Scream 2 (1997) Rating: 3.0 stars (out of 4.0) ******************************** Key to rating system: 2.0 stars Debatable 2.5 stars Some people may like it 3.0 stars I liked it 3.5 stars I am biased in favor of the movie 4.0 stars I felt the movie's impact personally or it stood out ********************************* A Movie Review by David Sunga
Directed by: Wes Craven
Written by: Kevin Williamson
Starring: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Laurie Metcalf, Jerry O'Connell, Timothy Olyphant, Liev Schreiber
Ingredients: Slasher at large. Whodunit mystery that spoofs the horror genre. Young, hip, heroes who spout pop culture witticisms.
Synopsis: This fun movie is the sequel to SCREAM (1996), a gore spoof and slasher parody which pitted heroes Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette against an anonymous, masked movie enthusiast/marauder whose murderous style was based on horror genre cliches. Since SCREAM 2 picks up where the original SCREAM left off, let's take a moment to remember the original. In SCREAM the running gag is that the mysterious masked killer always follows film cliches, but luckily the killer's prey are movie buffs who try to predict the killer's next move based on the same cliches. High school girl Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is stalked by the movie enthusiast/killer. But she turns the tables, and tries to solve the mystery of her masked stalker's identity. Also in on the hunt is sleazy, catty, tabloid reporter Gail Weathers (Courteney Cox), and lawman Deputy Dewey Riley, (David Arquette) a baby-faced, inept investigator. In SCREAM 2, Director Wes Craven and Writer Kevin Williamson team up again to create another whodunit that follows the further adventures of hapless SCREAM characters Sidney, Gail, and Dewey. This time, Sidney is a theater student in a college town when a series of SCREAM copycat murders occurs. Sidney becomes the next most probable victim. Soon enough she is joined by reporter Gail and friend Dewey, and they all try to figure who the new masked slasher is. The problem is, people keep conveniently arriving just as the masked attacker leaves, or leaving just before the killer appears, making everyone a possible suspect. Sidney and friends trade hip and witty barbs about movie and pop culture trivia as they wrack their brains trying to figure out the killer's pattern. Who is the slasher really? The boyfriend? Another film student? Gail, Dewey, Sidney, the roommate, the sorority girls, the cops, the recently released jailbird, or an unknown wacko? Find out.
Opinion: The thing about any sequel is the question: "Is it as good as the original?" In this case the answer is yes. If you liked SCREAM, then chances are, youll think that SCREAM 2 is at least in the same ballpark. One thing I like about SCREAM 2 is that it spends some time developing the characters from SCREAM so that you come to know more about them and like them. If you intend to see this movie, I highly advise seeing SCREAM (on video) first, because SCREAM 2 assumes that you remember all the characters and events of SCREAM. It can get slightly confusing if youre not up on the original story. Here's an example: In the original SCREAM, one of the characters talks about a movie being made. "I see myself as sort of a young Meg Ryan. But with my luck, I'll get Tori Spelling." In SCREAM 2, sure enough, the characters are watching a movie called STAB, based on the events of SCREAM. Tori Spelling plays the STAB actress!
Reviewed by David Sunga December 12, 1997
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews