Internet Janitor
Coming out a year after the original, this second entry is in what I call “the original quadrilogy,” I liked it better than the third but not as much as the fourth. While one of the killers is perhaps the most obvious of the series, it is one of the better reveal performances. Perhaps one of my big issues is that the movie is too bright, almost like a sitcom at times. It has a huge cast, and perhaps some of its issues were that it was likely a very rushed production to cash in on the original’s success.
A year after the events of the original film, we meet up with Sidney Prescott (played again by Neve Campbell), who is attending what looks like a seriously expensive college, but given that everyone in this series lives in million-dollar-plus homes, it makes sense. She has a red herring boyfriend played by Jerry O’Connell (from The Goonies) and is trying to move on with her life. Yet, after the movie version, entitled Stab, comes out based on Gale Weathers’ book, the killings start up again.
The case is stacked, even if some only have very minor roles. With Timothy Olyphant (from Justified), Sarah Michelle Gellar (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Tori Spelling (90120), Liev Schreiber (from X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Laurie Metcalf (from Rosanne). Jada Pinkett Smith (from an awards show moment), Heather Graham (from Boogie Nights), and Joshua Jackson (from Dawson’s Creek).
I’ve said it before. If you’re going to a slasher expecting absolute realism, then you’re watching the wrong genre. That being said, some of the killings are the most unlikely of the series, here taking place in broad daylight in the possible view of dozens of people. Yet, I know, stranger things have happened. They do amp up the killer being inept, as on more than a few occasions, the victims get the better of them.
Yet even with the suspension of disbelief for a slasher, the scene where Sidney is in a crashed car with Ghostface in the driver’s seat is the most egregious. Both her and her roommate have to climb OVER the kille,r and it is only AFTER doing that, some distance away, do they think, “Hey, do you think, oh I don’t know, it’s crazy but should we take off the mask?” Shock does amazing things, but this is not Sidney’s first rodeo, and it was just a step too far.
It is nice seeing regulars like Dewey, Gale and Randy back, though. The heart of this is violence in the movies, something that’s come up with the press, parents’ groups and those who don’t understand reality. It talks about a higher body count, which is true, but much of the actual violence is off-screened which is disappointing.
Wildly successful, better than the near comedy of the third act, this was the start of Scream being much bigger than most of what it satirized.