Scream 3

Year:  2000

Director:  Wes Craven

Screenplay:  Ehren Krueger, based on characters created by Kevin Williamson

Starring:  Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox Arquette, Patrick Dempsey, Jenny McCarthy, Parker Posey, Deon Richmond, Emily Mortimer, Scott Foley, Lance Henriksen

Running Time:  117 minutes

Genre:  Comedy, horror

Sidney Prescott (Campbell) is now living in self-imposed seclusion after surviving the killing sprees in her home town of Woodsboro and Windsor College.  Until, that is a new killer, once again wearing a Ghostface mask, starts picking off the cast of new horror movie Stab 3, based on Sidney's story.  Sidney has to travel to Hollywood and reunite with fellow survivors tabloid TV news journalist Gale Weathers (Cox Arquette) and former small town cop turned security guard Dewey Riley (Arquette) to uncover the new killer.

The original Scream (1996) was a true game changer in the horror field, which really revitalised the slasher film genre, at a time when it seemed to have had it's day.  Scream 2 (1997), while not as good as the original, was still a strong sequel.  However, Scream 3 was the point where the franchise dipped.  Kevin Williamson, who wrote the first two films, bowed out of screenwriting duties to be replaced by Ehren Kruger, and Williamson's distinctive voice is certainly missed here.  Wes Craven returns as the film's director and once again stages some impressive action scenes, most notably a scene where Sidney is chased by the killer through a studio mockup of Woodsboro.  Due to concerns over the portrayal of violence in media following the 1999 Columbine Massacre, the level of violence is heavily toned down from the previous films, and the film leans more towards comedy than horror.  Neve Campbell, David Arquette and Courteney Cox Arquette are as engaging as ever, even if Courteney Cox Arquette (who was married to co-star David Arquette at the time) is saddled with a a truly dreadful hairstyle.  Also in the cast is genre veteran Lance Henriksen, popular model-turned-actress Jenny McCarthy, indie film veteran Parker Posey and an early role for Emily Mortimer.  The film also features cameos from legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman, Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes as Jay and Silent Bob, and in the film's funniest moments Carrie Fisher as a washed-up actress working in the studio archives, still bitter over the fact that the role of Princess Leia went to "the one that slept with George Lucas".  Another fun element is Parker Posey as the actress playing Gale Weathers teaming up with Courteney Cox Arquette as the real Gale Weathers, in order to get into character.  The film is not as funny or suspenseful as the previous films, but the Hollywood setting adds an interesting element, and the final act of the film does work, even if it feels more like a cross between Agatha Christie and film noir than a Scream film.  There is also a character who is a creepy movie producer who preys on young actresses and delivers the line "there are plenty of criminals in this town whose careers are flourishing", which has an added resonance in the post-Weinstein world.  Ironically, Harvey Weinstein was one of the film's executive producers.

David Arquette, Neve Campbell and Patrick Dempsey in Scream 3

  

Scream 2

Year:  1997

Director:  Wes Craven

Screenplay:  Kevin Williamson

Starring:  Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Jamie Kennedy, Jerry O'Connell, Timothy Olyphant, Laurie Metcalfe, Jada Pinkett, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Liev Schreiber

Running Time:  120 minutes

Genre:  horror, comedy

 Two Windsor College students are brutally murdered at a preview of the new horror film Stab, based on the serial murders in the small town of Woodsboro.  Sidney Prescott (Campbell), one of the survivors of the Woodsboro murders, is also a student at Windsor and soon realises that she is once more being targeted by a ghost-mask wearing killer.  As the bodies and suspects mount up, it becomes clear that someone is trying to make a sequel to the previous killing spree.

Given the immense success of Scream (1996) a sequel was almost inevitable, and the filmmakers certainly didn't waste any time, with Scream 2 in cinemas only a year after the original.  Given the short time between the films it is surprising that Scream 2 is as good as it is.  While the original film both celebrated and commented on the tropes of traditional slasher horror films, this film does the same with horror sequels, including a scene which mirrors a famous sequence in the original where the film nerd Randy (played by Jamie Kennedy) outlines the rules of sequels.  Horror veteran Wes Craven returns to directing duties and orchestrates everything on a much bigger scale with some memorable set pieces, the opening sequence in the cinema, featuring Omar Epps and Jada Pinkett, is one of the highlights of the whole Scream series, and the ensemble cast, which features a number of future stars, as well as veterans such as David Warner, all give good performances.  Neve Campbell is good in the lead, and there is real connection between Courteney Cox and David Arquette, who were in a relationship at the time and later got married. The script by Kevin Williamson is witty, clever and full of pop-culture references.  This film also introduced film-within-a-film Stab, which would become a recurring feature in the Scream franchise, allowing the filmmakers to comment on and poke fun at the franchise itself.  the film inevitably lacks the freshness of the original.  There also some glaring plot holes, and a reliance on red-herring scares.  It is still a very good film, and definitely a superior sequel.

Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox in Scream 2

Scream (2022)

 Year of Release:  2022

Director:    Matt Bettinelli-Oplin and Tyler Gillett

Screenplay:  James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, based on characters created by Kevin Williamson

Starring:    David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jack Quaid, Dylan Minnette, Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown,  Mikey Madison, Sonia Ben Ammar, Marley Shelton

Running Time:  114 minutes

Genre:  Horror

In the small town of Woodsboro teenager Tara (Ortega) is brutally attacked in her home, by a knife-wielding assailant dressed in a Ghostface mask.  The mask and manner of the attack harkens back to a series of murders committed in Woodsboro twenty five years earlier, which were quickly immortalised in the popular Stab horror films.  Tara's sister Sam (Barrera) and her boyfriend Richie (Quaid) return to Woodsboro to help her, but it soon becomes apparent that the attacker hasn't finished yet , and as the body count rises, Sam begins to believe that she is the one the killer is most interested in targeting.

The original Wes Craven directed Scream was released in 1996 to massive critical and popular acclaim.  At a pretty bleak time for horror films Scream managed to work as a horror film while also commenting on and poking fun at them,  the characters were aware of horror films and the "rules" that they work by.  Just as Scream commented on horror films, Scream 2 (1997) dealt with the rules of sequels, Scream 3 (2000) dealt with the rules of trilogies, Scream 4 (2011) examined the rules of franchises and now Scream (2022), or Scream 5 if you prefer, examines what the film terms  "re-quels", which are those films that work partly as sequels and partly as reboots, they acknowledge the existence of previous instalments, and bring back fan favourite characters, while focusing on new characters (think Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) for a textbook example),  Another element that set the Scream franchise apart from other slasher films was that the survivors, rather than the killers, were who would return for each film.  While the killer, or killers, would wear the same Ghostface costume in each film, their identities were different each time around.  However the tormented Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), ambitious tabled TV reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and small-town cop Dewey Riley (David Arquette) would return for every film.  While the new Scream follows many of the same key plot beats as the original, it is different enough to feel fresh.   It is fun and nostalgic to see the familiar faces reprise the same roles again, even if the reminder of the passage of time is a little less welcome, but the new characters are engaging.  While you may be able to guess some of the revelations before the end, there is still enough surprises to keep it intriguing.  The films does target such contemporary issues as reboots and toxic fandom, as well as the so-called "elevated horror", but even if it isn't as funny as the original, it is fun, and there are enough gruesome slayings to satisfy fans.

Ghostface return in Scream

Scream

Year of Release:  1996
Director:  Wes Craven
Screenplay:  Kevin Williamson
Starring:  Neve Campbell, Drew Barrymore, Courteney Cox, Rose McGowan, David Arquette, Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Kennedy
Running Time:  111 minutes
Genre:  Horror, thriller, comedy

In the small American town of Woodsboro, teenager Casey Becker (Barrymore) is tormented by taunting phone calls from a mysterious masked killer, who brutally murders her when she fails his twisted movie trivia game.  As Woodsboro becomes a media circus, it becomes apparent that the killer is particularly focussing on Sidney Prescott (Campbell), whose mother was killed almost exactly a year before.

Some films seem to perfectly capture a particular time period, and Scream, to me, is one of the definitive films of the late 1990s.  The look, style and music really capture that period.  Horror was pretty much in the doldrums at the time, and slasher films in particular were as dead as if the genre had gone out at night to investigate a strange noise, until Scream brought it back.  The film's great idea is that, unlike most of the slashers that had gone before, the characters here are aware of slasher films, and are fully aware of the conventions of the genre.  Audiences sometimes watch horror films and scream in laughter at the stupidity of the characters, this film second guesses that audience by having the characters on screen do it for them (literally in one scene where a character is watching Halloween (1978) oblivious to the killer looming up behind him, and equally unaware that he is being recorded and watched in a TV news van, where the people watching are shouting the same things that he is saying to Jamie Lee Curtis).  The characters are frequently discussing horror films and enumerate in detail the rules of a slasher film.  However Scream is not just a spoof of horror, it works as a slasher film in it's own right, screenwriter Kevin Williamson  obviously loves and knows horror, and director Wes Craven was one of the great horror directors, cutting his teeth on the controversial The Last House on the Left (1972) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977) before unleashing Freddy Krueger onto the world in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).  In fact Craven had explored similar post-modern territory before with Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994), which I still think is the best of the Elm Street series.
The film's most recognisable star, Drew Barrymore, is killed within the first quarter of an hour, in a scene that quickly became iconic.  Star Neve Campbell was known for the TV show Party of Five (1994-2000) and Courteney Cox, who starred as tabloid TV news journalist Gale Weathers, made her name in the hugely popular Friends (1994-2004).  The characters are well-drawn and, crucially, Williamson and Craven seem to genuinely like them, so it is affecting when they are in danger, they are not just there to be sliced 'n' diced.  The fact that the film is not just a gory slasher, but it has humour, teen drama and mystery, meant that it's appeal moved beyond the horror fans.
To date, the film has spawned three sequels, and a TV series.    

Courntey Cox, Jamie Kennedy and Neve Campbell in Scream

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