Scream 2
The art of the horror film as examined through the self referential yet dynamically original slasher film Scream set off a sadly long lived trend of horror / slasher entries that desperately tried to copy the writing and filmmaking verve that the first film showed, and if nothing else Wes Craven can be said to have invented the modern day teen horror film, even those whose content has been watered down for PG-13 tastes which is nonetheless a ironically fitting tribute to the man who practically defined quality horror in the 70s and 80s. It goes without saying that the so called Ghostface phenomenom was so great that a sequel was inevitable, not to mention fast approaching as it landed in theaters barely a year later in 1997. Of course with the main core group of characters and their self aware nature they quickly come to realize that they are now living out a sequel in their own lives, with Jamie Kennedy’s lovable movie geek Randy returning to spell out the known rules of such a eventuality coming to fruition. But Craven and also returning screenwriter Kevin Williamson start off on a different track with one of the most viciously brilliant openings ever, as Jada Pinkett and Omar Epps play a young African American couple (with the Pinkett character even appearing to be a borderline racist) attending a sneak preview premiere of “Stab”, the actual movie within a movie based on the events in the first film, complete with the same opening scene featuring Heather Graham replacing Drew Barrymore, but the real sight to behold is in the theater itself, with scores of young people running the aisles wearing Ghostface costumes and carrying prop knives as a kinetic vibe builds up throughout the scene until, yes eventually of course, one of the costumed moviegoers turns out to be a legit crazed killer with a real knife, murdering the Pinkett and Epps characters in full view of the crowd with nary a word of protest in a sequence that goes all the way back to Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets when it comes to depicting the power of movies on a psychotic mind causing one to not truly know the difference between fantasy and reality which is still an idea that has lost none of its impact. With that opening sequence (which easily tops the one in the first movie) out of the way, we transition to your typical, pleasant, serene, leafy college campus, where Kennedy and Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott have matriculated to continue their education, and when news of the movie theater murders gets back to them, Sidney is quickly concerned while Randy writes the whole thing off as having nothing whatsoever to do with them. Sid has seemingly now learned to live with her notoriety, warding off idiot prank callers with a little thing called caller ID, but it isn’t long before the media blitz over the killings brings Courteney Cox’s Gale Weathers into town, and she’s got a surprise for Sid: Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber), the man once thought to be responsible for her mom’s murder from whom her own testimony had convicted him, is now looking for some sort of on camera reconciliation so that he can start climbing the media freak show celebrity ladder himself, but more interestingly, manages to throw Schreiber (whose role in the first film being shown on a TV newscast only amounted to a 10 second cameo) into the mix as either a possible suspect or as a possible hero, and Schreiber manages to successfully take his role pretty far, making the viewer really wonder if he is a possible psycho or maybe just a guy who’s been having a bad year. Also coming into town and into the fold is none other than Deputy Dewey (David Arquette, sporting a limp and some apparent nerve damage along with his own iconic musical cue) and it’s in his scenes with his now real life wife Cox that the movie hits its high marks with both the acting and writing, as Dewey obviously resents Gale for disparaging him in her book about the prior events (technically talking shit behind his back) but now face to face and in person with him once again it is obvious that she actually completely adores him (not as uncommon as you think when couples are separated), a fantastic showing of chemistry that proves that Arquette really is more than just a hopeless goofball comedy actor, and it is that much further developed spark that continuously pushes the film past the first in terms of enjoyable quality. Naturally, there are some new characters here who are friends to Sid and Randy that join the ranks as well, including Elise Neal as Sid’s perky college roommate, Timothy Olyphant as the wanna be Tarantino film student in Randy’s class (with one of the better scenes in this SEQUEL being an extended discussion of actual sequels that are just as good if not better than the originals), Jerry O’Connell (desperately trying to prove his romantic leading man worth after being pegged as always being the fat kid from Stand By Me and only halfway succeeding) as Sidney’s new med school boyfriend, and best of all David Warner just smoothing his way into the film as Sid’s drama teacher and easily showing just why he’s obviously the single best actor on hand here (no surprise considering all of the classics that he’s starred in). But we also get Sarah Michelle Gellar (just starting to get hot from Buffy The Vampire Slayer) almost randomly thrown in as a sorority girl who out of nowhere gets the call from Ghostface and just as quickly gets killed (her first scene is also her last) even as audiences collectively gasped in shock at seeing that their beloved Buffy had put up so little of a fight before being brutally murdered. As before, even though we know that the killers are different from the first film, the fact that the same costume (and phone voice) is used seems to represent the notion that Ghostface is really a persona that ANY person can assume particularly when it comes to them deciding to carry out horrifically violent acts, and in this case when it seems to be a prime period to go after Sidney herself (with the release of the movie), and also (as Dewey accurately points out) they give themselves double points of a sick nature if they successfully manage to integrate themselves into Sidney’s life as well under the guise of being her “friends”. Of course, the never to be recreated original theatrical experience of seeing this movie on opening night was quite an experience, as the fans were expecting more here and they certainly got that, with the crowd response to the character of Dewey in particular being unbelievably rabid (hard to comprehend that he was originally meant to be just a side character who was killed off in the first film and has since practically come to represent the heroic face of the franchise itself maybe even moreso than Campbell), while Campbell herself as Sid remains an absolute rock, now almost completely used to losing her loved ones at the hands of a psycho killer yet displaying amazing strength throughout and even managing to talk shit to the killer during the ending. Kennedy as the also popular character of Randy continues to be solid comic relief getting his laughs by using a near encyclopedic knowledge of films in general and horror in particular (giving some free publicity and shout outs to a large number of nearly forgotten slashers in one memorable scene), and Cox’s Gale Weathers can still get major mileage out of the Shallow Bitch Who Actually Wants To Be A Good Person routine, with her romantic feelings towards Dewey being the main catalyst towards humanizing her. As for the killer, just like with the first film we get two of them, one of them being pretty obvious and the other one being someone whom both we never would have guessed and we also never would have seen coming (and neither did the cast, who were kept completely in the dark about how the story would end up until the last day of filming), suffice to say that it ties everything together very, very well back to the first film and provides a much wilder climax also, with the college’s theater set and backdrops helping to kick things into high gear. In the end, a film that actually does slightly better than its original, but not by either having a higher body count or more elaborate kill scenes, but rather by improving upon the writing and development for its main core group of characters and succeeding in making us care for them and their fates just a little bit more…
9/10