Monday 31 October 2022

Scream - 1996 to 2022

31 Days Of Horror 21 to 25, for rewatches to get to a new film.

(See also my thoughts on the series and gaming.)

21: Scream
(1996)

Trailer where the narrator blames the movies, tsk tsk, but does help make it look like Drew Barrymore will still be around after the first ten minutes:

The original Scream added a lot of snark to the slasher while still keeping a number of great scares and suspense sequences, and a mystery that kept viewers guessing. It still 100% works.

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22: Scream 2
(1997)

I saw Scream 2 before my first episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer so I didn’t know Sarah Michelle Gellar but I was still rooting for her while fully aware her character was disposable. And the bit in the car is an all-timer for suspense in the series. But while the film goes to great effort to hide one killer, it goes to basically none to hide the other. Mickey is a huge creepy weirdo who we see might be dating Hallie based on one ten-second scene to explain why he's with the group.

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23: Scream 3
(2000)

Generally regarded as the disappointing end of the original trilogy, it’s certainly different, the humour a lot broader and self-referential in a new way, and the mystery is more of a "huh, really?" kind of surprise, but I like the lonely badass Sidney.

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24: Scream 4
(2011)

After a big gap, a sequel about reboots. It has a surprising mystery again. It’s also wow it's gory.

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25: Scream (5!)
(2022)

And a legacy sequel with the original title about the “legacy sequel with the original title” trend, including a bit about fans hating that. I think it would have worked with just general knowledge of the originals, especially as we get to the first classic character half an hour in (and then the others in five minutes) and it keeps most of them at arm’s length to focus on the new protagonists. (And we get a great suspense sequence that underlines that having been stabbed a lot and surviving would probably actually hurt.) And I liked that it mostly kept its 90s nostalgia for the end credits music. Not 100% happy with every decision, but so it goes.

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