (House of Cards)), Gale (Courteney Cox (Cougar Town)) and Dewey (David Arquette (Bone Tomahawk)) to come save the day, Ghostface’s victim selection and motive don’t make any sense, etc.

I plan on diving into this a little more in the wrap up but yet more relatives of characters from the first film are introduced.  This is all the Screams ever do.  None of the sequels are daring enough to find a way to do their own thing while staying true to the spirit of the original.  This has to be possible, no?

And similar to part 3 they go too damn meta.  This one almost borders on satire with the characters repeatedly commenting on the type of movie they’re in.  On one hand they openly suspect one another of being the killer but then on the other they continue to hang out, flirt and party with each other.  You can’t have it both ways.  “I don’t know that you’re not Ghostface…you wanna make out?”

Ugh, this one’s the worst.

Harefooted Halloween: Scream 4

What I Liked: I’m kicking this right off with a spoiler.  Skip to the next paragraph to be in the clear.  The multiple openings idea is terrific.  Having a movie within a movie within a movie sounds like a horrible mess (and a similar idea they already explored in part 3) but it turns out to be a lot of fun with genuine surprise, well done trickery and smart execution.  Unfortunately the rest of the film does not continue in this fashion.  Imagine if they just kept doing intros all in distinct and increasingly inventive ways.  Sort of like Too Many Cooks but feature length.  Admittedly that sounds way easier said than done though.  And while it would’ve been a drastic departure from the rest of the series at least it wouldn’t have been yet another rehash.

Ghostface is a little bit less of a klutz in this one.  I mean he still falls through a glass door and down stairs ‘n’ shit but there isn’t as much cartoony chase crap.

Along with my point above the killings hit a touch harder because Ghostface feels the most threatening since the first film.  For one death in particular he returns to horrifically gutting the victim like he did to some back in the original.  I’m actually not a huge gore guy but this harsh method certainly makes an impact.

What I Didn’t Like: My biggest complaint is it’s simply more of the same whodunit shit you’ve seen before.

All the meta horror movie references step right up to the line and think long and hard about crossing it.  There’s a lot of talk about reboots and how we’re living in a new era where all the usual horror movie rules you think you know don’t apply, anything goes, chaos reigns, etc.  First of all I wish they weren’t quite so self-referential.  But secondly for all the boasting about breaking rules, aside from the neat opening, it’s all fairly standard stuff you’ve come to expect from a neo-slasher picture like this.

Part of the killer’s deal is supposed to be that they’re filming their own murders so they can upload them to the internet but they never follow through on this.  The videos aren’t uploaded and we only see them explicitly filming one unsuccessful attempted slaying.  We then find out there’s a camera inside the Ghostface mask to record POV but we never see that footage or cut to that angle during the movie.  It’s just weird because they make a big deal out of it like that’s the motive behind the killings but that doesn’t turn out to be the case at all.

Overall Impressions: I wanna say they were going for a maybe sorta back to basics legacy sequel except the other installments also stuck pretty close to home so I dunno.  Whatever, not too interesting.  It’s probably the best sequel so far eking out part 2 but that’s not saying much.  While the identity of the killer is a good deal dumber it’s what happens after the reveal that pushes this one ahead.  Speaking of which…

Spoilers for the rest of this. 

You still with me?  Ok.  Turns out Sidney’s (Neve Campbell (When Will I Be Loved)) niece, Jill (Emma Roberts (The Blackcoat’s Daughter)), is behind it all (the second blood relative serial killer in the fam if you’re keeping score (remember part 3?)).  When she finishes dispatching everyone within ten feet of her (including Sidney) she proceeds to inflict wounds on herself so everyone else will cross her off the suspects list and get away with the murders.  And she throws herself into her work, literally.  She uses a victim’s hand to scratch her face and tear her hair out, she runs into a glass framed painting on the wall and finally dives backwards into a glass table shattering the thing to bits.  This drew giggles and then chuckles out of me. 

But it doesn’t stop there.  Jill’s taken to the hospital and learns that Sidney is still alive and in the ICU.  Oh no!  Her plan could be foiled at any moment!  So she drags herself out of bed, limps down the hall and jumps on a sleeping Sidney choking her.  The two proceed to have a knock down drag out fight right there in the hospital room.  Man is it hilarious and fantastic.  These two should be on death’s door, especially Sidney yet they go at it like a couple of young scrappers.  Then Dewey runs in and Jill knocks him around too!  And for the record I don’t buy for a second that tiny 5 foot Jill can pull any of this shit off.  Anyway, all of it is goddamn funny and made the experience worthwhile.

Harefooted Halloween: Scream 3

What I Liked: Sidney (Neve Campbell (54)) and her father attempt to disappear from the world after the events of the previous films by moving out to the middle of nowhere and changing their names.  It doesn’t end up working (through no fault of their own) but at least they tried to put the killing, deception, trauma, etc. behind them and start over.

One homicide involves an entire house exploding into total scraps.  It looks nice and is the most ostentatious death to date.  Man, they do a huge full fucking frame fireball in all its glory just to knock off one dude in a Rube Goldberg-esque fashion.  It’s stupid as hell but the blast is very satisfying.

What I Didn’t Like: It’s all kinda bad so I’ll harp on the aspect that annoyed me the most.  It’s too meta.  They finally pushed this shit too far and took a sledgehammer to the fourth wall.  The plot centers around the making of the film Stab 3 (what happened to Stab 2?) so now we have a movie within a movie and characters sharing names and familiar locations and such.  The absolute worst part of the franchise (so far) is the shoehorned Jamie Kennedy (Romeo + Juliet) cameo as Randy Meeks.  He recorded a video message sometime before getting his throat slashed in the previous film stating that he must be dead if you’re watching it.  He goes on to predict there will be another chapter to the Woodsboro murders and then proceeds to explain the rules of a part 3 and trilogies in general.  And all the shit he brings up eventually happens.  He avoids specifics but it’s still too much of a tip of the ol’ hand and a hard ass wink to the audience.

Overall Impressions: Ok, this is a dumb fuckin’ movie.  It doesn’t pretend that hard to be existing in the real world anymore.  First off there was a conscious effort to make this one more humorous (more on why later).  Just about all the characters except Sidney crack a joke every other line.  Whether it’s commenting on horror movie cliches, taking shots at Hollywood, actors being stereotypically egotistical or slinging straight up puns, I did not find the majority of it to be very funny.

Second, there’s the updated voice changer Ghostface uses.  It’s a magical device that can alter anyone’s voice to sound like literally anyone else’s.  So throughout the film when a character gets a phone call and it sounds like Sidney or Dewey it’s really the killer.  And I mean it’s a dead on replica.  Nevermind the killer needs to convincingly employ the right word choice and speech patterns to truly be effective.  Worse yet is the overreliance on this fuckin’ gadget to move characters around and drive shit forward.

Third, Ghostface teleports around just as, if not more, easily here which is kind of a problem considering how many killers there end up being this time.  Plus he’s got a dozen knives in his arsenal including one scene where he throws a blade at Dewey and then, presto!, pulls out another one from inside his sleeve like a magician.

Fourth, they detrimentally retcon the backstory of the first film.  I won’t spoil it but this decision feels extremely contrived as an excuse for a juicy twist ending.  And what they came up with is a pretty lazy piling on instead of offering an alternative explanation of events in previous installments.  So everything we know is actually true, however, there are more people behind it and there’s more to the conspiracy than we initially knew.

Everyone supposedly loathed
Courteney Cox's bangs in this one

The big reason why part 3 is a minor disaster is they were writing it as they were shooting.  Usually when you make shit up as you go nothing makes sense and this is proof of that.  Writer for part 1 and 2 Kevin Williamson was busy working on other projects so they hired Ehren Kruger (Arlington Road, Top Gun: Maverick) who did what he could but ultimately wasn’t up to the task.  Craven and others stepped in during production to take over resulting in the goop in front of you.

It also didn’t help that in the wake of the Columbine school shooting the producers mandated the violence be reduced including gruesome close ups, gore and blood.  That along with a significant bump up in humor was thought to mitigate offense to the public at the time.  That’s the reason why this one comes across sorta different, almost like a sitcom half the time.  The movie still did amazing numbers at the box office though so these choices worked out.

Harefooted Halloween: Scream 2

What I Liked: Famously Drew Barrymore dies in the opening of the first movie as most likely a nod to Psycho.  Dispatching your biggest name star right at the top tends to throw the audience for a loop.  They continue that trend here by knocking off several well established actors in the first act who would certainly have stuck around longer in any other horror picture.  Not only that but they also kill some of the survivors from the previous film signaling to you that no one is safe.

Ok this is a weird one but Dewey’s (David Arquette (part time wrestler)) theme music is the same as Broken Arrow the year before.  It’s that twangy heavily reverbed guitar that sounds like it’s straight out of a western.  It was supposed to be temp music but they ended up leaving it in.  Marco Beltrami did write a theme for Dewey only for it to be ignored by the producers.

What I Didn’t Like: Uninteresting plot.  We follow Sidney (Neve Campbell (Titanic: Blood and Steel)) and the leftovers from the first picture wander around a college campus while Ghostface does his thang.  So more of the same.  Nothing new is done with the characters or the story.  This could’ve been a result of the script being leaked during production forcing major rewrites.  We’ll never really know how that film would’ve turned out but from what I gather it wasn’t a significant departure from the established formula and may have even been worse.  It seems the biggest problem they had was changing around who the original killer was supposed to be and removing some extra plot twists.

The meta stuff doesn’t work very well here.  They double down on it too by having the events in the first film turned into a movie called Stab.  All we see is the opening (directed by Robert Rodriguez (cool!)) that’s a recreation of the original only they purposely make it sillier by sexing and cheesing it up.  We’re getting a little too into the franchise’s own head with this in my opinion.  And instead of horror movie references they do sequel references this time because this is the sequel, get it?  I’ll admit that’s kinda clever but it comes across more like a homework assignment than the zealous showcase of horror fandom of its precursor.

Ghostface is even more of a klutz than the first time.  For example when he’s chasing Sidney around her house he plows into an armchair like a charging bull knocking it, the side table and a lamp over.  He looks like such a fuckin’ goof.  Why couldn’t he push the chair out of the way or something?  Why does he have to crash into it and flip over?  While that got a good laugh out of me I don’t think these moments are supposed to be funny.  The other crap like the sequel talk and Jamie Kennedy’s (Three Kings) impressions are the comedy bits.  I believe whenever Ghostface is on screen shit’s supposed to be serious.

Overall Impressions: This is a much blander version of its predecessor and more like what that film probably should’ve been if the stars hadn’t aligned.

What they establish with this installment is there’s a new killer (or killers) wreaking havoc and Ghostface didn’t turn into a supernatural entity.  This means the mystery starts all over again.  That’s fine however, expectations need to be tempered.  Turning at least one of your main characters into a serial killer each time is kind of ridiculous.  It’s not like anyone can just flip and all of a sudden they’re a blood thirsty psychotic but that’s what these movies are laying out.

I don’t really know what else to say about this one because it’s sorta boring.  The picture rhymes to a degree with the first and that’s tricky to do well.  Most of the time it’ll be an obvious rehash which is the case here.  I’m disappointed the filmmakers played it safe instead of taking a risk with a new direction.

Harefooted Halloween: Scream

What I Liked: Holy shit that opening.  They tap into a basic fear of being harassed while home alone.  Your personal space is being penetrated at first by a foreboding voice, then direct threats, then traumatic imagery and finally the fear manifests itself as a fucker in black shrouds and a spooky mask wielding a knife.  You could just watch that, turn it off and be satisfied.  It’s perfectly paced, shot and edited.  It plays more like a short film of its own not only because a well known star (Drew Barrymore (Firestarter)) gets bumped off in the first thirteen minutes in the spirit of Psycho (using When a Stranger Calls as an on-ramp) but also because there isn’t much of a link to the rest of the film (more on that when we get to the wrap up down the road).

Big shoutout to screenwriter Kevin Williamson who put together a very nice script.  What’s really clever about the film isn’t necessarily all the meta shit and horror movie references but that they mess with the slasher formula.  And it’s not a total reinvention.  They move just enough pieces around to make the experience fresh.  The opening feels like it should be in the middle of the film or the finale.  We don’t know this person or her boyfriend but because of the way we’re bluntly thrown into a hostile situation it seems like we should’ve had a connection to these characters from earlier in the story.  They also have the villain, Ghostface, attack our protagonist, Sidney (Neve Campbell (The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride)), very early on which typically wouldn’t occur until past the halfway point.  And Sidney’s boyfriend (Skeet Ulrich (Chill Factor)) is a suspicious character almost from the beginning where they wag him in front of your face for so long that you’re not sure what to believe in terms of him being a suspect.  And the list goes on, like the unusually high number of survivors by the end, who deals the death blow, Ghostface runs and lunges and shit instead of the steady walk we’ve come to expect from a slasher villain, etc.  All risky moves that could’ve blown up in the film’s face but instead they work wonderfully.

The plot moves at a brisk pace due to a lean script.  They don’t fuck around with too much bullshit to drag the movie down.  Deputy Dewey’s (David Arquette (Roadracers)) flirting with ruthless reporter Gale (Courteney Cox (3000 Miles to Graceland)) is probably the one area that they could’ve cut back on but what’s there isn’t that bad.

Ghostface’s phone voice (Roger Jackson (tons of video game shit)) isn’t distorted or processed in a weird way.  Basically it sounds like a regular guy speaking in an aggressive tone and I dig that because it grounds the movie a bit and makes it creepier.  No bizarre squeals, snorts or other throat noises.  And even though we find out the bad guy uses a voice changer to cover up their natural tone the device produces only a subtle effect.  The filmmakers resisted going over the top on this detail and was yet another smart decision that subverts what you expect from a picture like this.

What I Didn’t Like: Ghostface comes across as sorta incompetent for the entre middle portion where he’s constantly being knocked down by Sidney and others.  This guy takes hard ass falls too.  Almost on the level of wrestlers suplex-ing each other around.  If it wasn’t for the absolutely brutal guttings he dishes out he wouldn’t feel all that menacing.  I wish they didn’t make him quite so spaz-y.

I don’t totally get why Ghostface kills anyone besides his target, Sidney.  Maybe it’s to throw the cops off the track?  One death in particular in the middle definitely seems like they simply needed a victim at that beat instead of any logical reason.  (And after a quick look up turns out that’s exactly what happened.)

It’s slightly unfortunate the score is fairly boring.  The one thing missing from the complete package is Ghostface doesn’t have an instantly recognizable or even passable music theme.

A minor gripe but the Freddy Kreuger reference with the school janitor (who according to the internet is Wes Craven’s cameo although he’s completely unrecognizable) is like 1.5 secs long but ridiculously distracting.  They totally could’ve dialed that back by having the trademark striped sweater be less vibrant or they could’ve possibly taken away the fedora.  But when he shows up it’s like a flashing neon sign saying “Do you recognize this!!!”

Overall Impressions: Remarkably all the tweaks and comments on the slasher formula work without being cloying.  What helps is everything mentioned are time tested masterpieces.  I think the newest film referenced is Silence of the Lambs which was only five years old when this came out but that was already stamped a masterwork in its own time.  The next newest is A Nightmare on Elm Street I think which was twelve years old at the time.  So all the horror movie talk is timeless.

And that’s another incredible realization.  The picture doesn’t feel anywhere near as dated as it should.  Aside from some of the obvious stuff like clothing and an old computer it all looks great.  I mean take the opening for example.  You could very easily do that scene today as is.  All you would need to do is swap out the tube TV for a flatscreen and the landline phone for a cell phone.  And that’s just what they did in the 2022 Scream!

Funny enough Wes Craven kicked off the 90’s slasher revival and spawned a slew of imitators same as Halloween did in the late 70’s/early 80’s.  And similarly pretty much all the rip offs fell by the wayside because they were derivative junk.  No others from the time period are remembered as fondly as Scream.

Going into this one I was worried my memory of it from over twenty five years ago would be totally inaccurate and maybe the opening would be cool but the rest wouldn’t hold up.  I’m so glad to report this really is a true classic.  Wes Craven did it again.  He made his mark with the, let’s say quirky, Last House on the Left, put a brand new imaginative spin on slashers with A Nightmare on Elm Street and then had one last trick up his sleeve with the quasi-meta Scream.  I have to credit Williamson’s script with being very well written but Craven’s execution is top notch.  It’s amazing how energetic and youthful the production feels while guided with the confidence of a long time vet of the genre.  It’s Craven’s Frenzy.

Harefooted on the Horizon

 

Look, I know I've been slacking off the past year or so with posting stuff to this here blob but Harefooted Halloween (patent pending) will go on as normal in October.  That's sixteen or so reviews in thirty one days with the usual mix of a couple of well established franchises and other random stuff I happen to come across.  Hopefully we'll discover some new gems.  Alright, see you in a few.

The Beast of War (aka The Beast)

Just wanna do a quick recommend on The Beast of War aka The Beast.  It’s set in the early 80’s during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  The opening shows the appalling destruction of a small Afghan village in the desert by a couple of Russian tanks leaving only rubble, corpses and orphaned babies behind.  Kinda hard to watch.  After the blitz one tank takes the wrong path on their way to the next target and gets lost.  Their radio got busted in the previous attack and their map got partially burned so they can’t call for help or figure out where they are.  The survivors of the decimated village get word that the tank has broken off from their group and is essentially trapped in the middle of nowhere.  They decide to take advantage of the situation to seek revenge.  The story plays out like a cat and mouse game with the Soviets hopelessly marching on while doing battle with the Afghans every so often.

It's a wonderful and inventive setup that’s based on a play by William Mastrosimone (With Honors) which makes sense.  It’s an ensemble performance about the horrors of war, mania, redemption, honor, forgiveness, rage, etc.  This sort of story seems timeless and I’m sure just about every culture has an ancient tale that’s similar to it.  You could easily have this set in any time period, any location and with any two foes from any background fighting each other.

And while all the battle scenes are well staged and the effects are good and the production design is awesome and the cinematography is stunning (Douglas Milsome (Full Metal Jacket, Breakdown)) the centerpiece is definitely the performances which are all really impressive.  Of course the one that slaps you in the face the hardest is George Dzundza (Species II, No Mercy) as the tank commander.  He’s a ruthless fuck who doesn’t give a shit about anything but his tank.  Worse than that though is he has a Queeg thing going on from The Caine Mutiny where he sees conspiracy against him everywhere.  So you never know when he’ll turn on you and attempt murder.  Dzundza plays up the delusion and absolute confidence in his authority perfectly.  He darts these crazy shifty eyes all over the place waiting, even daring for someone to defy him.  He truly is a scary sonuvabitch.

However, the most interesting set of characters are the leader of the Afghan tribe, Taj played by Steven Bauer (Traffic, Gleaming the Cube), and the Soviet tank driver and mechanic Koverchenko played by Jason Patric (Rush, Narc).  Taj becomes Khan after his father and brother are killed in the attack on his village from the opening and he struggles with that.  It’s not how he wanted to inherit that prestigious position.  At first he tries to forcibly assert his authority with poor results but then over the course of the revenge mission he grows and learns how to handle his men and when to show mercy or implement violence.

On the flipside Koverchenko realizes he’s caught between a rock and hard place.  He knows that if he doesn’t carry out his superior’s orders, like needlessly running over an incapacitated man with the tank, he’ll get shot.  He’s not necessarily the best soldier because he thinks too much for himself instead of mindlessly following his commander.  He also tries to learn a little about the Afghani culture from an interpreter/soldier/Afghan communist in his squad.  His continued bickering with his commander escalates until finally the unit ties him to a rock, rests a grenade behind his head and leaves him for dead.  The Afghans find him and decide to take him prisoner instead of dispatching him on the spot.  Koverchenko is pissed so when the Afghans offer him the chance to join their venture to destroy the tank he takes it.

This relationship between Taj and Koverchenko is complex and beautiful.  They don’t know each other’s language, have different customs, values and motives yet they join forces and bond over this one objective to make the soldiers in that fuckin’ tank pay.  Is the enemy of your enemy your friend?  Or do you still hold a grudge because their past is irreconcilable?  Taj makes a ballsy move at the risk of losing his men’s respect by reaching out to Koverchenko for help.  His expertise and insider knowledge would be exceptionally valuable for the mission.  Neither man ever thought they’d be in this incredibly awkward and delicate situation which makes it all the more touching when they form an uneasy alliance.

Bauer and Patric are really great together and give passionate performances.  You can see the body language change as they slowly start trusting each other.  Patric puts on his trademark tough individualistic attitude ardent about his beliefs and Bauer displays his trademark big brother-like warm inviting demeanor.  Watching them play off one another is fantastic.

The trickiest aspect of the film is how it messes with your emotions about Koverchenko.  At first he’s a monster because he’s part of a crew that mercilessly destroys people’s lives.  Then he turns on his own squad so you want to root for him.  Taj doesn’t know how to feel either by asking “are you a devil or an angel?”  And I guess the answer is he’s both.  It’s complicated.  It depends on who you ask, when you ask and what your objectives are.  And I love that the film lets you decide for yourself where you stand.

So check this one out.  It’s Kevin Reynolds’ (The Count of Monte Cristo, Waterworld) best picture which…may…not be the best way to sell it.  Look, it’s a fantastic movie that I wasn’t expecting much out of and ended up really digging.