Scream 4

Year: 2011
Director: Wes Craven
Screenplay: Kevin Williamson
Starring: Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox, Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere, Anthony Anderson, Alison Brie, Adam Brody, Rory Culkin
Running Time: 111 minutes
Genre: Horror, slasher

Summary: It's been ten years since the notorious "Woodsboro Massacre", and Stab, the film based on the murders, has spawned six successful sequels. The small town of Woodsboro has put the murders behind it, to the point where the massacre have become something of a joke to the town's high school students until, on the tenth anniversry of the killings, two high school students (Aimee Teegarden and Brittany Robertson) are brutally stabbed to death by a killer wearing the same "Ghostface" costume and mask that the original "Woodsboro Massacre" killer wore.
The following day Sidney Prescott (Campbell), who has survived three previous massacres perpetrated by "Ghostface" killers, returns to Woodsboro to promote her book Out of the Darkness but almost immediately becomes caught up in the murders. Especially since her teenage cousin, Jill Roberts (Roberts), and her friends Kirby (Panettiere), Charlie (Culkin) and Olivia (Marielle Jaffe) are among those targeted by taunting telephone calls from the killer.
As Sheriff Dewey Riley (Arquette) leads the investigation, his wife one-time journalist Gale Weathers (Cox) (on whose books the Stab movies were based) determines to solve the killings, and it soon becomes apparent that this horror movie obsessed killer is planning a "remake" of the original massacre: with everything bigger and better than before.

Opinions: The original Scream (1996) was a massive hit with it's blend of scares, mystery, humour and movie references. It assumed that audiences were familiar with horror movies and so it had it's characters being equally familiar with the genre. The sequel, Scream 2 (1997), targeted it's jokes and references at horror movie sequels, while Scream 3 (2000), which was intended to be the final film in the series, referenced trilogies. This film, coming out eleven years after the previous one, deals with endless, and increaingly bad, sequels and the recent popular trend to remake older horror movies.
It opens with kind of a clever sequence in which two teenagers are savagely murdered in what appears to be an over the top self-parody, but is revealed to be the opening sequence to Stab 7 (the latest in the film-within-a-film series based on the events of the first Scream). It pretty much sets the tone for what follows.
Scream 4 (or if you prefer it's on-screen title SCRE4M) is not a bad movie at all. It's funny, it's clever, it has suspense and a few good shocks and pretty much delivers what anyone could expect from a Scream movie. The cast perform well, and Wes Craven directs with his usual sure hand. It benefits enormously from Kevin Williamson, who wrote the first two Scream films, returning for this.
The problem is that Scream was such an influential film in it's time. For about six years afterwards horror was full of jokey self-referential slasher films, none of which managed to get as good a balance between jokes and scares as Scream. Watching Scream 4 it's hard not too feel as if it's been done before, although that tends to always be the way with sequels. At least this makes an effort to stay fresh.
Scream 4 is an entertaining and enjoyable movie, which fans will certainly enjoy, and is in fact an improvement on it's predecessor.



Neve Campbell in Scream 4

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

Year: 1998
Director: Steve Miner
Screenplay: Robert Zappia and Matt Greenberg, from a story by Robert Zappia and Kevin Williamson (uncredited), based on characters created by John carpenter and Debra Hill
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett, Adam Arkin, Michelle Williams, Adam Hann-Byrd, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, LL Cool J, Janet Leigh
Running Time: 86 minutes
Genre: Horror, slasher

Summary: In 1978 seventeen year old Laurie Strode (Curtis) narrowly escaped the murderous rampage of her psychopathic brother Michael Myers (Chris Durand).
In 1998, Laurie is now living under the name "Keri Tate" with her seventeen year old son John (Hartnett), and is working as Headmistress of the prestigious Hillcrest Academy High School private boarding school, which her son attends. She is also dating the school's guidance counsellor Will (Arkin). However Laurie is a recovering alcoholic, still haunted by the memory of her experience and suffers from horrible nightmares, especially when Halloween rolls around. Despite most people believeing that Michael Myers is dead, Laurie is convinced that he is still out there somehwere. Angry at his mother's overprotectiveness, John and his girlfriend Molly (Williams) decide to team up with their friends Charlie (Hann-Byrd) and Sarah (O'Keefe) and take advantage of the rest of the school taking a camping trip to Yosemite National Park over the Halloween holiday in order to have the school to themselves. However, it turns out that Laurie's fears are correct. Michael Myers has tracked her down and, on Halloween night, he arrives at Hillcrest Academy to finish what he started.

Opinions: This film is the sixth sequel to the classic horror film Halloween (1978). The film only really ties in to the original Halloween and Halloween II (1981), completely ignoring the other films as if they never happened, which is probably for the best. The film is also very heavily influenced by the hugely successful Scream (1996) and it's first sequel (themselves very heavily influenced by Halloween). Kevin Williamson, who wrote the first two Scream movies, did uncredited rewrites on the script to Halloween H20, and has an executive producer credit, it was also made by the same studio that made Scream, features some of the same music, and even features a brief clip from Scream 2 (1997). They also feature a very similar style as Halloween H20 also mixes scares, jokes and pop culture references, it also includes Michelle Williams who starred in the hugely successful television series Dawson's Creek (1998-2003) which was created by Kevin Williamson. Which all means that the film belongs squarely in the typical style of late 1990s teen horror films.
The film concentrates more on the "stalk" and less on the "slash" than many of the previous installments, which hearkens back to the first film. It means that the viewer spends time with the characters and gets to like them before they get turned into sushi. Directed by Steve Miner, who also directed Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) and Friday the 13 Part III (1982), there is extensive use of a mobile floating camera which constantly gives the impression of the characters being stalked or tracked by the camera itself. The film also recognises that Michael Myers, who is a kind of limited villain, being more like a supernatural version of the Terminator, works much better when he is kept largely off-screen, frequently glimpsed briefly in the background or through open doors. In fact when Laurie Strode first encounters Myers in the film, she has to pause for a few seconds to convince herself that it is not one of her nightmare or hallucinations.
The scares are mostly effective and there are several good shock moments, even if the gore is probably too limited to appeal to the gorehounds.
The acting in the film is good, and the cast are engaging. Janet Leigh (in real life the mother of Jamie Lee Curtis), and who has also had previous experience of knife-weilding maniacs in the film Psycho (1960), appears briefly as a schoolteacher. It also has an appearance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a hockey mask wearing teen.
Aside from the original film, this is definitely the best in the series, and is a good slice of entertaining horror, featuring good performances, some decent shocks and plenty of humour.



Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) faces up to Michael Myers (Chris Durand) in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

The Faculty

Year: 1998
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Screenplay: Kevin Williamson, from a story by David Wechter and Bruce Kimmel
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Shawn Hatosy, Robert Patrick, Famke Janssen, Piper Laurie, Bebe Neuwirth, Salma Hayek, Daniel von Bargen, Usher Raymond
Running Time: 104 minutes
Genre: Science-fiction, horror

Summary: Herrington High School is a perfectly normal school in Ohio. The star quarterback, Stan (Hatosy), wants to quit sports to concentrate on his academic work. Stan's girlfriend, Delilah (Brewster), is the head cheerleader and editor of the school paper. The frequently bullied Casey (Wood) photographs for the newspaper and has a massive unrequited crush on Delilah. Zeke (Hartnett) is a very intelligent but lacklustre student, preferring to concentrate on selling fake IDs, pornographic videos and his own home-made drugs to his fellow students. While goth girl and science-fiction fan Stokely (DuVall) is happy being left alone. Meanwhile new girl Marybeth (Harris) is just trying to fit in and make friends in the new school.
However, they soon become aware of strange changes taking place in the behaviour of the staff and fellow students. They quickly begin to realise that the faculty and most of the students are being infected by mind-controlling alien parasites. The problem is finding out who is infected and who isn't and whether there is any way to stop the parasites before it's too late.

Opinions: A mix of science-fiction, horror and teenage high-school comedy-drama, this film is an entertaining blend of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), The Thing (1982) and The Breakfast Club (1985) all of which are explicitly referenced.
The screenplay is by Kevin Williamson, who at the time was one of the hottest scriptwriters in Hollywood having written Scream (1996), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and Scream 2 (1998) as well as creating the TV series Dawson's Creek (1998-2003). The film features many Williamson hallmarks such as quick-witted dialogue, multiple pop-culture references as well as Williamson's genuine interest in and liking for his teen characters.
The movie benefits a lot from Robert Rodriguez's typically stylish and fast-moving direction. The main cast of young, up and coming actors are effective and receive good support from their more established adult co-stars, including Robert Patrick as the enjoyably sinister Coach, and Famke Janssen as a repressed English teacher. Also comedian, satirist, TV presenter and host of The Daily Show Jon Stewart appears as a science teacher and there is also a cameo from Harry Knowles, founder and maintainer of movie news and review site Ain't It Cool News.
This is an enjoyable and interesting variation on some familiar themes. Also a high school, with it's emphasis on conformity and the pressure to fit in, is a perfect setting for "mind-control" horror.



Shawn Hatosy, Josh Hartnett, Laura Harris, Clea DuVall and Elijah Wood in The Faculty