Screams 1 and 2

Scream (1996)

Runtime: 111 minutes

Directed by: Wes Craven

Starring: Neve Campbell, Skeet Ulrich, Rose McGowan, Matthew Lilliard

From: Dimension

Scream 2 (1997)

Runtime: 120 minutes

Directed by: Wes Craven

Starring: Neve Campbell, Jerry O’Connell, Liev Schreiber, David Arquette

From: Dimension


Here’s a two-fer, which I’ll say counts as two reviews. As I’ve heard some real mixed reviews on Scream 4 and never saw it on the big screen, I figured that eventually I’d watch it, but I should re-watch the first three as I hadn’t seen them in years, and the third one I never saw after I saw it on the big screen and got pretty ticked off with it, but I’ll talk more about the reason why once I watch and review that movie.

The first movie certainly saved the ass of the horror industry when it came out in ’96, as for awhile there it seemed to be on life support. It truly was something unique at the time. Now… but let me review the movies in order.

I don’t need to explain the two plots as I’m sure everyone’s familiar with them by now. Instead, let me talk about what I thought of the films viewing them in 2011. The first movie, it was SUCH a 90’s movie. I mean, it could have only been made in that decade. It was so 90’s, you expected to hear Hootie & The Blowfish and the Gin Blossoms. I mean, the characters were in your face, yelling at you (especially the guys played by Jamie Kennedy and Matthew Lilliard… not that anyone should be surprised those two guys would ham it up to a tremendous degree), and there’s a lot of dialogue which tries to make it look like the movie is oh so smart with its horror references. In the age of the Internet and all that, I don’t know how impressive that looks now. There’s also the general goofiness with the series, such as the whole relationship with the characters played by later married then divorced couple David Arquette and Courteney Cox.

Despite those gripes, it was still an entertaining movie. There was a nice amount of gore and blood. There were many funny moments to go with the scares. Henry Winkler’s character of the school principal was more entertaining than I remembered. Who the killers were and their motivations were still fun. Skeet Ulrich looked like a bootleg version of Johnny Depp in the 80’s and early 90’s. It was still interesting how they bended genre clichés. So, despite some annoyances while viewing it with modern eyes, I’m glad I decided to revisit what ended up being an important movie in the genre.

Soon after I saw the first, I watched the sequel on a Showtime channel, as that is the only movie in the series that my local Blockbuster doesn’t have. My opinions on that… it was both better and worse than the first, so it’s tough to judge. It was a more entertaining movie and the hip references didn’t seem so shoehorned in. The stakes were indeed raised as stated by the Jamie Kennedy character. There were more deaths and they were bloodier. Yet, it was overlong, you could tell that things were changed due to what had to be a really early example of a script leaking out via the Internet, and the ending wasn’t quite as good as the first; also, with that there was an overload of characters appearing, I say. Still, it was an acceptable way to spend two hours.

One thing that I was instantly reminded of while watching the two movies was how Scary Movie (the original title for Scream) ended up doing a nice job of spoofing the series. If only Scary Movie 2 would have been any good, and in my world I can pretend that Scary Movies 3 and 4 weren’t made. I never saw them and I understand that’s for the best.

I don’t know when but eventually I’ll watch 3 and 4. It may be soon and it may be not so soon. It depends on what I find on TV or pull out of the giant pile of “to watch” movies. I will be back on Wednesday, no matter what.