movie review: Scream (Franchise)

      
       Confession time, I have been crazy busy this month, which is why I haven't been posting much for Halloween month.  So to make up for that I'm doing an entire franchise, the slasher series from the 90s that was revived recently for a fourth installment.  Another confession, these movies are a bit of a guilty pleasure for me.  That all being said, lets get on with this.

       Scream is a slasher series that sets itself apart from others in a few different ways; the killer is not a supernatural being bent on murdering everyone in sight, but a killer usually with ties to the heroine Sydney Prescott.  But what really sets the series apart from others is that their is a character in each of them that explains what will happen because the killer plays by the same rules as other slasher movies.  Thus the audience can choose to listen and nothing is a surprise (well almost nothing), or pass it off as false and everything is a mystery.

Scream

       In the original Scream we get a few fairly well known actors including Drew Berrymore, Henry Winkler, Matt Lillard, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, and Neve Campbell to name a few.  The movie  did something few movies had the nerve to do, killed off the only A list actress in the first 10 minutes.  This meant everyone was now free game and nobody was safe.  This movie also began the downfall of Winkler's career as a "cool"guy.  The first movie is your standard high school slasher film; most of the characters are in high school, their is a party, their is a virgin, and all the adults are completely useless.

Spoiler Section

       As the movie goes on we learn that Sydney's mother was murdered and at the time her lover, Cotton, was falsely accused by Sydney.  At the time of the murder the only one who felt Cotton was innocent was a tabloid journalist named Gale Weathers.  Gale feels the new murders are related and opens the possibility that Sydney's own father is the killer since nobody can find him.  The movie did a decent job of keeping you guessing who the killer was, until the end when it's revealed there are two killers; the guy everyone assumes is the killer but he has an alibi, and his best friend that is clearly being manipulated.  It turns out the killings are connected, but not as expected.  Turns out Sydney's mom had a reputation for sleeping around, one of the men she had an affair with was the father of Sydney's boyfriend Billy Loomis, which destroyed their marriage and his father left them.  So Billy killed her for it and a year later he started the Ghostface killings just because.

Scream 2

       Scream 2 is in my opinion is the weakest of the series.  Two years later Sydney is in college now and the original killings were made into a movie called "Stab".  Cotton Weary has been released from prison after it was revealed he was innocent, and a copycat killer is now on the loose.  All of the survivors of the previous series return, the rules of a sequel are established, and the movie gets underway.  Like the previous film we are given multiple suspects each with their own motives including Sydney's new boyfriend Derek, the newly released Cotton, her best friend Hallie, and Mickey a classmate.

Spoiler Section

       The reason I felt this was the weakest of the series is because the killer ends up being someone totally different than the list of suspects.  The film sets up Derek, much like the previous one did, but out of left field we are given Mickey the random classmate who is the lackey.  The actual mastermind is a bit more interesting, the main killer is Mrs. Loomis, the mother of Billy Loomis the original killer.  She is after all the survivors to get revenge for her sons death.  Of course she is insanely incompetent and only manages to kill one of the original survivors, the only guy who knows the rules, Randy.  Meaning her revenge plot failed miserably.

Scream 3

       Rotten Tomatoes claims that Scream 3 is bad, and while I do agree that by this point it has all been done before, by comparing them all side by side this one isn't all that bad.  In this film Sydney is in self-imposed isolation after the last few films.  However in Hollywood Cotton is murdered by a new Ghostface, and actors in the new Stab movie are being offed by this new killer as well.  Thus Sydney is forced to rejoin society to help find the killer.  What's left of the survivors from the previous films are reunited again and Randy's sister delivers a video of her brother explaining the rules of a trilogy...there are no rules.  And with that our movie truly begins.  In this film our suspects are everyone, and since the previous films use multiple killers it's a safe assumption that this one does as well.

Spoiler Section

       The film has some flaws, the biggest being it breaks it's own rules.  It is established that nobody is safe, not even Sydney, but when the killer is revealed we learn it is all about hurting Sydney before killing her, rather than what we are told will happen.  The killer in this one also comes out of left field, there is only one this time and until we learn his past he is the only guy who has no motive.  The killer is Sydney's half-brother who orchestrated the original killing of Sydney's mother, grooming Billy Loomis into a killer, even teaching him to take an accomplice who will be the fall guy.  His motives for killing his mother is that she left him and disowned him, his reason for killing Sydney is that she became famous for her part in the Ghostface killings.  So he became the director of the newest Stab film and started killing the cast to throw off suspicion and draw out Sydney.  I find this to be a way better motive for murder than Mrs. Lommis' revenge for her psycho son, or Billy's just for the hell of it.  And the ending also had a more satisfying feel to it than the previous films; Sydney finally rejoined society after years of being untrusting of the world around her.

Scream 4

       Scream 4 is my personal favorite of the series.  It manages to be a reboot without actually rebooting the series, and even pokes fun at horror movie reboots in general.  It is 15 years after the original Ghostface killings and the town has made the date into a holiday (like what often happens), however this year is different, because there is a new Ghostface on the loose.  Sydney has returned home (which actually sparks the new killings) and Gale and Officer Dewey are going through a rough patch in there relationship.  But as with the rest of these movies the survivors all band together with the new characters to solve the killings.  The new characters this time is Sydney's younger cousin Jill and her friends, returning the films to high school.  The Randy replacement is Kirby, a horror junkie played by Hayden Panettiere, honestly a vast improvement (Kirby almost instantly became my favorite character in the franchise).  She and the rest of the AV club explain the rules of a reboot to Gale, and informs her of a party where all the high schoolers watch the entire Stab franchise during the weekend of the anniversary.  There are more killings, more satire, until the inevitable conclusion.

Spoiler Section

       The killer this time is an interesting twist, unlike the other three movies where it is someone connected to Sydney's mother, the new killer is motivated by Sydney herself.  it turns out that all of these years of Sydney being almost a celebrity for her knack of survival, Sydney's cousin was driven mad with jealousy.  She uses the disguise of Ghostface to kill and get away with it.  Originally she planned to pin it all on her ex boyfriend, but with Sydney's return she chose a different route.  Like the original she had an accomplice, and the try to make themselves look like victims but Jill ends up killing him.  She then pins the killings on Sydney herself who "went crazy after years of survivor's guilt."  Of course in the end she is found out after she divulges too much information to Dewey.  This movie also got some unwarranted hate from critics.  Personally I feel as far as horror films go this one isn't bad, especially compared to other reboots.  With all of the in-jokes and references to other movies this film is more fun than scary, which is probably why I like it.

Other notes

       These movies despite being fun to watch, the movies do in fact still have flaws.   Chief among them is the fact the killers motives are rather flimsy.  Also the rules established are often broken simply to allow Sydney to survive.  After the first movie it became difficult to finger the killer, usually because their motives are not revealed until after the killer is already revealed.  Either that or we never see the killer until the mask is taken off.

Final Verdict

       As the series progressed it lost the originality that it started with, but it remained a great slasher film none the less.  And even the series became a parody of other series by recycling things it did before, and even rebooting itself.  In short Scream is the ultimate horror film parody.  And for that I give the franchise a B, with a slightly higher rating to Scream 4, and slightly lower one to Scream 2.