Harefooted Halloween: The Omen

What I Liked: Gregory Peck’s performance is very nicely done.  You can see how happy he is with his wife and new son and his career is going in the right direction and even though he’s perhaps a bit stuffy he’s on top of the world.  That is until the devil completely shatters his reality.  Then Peck has to show disbelief in all the bad shit that keeps happening around him, slow acceptance that he’s raising the antichrist and finally full commitment to murdering a five year old who he’s known and treated during that entire period as his son.  That’s a big swing and he kills it.  Peck was dealing with the suicide of his own son the year before and my guess is he gravitated toward this material as a way to work through his personal grief.  Between this and the audacious Boys From Brazil a couple of years later Peck was part of some wild projects during this time.

Most of the deaths are presented in kind of a blunt matter of fact way.  Especially the first one involving Damien’s nanny hanging herself in front of a pack of young children gathered for Damien’s fifth birthday party.  It comes out of nowhere with an exclamation point when the rope tugs and she smashes into the window behind her.  This movie has several famous death scenes but this is the one that creeps me out a tad.  And generally the camera doesn’t linger on the corpses either.  They’re like a flash of disturbance which may make them more impactful.

Damien doesn’t speak almost at all.  That keeps the kid much more peculiar and off putting.  If he said a bunch of bratty stuff and/or giggled all throughout he would simply be an annoying little shit not unlike many others you’ve seen before.  Having him dart these dagger eyes and ghoulishly display an occasional smile is more effective.

The filmmakers were smart about what to reveal when.  They could’ve kept the whole enchilada a secret until the end but it’s good we’re in the know from the top about Peck’s son dying right after being born and Damien being adopted.  That’s a decent weird enough history to fuel the majority of the run time.  There are still diabolic twists to be had so there’s room to expand.

While heavy handed the Oscar winning score by Jerry Goldsmith is undeniably badass.  You got a booming orchestra, a driving tempo and a chorus vigorously chanting in Latin.  Very ominous.

Spoiler on this last bit in case you managed to avoid how this forty five plus year old movie ends.  Kudos to the filmmakers for going with the downer ending.  I mean they had to, didn’t they?  They weren’t going to butcher a five year old in a mainstream picture so the only way to conclude the story is to let him live.  Maybe you could try to chain him up somehow or dispel him into the mystical unknown but director Richard Donner (16 Blocks) didn’t want overtly supernatural elements in here.  He wanted to cast enough uncertainty in your mind that this could all be Peck’s delusions.  However, I don’t think he succeeded terribly well in this regard because…

What I Didn’t Like: This isn’t a huge gripe but they leave absolutely no doubt that Damien is the devil’s offspring.  They could’ve made it more ambiguous mainly by severely scaling back the nanny character’s evil as fuck demeanor and behavior.  All the other shit is more coincidental or just plain strange.

To expand on the previous paragraph, if Damien and his nanny were more modest in their approach they wouldn’t arouse as much suspicion.  Their bloodlust and insistence on having their own way from the start almost fucks up the devil’s plans for world domination.  We’re talking about the big one here, Armageddon, the apocalypse, judgment day, etc.  You don’t wanna blow it.  So as a result they look a touch idiotic by not being able to control their malevolent urges.

Overall Impressions: The Omen is considered a classic and still rock solid after all these years.  I wouldn’t say it’s an absolute favorite of mine though due to some ham fisted execution.  With Damien’s scornful glares, how the nanny keeps directly disobeying her charge’s parents, the 666 birthmark and an over the top gothic score the film veers dangerously close to schlock territory a few times.  At the same time that’s sort of the appeal.  If it were too reserved it could get boring and if it were more gratuitous it could get cartoony.

Unavoidably this movie gets compared to The Exorcist which came out three years earlier.  They both share plots about a child either taken over by a demon or is perhaps the devil himself.  Another one you could throw into the mix is Rosemary’s Baby to round out your three shades of demonic kid pics.  Rosemary is more Hitchcockian where you have no idea if supernatural shit is afoot or if this poor woman is going crazy or is being abused or what.  The Exorcist is an extreme sorta gross out film that goes for shock value with nasty makeup effects and having a little girl say and do awful things.  So the devil is definitely real in that one and you witness what he’s capable of first hand.  Finally, The Omen is a mixture of the two.  It’s a down the middle horror thriller where they do everything they can to tell you this little boy is the antichrist without him actually doing anything nefarious.  The supernatural probably exists but it’s not clear.  It’s not as outrageous but not as silly as The Exorcist and not as mysterious but not as indirect as Rosemary’s Baby.

And we need that straight shooter.  I like The Omen.  It’s pretty good.

Scream Series Wrap Up

Aside from the original these frickin’ Screams aren’t what I expected or remembered exactly.  They’re all the same goddamn movie to kind of a criminal degree.  With that said there are a few items we should discuss before wrapping this shit up.

One question at the top though, how did Ghostface come to be called Ghostface?  In the first and second films the Halloween costume the killers use is labeled Father Death on the package.  It’s curious that this name wasn’t adopted by the fans, although Ghostface does sound cooler.  Well according to the internet Rose McGowan in the first film uses the term Ghostface and I guess it stuck with the community because as far back as I can remember this is what anyone has ever called this character.  There’s a loose The Shape/Michael Myers connection here with the villain having multiple names and the fans choosing for the world which prevails.

Ok, a very silly trademark of the series is Ghostface’s pratfalls.  When he takes a spill look out, he goes flying.  And don’t be fooled, this is the movie laughing AT the character and I don’t care for it that much.  I wish the stumbles weren’t so cartoonish and happen so often.  You could argue this makes sense because it’s hard to see in the mask and your mobility is somewhat limited in the full costume and I buy that to an extent.  If he gets tripped up for a moment that’s ok but having him go airborne and land on his ass almost every time is too much.

And this leads to another aspect that I kinda scratch my head over which is the insistence that these films are part comedy.  Part 3 is perhaps the closest but overall this sentiment doesn’t exactly come across.  It’s probably all the meta stuff they’re referring to but not all of it lands.  Plus the way these are shot and edited doesn’t imply setup, joke, setup, joke.  It’s presented straight up like you would expect.  In the end there isn’t that much more comic relief than your normal horror picture.  So I always thought it was weird when the filmmakers talk about the series like it’s a yuck a minute with intermittent deadly serious slayings.

Ghostface is played by someone different (or multiple people) in every movie making him fairly unique in the slasher realm.  He’s not a supernatural entity like Jason or Freddy and he’s not supposed to be the same person like Michael Myers and he’s not a possessed creature like Chucky.  He’s a new guy in the costume each time out.  Of course this poses a problem because it seems every other person Sidney comes across is utterly insane with an unquenchable bloodlust.

In each episode it’s revealed at the end that there are two killers working together to terrorize their victims.  The only time they diverge from this is in 3 where one guy flies solo.  The novelty of a dastardly duo is refreshing the first time but gets tiresome quickly.  They should’ve played with this more instead of almost always sticking with a pair of slayers.

The killers are extremely tech savvy too.  One of the big things they do is clone other people’s cell phones to lure victims into traps.  I wouldn’t have a problem with this gag if they didn’t use it so damn much.  The sequels especially lean on this crutch to manipulate characters to get them where they need to be too often.  However, by far the heaviest use of this cheap trick is in the TV show (we’ll get there).  None of the characters ever wise up to this shit either.  You’d think across five movies they would get leery about the texts and emails they receive but nope, the authenticity of any message is never questioned.  Thankfully the magical voice changer from 3 that can alter your speech to sound exactly like anyone else’s is the one and only time that stupid thing shows up.

Moving on, the first film has a rich backstory that’s hinted at and explored somewhat in the first sequel.  Syndey’s mother was murdered by someone who’s sitting on death row due to Sidney’s eye witness testimony.  Turns out it wasn’t him.  I’m not saying I need that movie but well, that’s a movie.  To go that far with a character’s past is impressive and usually relegated to personal notes between the actor and director.  This easily could’ve been left out because it’s not crucial to the motive of the killers.  Billy Loomis is angry because Sidney’s mom caused his parents marriage to break up so he kills her (offscreen).  Fine.  But having a third party erroneously take the fall for her murder isn’t necessary.  It could be an unsolved case and Sidney could still be pissed at Gale over how she covered the story.  Anyway, I love that they went the extra mile to officially make it a part of Sidney’s DNA.  A lesser film would’ve balked at the idea.

Speaking of Sidney, man, she has some of the worst goddamn luck in the world.  Killers keep finding her.  Over five movies she faces no less than nine multiple murdering psychopaths which is like kind of a lot (two of them are blood relatives of Sidney no less).  I guess this is her plight for fingering the wrong guy who she thought murdered her mother?  She must endure a lifetime of numerous maniacs who want to turn her life into a living hell and her body into Swiss cheese?  Sure that’s a bad thing that happened but it wasn’t malicious, it was a mistake.  Damn.

Perhaps the only other person who gets it worse is Dewey.  This sonuvabitch gets stabbed badly in 1 causing nerve damage and then gets stabbed again in 2 in an even more brutal fashion.  Then in 3 he gets sliced in the arm and the crap beat out of him by Ghostface including various blows to the head and a tumble down the stairs.  In 4 he takes the least amount of damage but still gets knocked around with a nasty metal bedpan hit to the skull.  Additionally there’s the emotional turmoil he has to deal with in each installment over his love/hate relationship with Gale.  Mercifully in 5 Ghostface finally guts this fucker and boots him out of the franchise for good.  Jeez.

And all this shit, all the murders and deception and everything, stem from Sidney’s mother, Maureen, sleeping around with a bunch of guys.  Like fifty fuckin’ people die because of this!  And the franchise is still going!  What?!  That begs the question then of why does anyone besides Maureen need to die?  What do all the other victims have to do with her promiscuousness?  Not a damn thing really.  The sequels sure as hell don’t make sense in this regard and not even the wonderful original adds up if you think about it for more than half a minute.  Maureen’s daughter, Maureen’s daughter’s friends and the high school principal need to die because she was boinking some dude(s) on the side?  Why?

Weirdly as the narrative continues to unfold across the films it only gets less interesting despite some Saw level plot reveal zaniness (not counting the TV show which has its own universe of whacked out bends in the path).  Here’s my vote for the two craziest twists.  One is the introduction of Sidney’s long lost brother in 3 who Maureen got pregnant with during a search for stardom in Hollywood in the 70’s (it’s unclear if she was raped or not).  And, hold on to your hats, turns out this asshole nutjob sibling orchestrated the events of the first film from behind the scenes.  Sheeeeit.  Smash cut to eleven years later in 4 and Sidney’s niece is a fuckin’ lunatic with a grand plan of taking over the spotlight from Sidney by killing her and pretending to be the lone survivor of a new round of murders.  The two end up hashing it out in the ICU while recovering from life threatening injuries.  Sidney uses a defibrillator to zap her opponent’s head as a stopgap then shoots her in the chest.  I know you’re thinking these turns sound amazing but the repetitive tediousness of the other ninety five percent of the runtime makes me not care by the time we hit the finale.

Watching all the Screams in a row like this was eye opening.  Sadly my ultimate takeaway is this is kind of a shitty franchise honestly.  The original has earned its masterpiece status for sure.  I don’t think anyone’s gonna argue with that.  Those sequels though, woof.  None of them are very good which makes me think the whole thing has been coasting on the genius, success and now nostalgia of that first one.  Other horror franchises get flack for being the same thing over and over but at least the Fridays, Nightmares, Halloweens, Chainsaws and the like have either awesome visual style, vivid characters, unusual intriguing stories, supernatural elements, incredible effects work, kick ass production design or hugely entertaining performances.  It’s difficult to create a continuing saga for the Screams because the sequels don’t contain any of that.  They’re totally straight forward horror whodunit pictures that take place in the real world with a sorta goofy Scooby Doo quality to them when the killer finally takes off the mask to unveil him/herself.  I think the sequels would’ve worked better if they were episodic and involved a different set of characters with a new backstory and scenario each time.  But guess what?  They kinda did that.

In carrying out my due diligence I watched the entirety of the TV show that ran from 2015-2019 for MTV and VH1.  The first two seasons follow the same characters but the third is a completely new cast of characters and setting.  The structure and feel is one hundred percent identical to the films except the character names and town name are different and for seasons one and two the killer’s mask is an alternate design (they went back to original recipe Ghostface for season three).  This is the format they should’ve gone with all along for the sequels.  The inane stories are bad fan fiction soap opera bullshit anyway so at least now we’re in the right medium.  And didn’t the biggest soaps back in the day have a murder mystery storyline at some point in their decades long run?  Think about it, in every Scream sequel there’s a killer on the loose, a large pool of suspects, everyone is related to everyone else somehow, most characters have a hidden secret, new family members are produced out of thin air when the plot gets stuck, it’s perfect.  Stretching the killer’s exceptionally overcomplicated idiotic plan over ten or so smaller bites works better than condensing it down to two hours.  If you’re a fan of these movies you’ll probably dig the show.  It’s trashy and absurd and filled to the brim with drama and it gets surprisingly gory.  It’s so much more enjoyable than the sequels.

But Scream’s legacy is long and remains firmly in the cinematic realm for its core audience.  It’s touched a lot of people at this point and (somewhat puzzlingly) has cemented itself as a titan among horror franchises.  There’s more to come too and unfortunately shows no signs of peeling off the mask, putting down the knife and becoming an actual ghost.  It makes me wanna yell loudly in a shrieking manner.

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.