Scream 2 Review
by Scott Promish (scottjp AT cris DOT com)January 4th, 1998
SCREAM 2 (1997)
A film review by Scott Promish
(c) 1997
I won't summarise SCREAM here. You need to see that first, not only because the story follows, but because there are some very funny jokes that you won't get unless you have.
It's two years later. Our heroine Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is now attending college as a drama major. A film based on the "true events" in SCREAM has just been released to theatres, and after a murder that occurs in full view of a preview audience (they thought it was a publicity stunt), similar killings start happening on campus.
Considering the nature of SCREAM, a film that made fun of horror movie "sequelitis", I didn't think there would be a SCREAM 2. Maybe in the back of my mind I knew better, but the irony is just too obvious. So I was surprised to find that SCREAM 2 is actually *good*. The entire creative team and most of the cast have returned for the sequel. Once again Wes Craven directs and Kevin Williamson writes; in addition to Campbell, Jamie Kennedy returns as film buff Randy, Courtney Cox once again gets involved as reporter Gale Weathers, and David Arquette is also hanging around as recovering cop Dewey. They're all very good and in some cases better than in the first film. The writing is clever and full of humor that doesn't undercut the suspense (The car escape scene is masterfully tense, as is the great courtyard sequence. Don't think a busy public place in broad daylight can be scary? Think again.)
But as Randy says in a class debate, "sequels are by definition inferior." I don't think that's necessarly true in all cases but here it's only because it lacks the freshness of the original. We're familiar with the killer's M.O. so there are no surprises there. I think that's what makes most any sequel inferior to its predecessor, by default - there's no avoiding it. It's for that reason only that SCREAM 2 may not have the impact as SCREAM. If there was one thing I'd change, I'd delete the Gale/Dewey romance, which struck me as unnecessary and unnatural. I have to watch SCREAM again, but my reaction to 2 is that it's better directed and more imaginative than the first.
If you liked SCREAM, there's no reason why you wouldn't like SCREAM 2. Apparently there's a third in the works, and if they can pull it off as well as this one without being repetitive, I'll be looking forward to it.
[Review written 12/13/97]
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
