I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about new movies in theatres including the return of Ghostface in “Scream 7,” the music doc “Paul McCartneyt: Man on the Run,” the northern noir of “In Cold Light” and the zombie flick “This is Not a Test.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 14:21)
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to scream seven times. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the return of Sidney Prescott in “Scream 7,” the northern noir of “In Cold Light” and the music doc “Paul McCartney: Man on the Run.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: “Scream 7,” now playing in theatres, once again says “Hello, Sidney” as Neve Campbell returns to the thirty-year-old horror franchise as iconic “final girl” Sidney Prescott.
CAST: Neve Campbell, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, David Arquette, Matthew Lillard, Courteney Cox, Isabel May, Anna Camp, Michelle Randolph, Jimmy Tatro, Mckenna Grace, Asa Germann, Celeste O’Connor, Sam Rechner, Mark Consuelos, Tim Simons, Joel McHale. Directed by Kevin Williamson.
REVIEW: The labyrinthine world of the “Scream” franchise continues in a bloody movie that delivers the gore but gets lost in a mishmash of nostalgia, legacy characters and tired tropes.
A story about past trauma revisiting the present, “Scream 7” begins with Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) starting a new life in a new town. Settling in Pine Grove, Indiana, far from the suburban Northern California town of Woodsboro and the reach of serial killer Ghostface.
Or so she thought until her phone rang.
“I’m going to make everyone you love suffer,” says a familiar voice on the other end of the line. “Including your pretty daughter.”
Could it be her nemesis Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) or an elaborate deepfake?
Either way, determined to protect daughter Tatum (Isabel May) and husband Mark (Joel McHale), Sidney swings into action in a final showdown with her greatest adversary.
Directed by Kevin Williamson (who wrote the original “Scream”) “Scream 7” is a collision of old and new elements that end up feeling almost as lifeless as one of Ghostface’s victims.
What was once a clever meta commentary on slasher movies that deconstructed the tropes of 80s and 90s horror, and later, remakes, toxic fandom and franchise fatigue, now feels rudderless as it takes on deep fakes and AI. The previous “Scream” films would have taken time to formulate a comment on the dangers of technology or at least take a position on it. Instead, here it’s simply a plot device, nothing more or less.
That lack of curiosity extends throughout. Even though “Scream 7” contains the most gratuitous kill of the entire series—and, to be fair, one of the funniest as one unfortunate victim is turned into a human beer tap—it doesn’t invest much into making the new characters compelling or, most importantly, making the Ghostface unmasking shocking or at the very least interesting.
The result is a movie with enough bloody stuff to entertain slasher fans, but it feels like the kind of film the franchise has spent thirty years analyzing.
Everything old is new again.
It’s been more than a quarter of a century since the original “Scream,” starring David Arquette, Neve Campbell and Drew Barrymore, reinvented the slasher genre with a scary, funny and self-reverential take on things that go stab in the night.
Three sequels later, there’s a new edition, the inventively titled “Scream.” It’s the fifth film in the series, and they’re not calling it a sequel. It is, God help us, a relaunch, or, as they call it in the movie, a “requel.”
A mix of new and old characters, “Scream” takes place in Woodsboro, California, a sleepy little town whose peace and quiet was interrupted twenty-five years ago by a killer in the now iconic Ghostface mask.
The action in the new film gets underway as a new Ghostface killer sets their sights, and knife, on Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega), a teenage senior at Woodsboro High who enjoys “elevated horror.” (MILD SPOILER) Unlike the opening scene characters before her, Tara survives and is tended to by older sister Sam (Melissa Barrera) whose thorny history with Ghostface makes the pair a target for the masked killer.
As Ghostface’s killing spree continues, Sam turns to the old guard, Dewey Riley (David Arquette), television morning show host Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), and Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), for help.
“Scream” is much cleverer than the retread title and recycled killer would suggest. It continues the meta commentary on the rules characters in slasher movies must abide by if they expect to survive the knife but, more than that, it plays like a satire of itself. It’s a trickly line to walk but directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett stay the course.
As the killer carves notches on his belt, characters talk about “elevated horror,” and toxic fandom until the line between what the characters are talking about and what we’re watching on screen blurs into one bloody riff on postmodern horror and what it really means to be a “requel.” It is simultaneously self-reverential and mocking of the slasher genre, and values its cleverness as much as the kills that provide the scares.
The scary scenes don’t have quite the same atmosphere Wes Craven brought to his “Scream” instalments, but there are moments that linger in the memory. The old trope of revealing the killer behind an opening door is played for laughs and tension, and the loss of one of the “legacy” characters is actually kind of touching.
As expected, the killings are brutal and bloody, and mostly not played for laughs. The new “Scream” is the most gruesome film in the franchise, offering up piercing knives and gallons of pouring plasma. There are plot holes everywhere and the victims have usually done something to out themselves in harm’s way, but the killings are effectively played out.
“Scream” is a slasher movie that bends the rules of slasher movies but, best of all, it also breaks the sequel rule of diminishing returns. Adding a fifth entry to an established franchise, that holds up to the original, may be the movie’s biggest achievement.
Like Rodney Dangerfield, all David Arquette wants is some respect. The “Scream” and “Eight Legged Freaks” actor and sometimes wrestler is the subject of “You Cannot Kill David Arquette,” a new documentary, now on VOD, that traces his journey to redemption in and out of the ring.
You likely know Arquette as part of the famous Hollywood family. His grandfather Cliff was a well-known comedian, his father Lewis was best known for playing J.D. Pickett on “The Waltons,” and his four siblings, Rosanna, Richmond, Patricia and Alexis (whop passed away in 2016) all became successful actors. He was once married to Cortney Cox and has been acting since his teens. Like everyone with a long career he’s been in hits and flops but, according to the documentary, “Scream,” the movie that made him a star also type cast him as a goofy, dim witted guy and ruined his serious acting career.
It was another movie, however, that sent him in a different direction. The actor was always a wrestling fan but “Ready to Rumble,” the story of a pair of slacker wrestling fans upset by the ouster of their favorite character by an unscrupulous promoter, brought him into the wrestling biz. Brought into Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling, he became a comic relief attraction and eventually winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. It was a marketing attempt, but wrestling fans were incensed that an interloper, a Hollywood actor, could take the championship away from “real” wrestlers. He became the he most hated man in pro-wrestling and gave up the ring for eighteen years.
Ostracized by Hollywood and the wrestling world, he battled substance abuse, a public divorce and a life-threatening heart attack. It’s here “You Cannot Kill David Arquette” begins.
Battling self-esteem issues—he frequently refers to himself as a loser—and the backlash that set him professionally adrift, Arquette, at age 48, and unable to get the acting auditions he wants, attempts a return to the ring. Like a flies-on-the-wall directors David Darg and Price James follow the actor as he loses fifty pounds, quits smoking, practices, gets his ass kicked, rehearses on the streets of Mexico and in one harrowing sequence, suffers a serious injury during an aptly named death match.
Wrestling takes up a great deal of screen time and it is clear that this is meant, in part, to be Arquette’s love letter to the sport, the important stuff in the film happens outside the ring. Arquette is laid bare here, exposing his struggles in a raw and candid way. He lays it bare, telling his tale on his own terms. It’s a story of personal redemption that never quite feels fulfilled, but Arquette’s directness and eagerness to set things right, if only in his own mind, is compelling.
