Richard joins CTV NewsChannel and anchor Jennifer Burke to have a look at new movies coming to VOD and streaming services, including Johnny Knoxville and the unnatural acts of “Jackass Forever,” the reboot of “Scream,” the unhappily ever after fairy tale “The King’s Daughter” AND the great punk rock doc “Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
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.
Richard speaks about the passing of “Nightmare on Elm Street” creator Wes Craven on CP24.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Horror fans must have an almost permanent feeling of deja vu these days. It seems that the horror films that we grew up with in the 1960s and 70s, like The Amityville Horror, Dawn of the Dead, The Fog and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, are all being re-made, which makes the new releases list in the newspaper occasionally seem like it came from the Twilight Zone.
The latest cult horror film to find a new life in 2006 is The Hills Have Eyes, the 1977 Wes Craven film that gave us the immortal line, “We’re going to be French fries! Human French fries!”
The 2006 version is directed by the French director Alexandre Aja who gave us the deeply unpleasant, but rather effective thriller High Tension last year. For the most part Aja takes his lead from the original film about an unfortunate family of vacationers who get stranded in desert of New Mexico, falling prey to mutant cannibalistic hillbillies. The bad guys are descendents of miners who worked in this remote location and continued to live there even after the government started testing nuclear bombs in their backyard. A generation later they have mutated into some very unpleasant creatures with bad tempers and a taste for human flesh.
Aja’s version takes one major liberty with the source material. In the original Craven established that the mutants, although they were evil, were a family. In fact they mirrored the poor family they were terrorizing—all American verses Americans all messed up by their own country’s experiments. I thought the contrast was one of the strong points of that film and lent a tone of social commentary about nuclear testing to the piece.
Aja forgoes social comment for shocks, and although he takes his time getting to the hard-core action, once the thrills arrive they’re worth the wait. This movie is not for the easily disturbed or the faint of heart, but if you like your scares gruesome and fast paced the Hills Have Eyes is for you.
The “Scream” movies, which follow professional survivor Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) as she outwits and outlasts a series of masked “Ghostface” killers, have fared better than most other contemporary horror franchises. Probably because the idea of combining a traditional slasher film with self-aware humor and horror film clichés was ahead of its time when Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven took a stab at creating the horror hybrid in 1996.
Just as the “Saw” films have become as appealing as a power tool to the back of the head and the “Final Destination” movies feel like they actually met their final destination two or three films ago, “Scream’s” winning formula hasn’t outlived it’s welcome.
In the shreakquel Campbell returns as Prescott, now a successful author who has returned to Woodsboro, the scene of the Ghostface killer crimes that made her a nationally famous survivor. Her book signing at a local store is, of course, scheduled on the anniversary of the original killings. Soon things get stabby and, as the bodies start to pile up Sheriff Dewey (David Arquette) and his investigative reporter wife Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) try to discover who is behind the Ghostface mask.
Like the other movies in the series “Scream 4” is a Meta-thriller that pays tribute to and takes the Mickey out of the horror genre. It uses the conventions of other fright films to cue the action, before twisting familiar clichés to form something new. Of course the idea of referencing other movies isn’t as fresh as it was in the original, but screenwriter Williamson has updated the idea, suggesting that the rules from the first few “Screams” don’t apply because horror movies have changed in the age of social media.
Not to worry though, the basic “Scream” formula is in place. This movie, like the others, still opens with a funny, bloody scene or two, spoofing horror movies. They are giddy good fun and set the tone of the movie—gory and giggly.
At the heart of it all is Campbell, “Scream’s” only truly indispensible character. She grounds the whole story, bringing a real presence to an unreal situation. She isn’t the funny girl, or the self aware, sarcastic showy character, instead she’s the one the audience cares about. Most importantly she never plays the victim no matter how many times Ghostface tries to cut her in two.
“Scream 4” is the best in the series since the original. Director Wes Craven brings the suspense, writer Williamson supplies the clever and Campbell supplies the heart.
