A few years back I revisited Scary Movie for the first time since 2000 and was mildly surprised to discover it actually held up better than expected. Airplane! it is not, but as so many of these types of films (including most of SM's sequels, some of which made by actual Airplane veterans) are just spoof scenes strung together with no real story, it was nice to see one with an actual script holding all the fart and weed jokes together. The inevitable revival, also called Scary Movie (it would be Scary Movie 6, for those counting) lands somewhere in between; there are still a lot of Family Guy-esque cutaways to parody scenes with no bearing on anything (the Weapons, Terrifier 3, and Get Out spoofs could all be removed with zero effect), but for the most part it's telling an actual story.
Well, it's telling Scream 5's story. They throw in some stuff from 6 too, but for the most part it sticks to aping scenes from that successful 2022 revival of the series this one was spoofing to begin with (and hasn't touched since, if memory serves? 2-5 all tackled more supernatural stuff as far as I recall). Our new hero Sarah is the daughter of Anna Faris' Cindy, and after her sister Tuesday (yes, a dumb joke about Jenna Ortega's other big character) is attacked by a Ghostface she goes to Woodswhatever (Woodsville, maybe?) and the killer starts offing people connected to the first movie. A number of Scream 5's scenes - even smaller ones like Dewey (Doofy) and Gale (Gail) reuniting outside the house of the now dead sheriff and their child - are recreated here, and the beats are pretty much the same.
(If you recall that the first Scary Movie also spoofed I Know What You Did Last Summer, which itself was revived recently - the not-so-coincidence gives the movie one of its better laughs.)
As for Faris, her arc is swiped from Halloween (2018), living in seclusion in case Ghostface comes back. Faris is as perfect as always with what sadly amounts to an extended cameo - I am pretty sure Regina Hall as her BFF Brenda has more screentime, playing a Ma-type character while also being the mom to this movie's version of Chad and Mindy. The script only gives Faris a little bit of the physical comedy she excels at, but she earns a laugh every time she appears with her deliveries and expressions, making me sigh that she spent so many of her prime years on a sitcom when she could have been keeping big screen comedy alive almost singlehandedly.
Unfortunately, at least for me, the person who is on screen the most is probably Marlon Wayans' Shorty, and his shtick has never been exactly a selling point for me. In an era where marijuana is legal, is seeing a guy repeatedly get high still funny? The writers sure hope so! While Keenan Ivory Wayans returned to contribute to the script, directing chores are left to Michael Tiddes, who helmed Marlon's awful Haunted House movies, so it's not too much of a surprise he's the one with the most screentime (and the most extraneous scenes, incidentally). I was actually entertained whenever it was focusing on Cindy or her daughters, but then we'd be forced to endure another lengthy, pointless scene of Shorty getting high. Similarly, if you thought there might be something new to Shawn Wayans' character of Ray beyond being gay, you're going to be let down. Every time he appears, his dialogue and actions revolve around the fact that he is gay. It's not even "one-note" anymore since it was done to death in the first two, and I kept waiting for a payoff that never came. On the other hand, despite the ads daring us to be offensive, Doofy's mentally challenged antics are toned down, though in his and a few other returning co-stars' case, he's not in it all that much. I don't know if the word "spoiler" can really apply in this sort of thing, but everyone of note (save Shannon Elizabeth) is back, but only the "core four" of Faris, Hall, and the two Wayanses are lead characters, and the rest... well, it's a slasher movie at the end of the day. Use your imagination.
The new cast members are fine; I was quite impressed with Olivia Rose Keegan's performance as Cindy's daughter, as she nails Faris' voice and has some of her same go for broke spark. Savannah Lee Nassif as half-sister Tuesday (her dad is never explained, but given Cindy's continued appearances in the other films without a child that I can recall, I guess we shouldn't put too much thought into it) is also fun, though as with most of the new cast seems to disappear for large stretches to focus on Shorty's dumb antics. They also apparently got a note from some producer (or test screening) demanding Chris Elliott return as the small handed guy from Scary Movie 2, because we are treated to a couple scenes of him (as Longlegs) that are so flimsily connected to the rest they might as well have used a "Poochie had to return to his home planet" style sendoff when they're over with. Though at least these largely unfunny bits give a bit role to the great Heidi Gardner (playing the Maika Monroe character), who is always welcome.
Anyway, I laughed more than I thought I would, and despite the pointless diversions, it's somewhat well made at least; at one point Shorty gets his hand cut by Candyman (a drug dealer), and later he has a bandage on the wound, which is the sort of attention to detail I'd expect them not to even bother with. And since "Did I laugh?" is really the only qualifier that matters, I was indeed chuckling at something every few minutes, with a few good laugh out loud bits (one of my favorites being an out of nowhere slam on Ballerina) and a genuinely funny reveal for the mystery, one that will play better if you've followed the production history of this franchise (quick recap: the Wayans were kind of forced out after Scary Movie 2). Is it high art? No, it's not even a must-see if I'm being honest. But it was an amusing enough time killer, and per the box office reports it's going to be a big hit. Since big screen comedies are so rare, I'll take any tickets sold to one as a positive thing. Doing it for a film that gives Faris and Hall a chance to do their thing together again? Bonus points.
As I did for the last one, I thought I would write a second "review" of sorts for Scream 7where I go in detail about my issues with the film's third act, since (also like S6) I think the film is really good until the reveals start coming in, at which point the movie nosedives. I don't think it's AS crippling as the last one, because the reveal there was not only weak but also once again revealed the characters to be idiots (as I mentioned in my traditional review: the fact that it was Richie's entire family means that Sam, Kirby, AND Gale all managed to somehow remain ignorant of their existence, despite dating, investigating, and writing about him, respectively), and this one is merely just weak. But considering this was Kevin Williamson's grand return to the series, I can't help but feel more disappointed that the screenwriter's big unmasking was the least surprising in this entire franchise.
Spoilers begin... NOW!
OK, so if you're still here you either know or simply don't care that the mastermind was Jessica (Anna Camp), with Marco (Ethan Embry) as her muscle/right-hand man. They also had another guy helping them earlier whose name I already forgot, but seeing a Ghostface killed 40 minutes in was a great surprise (as was the reveal of who was driving the van that hit him) and his anonymity was part of the point, so there's nothing to complain about there. But in Camp and Embry's case, I can't imagine there's a person alive who would be surprised to see their faces under the masks, given that they are both recognizable actors who were playing absolute nothing roles. Especially Embry, whose sole purpose (and *only* scene prior) is to show up and try to convince Sid (read: the audience) that Stu is still alive, a concept I never believed for a second.
Camp at least has a little more to do, as Sid's neighbor/BFF who Williamson and Guy Busick thankfully bothered to give I think three scenes sprinkled into the narrative. But they make the same dumb mistake that they did in 6, which is to have Camp shoehorn in some backstory about their past that is too extraneous to buy as traditional character development, and merely points a big arrow at their head reading "KILLER!" As soon as she says something about having an abusive ex (just as Quinn randomly dropped the fact that she had a dead brother), we know that's going to be crucial information, and it's a shame to recall that Williamson used to be so much better at this. When Billy mentioned his mother leaving in the original, it never once came off as a clue - it played exactly as it was meant to; a clunky attempt at sympathizing with Sid re: her own mother's death, with few being being tipped off that there was any more to it.
And really, they could have fixed it easily by simply having Jessica say that she first "met" Sid when the latter was posing as Laura for her crisis hotline stint in Scream 3. Even if it wasn't the same guy, we (sadly) know how many women tend to leave one abusive partner only to end up with another (the one she refers to here is also the father of her teen son, so unless she stuck with him for a decade or so, the time wouldn't work), so it still could have played as a "how they met" thing without raising any alarms. Bonus: it would have made Jessica's grand plan a little tragic on top of everything else. She's apparently upset that Sid gave up being a Final Girl (by sitting out of New York, a recurring theme in the movie) and wants Tatum (Sid's daughter) to take over as America's premiere survivor, which is kind of silly even for these things, but at least could have been a bit sad if Jessica had spent the past 25 years worshiping Sid for helping her with her own struggles only to be crushed by the latter's decision to live a normal life instead of continuing to fight Ghostfaces.
All that said, I can forgive the "why" if the "who" is at least satisfying. As stupid as the whole "Stu survived!" thing was to me, it would honestly be better to do a repeat killer than have two people we've barely met take off the masks, with their recognizable faces ("It's the Pitch Perfect girl!") doing the majority of the work for whoever in the audience might not have figured it out long before that. I didn't exactly take a stopwatch to the screening, but I'd bet $63.6m that no previous Ghostface has had less screentime than either of the main culprits here (again, the other guy was anonymous by design so I don't care about him). It just baffles me that no one involved thought to say "Hey, fans love going back and figuring out which killer performed which kill, and that can't happen here because neither killer had enough involvement with the story for their whereabouts to be determined at any given time." Again, Embry is in ONE SCENE! Who could possibly be satisfied with that reveal?
As for Stu, as I mentioned in my main review, Matthew Lillard is clearly having a good time reprising his role, and he hasn't lost any of that manic energy (if you've followed his later work, he's actually a solid and fairly subtle dramatic actor, so it's fun to see him go big again). It's a shame that pre-release casting news spoiled most of the other cameos from now-dead cast members (there was one they didn't, and it was a great little "Whoa!" moment for me), because it basically answered the movie's central mystery of "Is Stu really alive or is this AI?" right from the start. We know without a doubt that Dewey, Roman, etc. are dead (Stu is, I think, the only GF with the slightest chance of having survived) but thanks to pre-release publicity we also know they're going to be in it, and this isn't a supernatural series. So therefore, AI/deep-fake nonsense will be coming into play, and in turn Stu is clearly among the killer's pixelated creations. Without their casting known (David Arquette even has his name on the poster!), if Stu was the only returning "dead" person, the mystery could have actually worked to some degree. For a series that started as a commentary on horror films and their fans, it's weird that Scream 7 would actually work best if you watched it in a total vaccuum and (re: the two killers) without having seen any other movies besides the previous Screams, so that Embry and Camp wouldn't be any more recognizable to you than the handful of newcomer actors playing Tatum's friends.
Speaking of them, I will give the movie this much of a win over S6: at least the deaths are all of named characters. Yes, Ghostface is once again incapable of killing anyone we really like (Joel McHale, welcome to the "Somehow survived several brutal stabbings" club!), but I was surprised that literally ALL of Tatum's friends get killed off. The body count is a little lower than the last one, but I'll always take 5-6 named characters over a dozen randos. It's a little weird how they're spaced out though; after the surprisingly early death of Hannah (McKenna Grace's character) - which was far and away the best designed one, very Argento-y - no one dies for a bit and then he wipes out the rest of her friends in a matter of minutes right as the third act kicks into gear. Paying homage to The Burning, maybe? (On the subject of the body count: once we get the motive, we then realize the opening kill is pointless. Why would Sid care about that?)
Like I said in the main review, the movie mainly won me over thanks to the Sid and Gale stuff, but the more I think about the whole Ghostface plot, the sloppier it feels, so it might end up slipping back under 6 over time. I was happy to see a scarier and more stalker-y version of the guy again, but when it's all in service of such a weak killer plot, with absolutely ZERO tension to the mystery of who was behind it, I suspect that stuff won't be as fun on repeat viewings, especially when (again) there's no possible way to determine which one was responsible for this or that kill. The monster opening weekend practically guarantees another one, so I hope when that day comes that they really take their time to come up with a solid mystery again. Give us the red herrings! Give us a scene where one killer is trying to convince Sid (or whoever) that the other person is the killer! GIVE US A REASON TO REWATCH THE DAMN THING!!!
As I am back to pretty much full time in the office as opposed to working from home, I no longer have the time to rewatch a franchise before a new entry. And let's face it, with a movie like Scream 7, I hardly NEEDED to refresh my mind - I've been there on opening weekend for every single entry, and watched them all multiple times since (even the ones I don't care for as much!). But I do at least usually rewatch the previous entry and, if time allows, one other random one just for the hell of it. So I sighed my way through VI again (that third act gets worse with every viewing, folks) and then, for my random one, I opted for Scream 3.
That may surprise those who know me, as I've never exactly been enamored by that one, but over the years I've come to like it a little more than I used to (in fact, Scream 4 now takes my bottom slot). However, the real reason I picked that one is because Kevin Williamson was returning to the series in full force for the first time since Scream 2, as his contributions to 3 and 4's screenplays were largely overwritten by Ehren Kruger and his presence on 5 and 6 were kind of ceremonial at best. So I had a feeling that, for him, this would be a sort of "true" Scream 3 - not that he'd be erasing the entries in between or anything, but sort of taking it back to basics and doing something along the lines of what he would have done had he been able to work on the original Scream 3 as much as he did with the first two. (The return of Matthew Lillard as Stu, which has been publicized to the point that his name is on the poster, also suggested this, since Williamson's original idea had a surviving Stu be the mastermind behind that film's plot. More on Lillard later.)
But even if I was way off, I'd still be grateful for my random selection, because there's a moment in Scream 3 I love that really kind of sets up what I enjoyed most about this entry, and I'm glad it was fresh in my mind. It's about halfway through the movie, when Sid finally arrives in Los Angeles and sees Dewey. After their big hug and hello, Sid takes a pause and says "...is she OK?", meaning Gale. It's a perfectly played moment; Sid and Gale are not exactly besties, and there's some deserved animosity toward the latter, but they had been through this crap together *twice* by that point, and at the end of the day, Gale did save her life, so she can't help but care about the woman even if she's probably hoping for another excuse to smack her in the face. This "frenemy" status is confirmed a scene later, when they meet and share an awkward hug. But since then, we hadn't gotten much of this dynamic; they don't interact much in 4, and in 5 their pairing is motivated more by their shared love of Dewey than any real affection for each other, and then of course in 6 Sid doesn't appear at all.
That unlikely bonding they now have drives a lot of their scenes together here, and while obviously people are coming for a fresh round of Ghostface attacks, for my old ass-who has watched these two characters grow along with me for three decades-I absolutely adored how their relationship is handled here. Gale doesn't enter the story until about 45 minutes in (and does so in absolutely spectacular, crowd-pleasing fashion), and doesn't have much to do in the climax, but she spends nearly every one of her scenes with Sid, and their long, strained history is at the forefront of nearly every one of those encounters. Gale, suffering extreme nerve damage from her near-fatal attack in 6, assumes that since this new Ghostface is after Sid and her daughter specifically that Sid will be proactive and joining her old pal for another crime solving adventure, and is dismayed that Sid just wants to run and keep her daughter safe. I won't run through every one of their conversations, but there's one that genuinely made me tear up, as it offered what may be the first time in this series that Sid actually felt sorry for Gale, and also realizing that despite her fame-seeking demeanor, the woman has done a hell of a lot more for her over the years than she has in return. It's lovely!
But then Ghostface calls again and ruins the whole thing.
OK that's being a bit harsh. But while I enjoyed the movie overall (more than the last one, at least after this one viewing), I can't help but feel that they have officially run out of ideas for the mystery plots. I thought 6's reveal was clunky and plot-hole ridden (still trying to understand how neither Sam, Gale, OR Kirby were totally in the dark about Richie's family), but at least the usual "I'm out for revenge for killing my kid!" thing makes sense. Here, not only is the identity of the killer almost laughably easy to pin (thankful that Dermot Mulroney had the decency to not even bother with an unmasking scene, since it was so obvious - when the killer takes their mask off here, it's as anticlimactic as any such moment has been in this entire franchise), but their motive is utter nonsense, to the extent that I turned to my friend and said "Wait, what?" I mean, to be fair, these people are lunatics, so I guess it kind of tracks that their motive will be equally insane, but it sure doesn't make for a very exciting reveal (also, once we know what their motive was... what exactly was the point of the opening scene?). And as I've noted more than once: nailing the final reel is absolutely crucial to these things, because that's what we're gonna leave on. It doesn't matter how good the first 90 minutes are (and they are, for the most part, quite good here), if it's all building to a wet fart, it's gonna be hard to justify further viewings. Think about the first time you rewatched the OG Scream and noticed that winking nod from Billy to Stu when the former showed up at the party (after killing Tatum) and how fun that was - there's nothing like that here. You'll know who it is as soon as they appear, leaving only the "Why?" to your imagination, and I'm guessing whatever you come up with will probably be more satisfying than what these writers did.
That said, I was charmed by the fact that (minor spoiler, maybe?) Sid's book plays a part in the big "Why I am doing this" speech. Again, Williamson hasn't exactly been a driving force behind the storytelling since the 2nd film, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he flat out ignored 3-6. But no, every single sequel has some kind of connection here, without any kind of retconning or erasing (for those who were fretting about how Sidney clearly had more than one child in 5 - it's explained: the younger girls are off at their paternal grandparents for the week, and we can just assume that the 17ish Tatum, who would have been 12 or 13 in 5's events, was just at school or something). But apart from Chad and Mindy's appearance (which is brief and largely pointless, though I maintain that Mason Gooding is so effortlessly charming that I will forgive the clunkiness just to spend a few minutes with him again), you could honestly pick up from 3, maybe even 2, and not really feel like you're missing out on anything, character-wise.
And actually, if you go from 2, you'll be spared the rest of the fans' agony that Sidney's cop husband Mark is not the same cop named Mark that was clearly set up as a love interest in 3. Scheduling/salary stuff prevented Patrick Dempsey from returning as planned, but since 5 and 6 both went out of their way to establish that Sid was married to "Mark" (as an easter egg for fans), they had to keep the name here. Why he had to still be a cop, I have no idea (Sid has a type?), but Joel McHale makes the most of it, especially in his flirty bedroom scene with Sid, which is basically the first/last time we see her smile in the entire movie. No reference to Dempsey's Mark is made, though given the numerous rather catty jokes about Sid not being in New York (a story decision also dictated by salary squabbles) I wouldn't be surprised if there was a petty line about ol' Detective Kincaid in the script at one point.
Mark 2.0 is also written out as a suspect extremely early, which is weird. Yes, we can expect more than one killer (only Scream 3 tried a solo venture, and given its generally low popularity among fans, I can't imagine them ever trying it again), but GF attacks him at around the 30 minute mark with no other witnesses, so if it was an intentional way to throw us off, it would be a big cheat (in 4, whenever Jill was "attacked," she was with Sid or Kirby at the time), only failing to get the kill due to his trademark clumsiness. Again, the mystery is totally bungled here, with a shocking lack of red herrings, most of whom are canceled out within moments of their introduction for one reason or another, but they could have at least let McHale be a reasonable suspect for a little while, and a few edits could have allowed it to be so.
Especially when the main suspect is... (big spoiler here for those who haven't paid attention to any casting news) Stu Macher. Again, Williamson toyed with the idea of making him the mastermind in 3, and ever since, fans have clung to the idea that he never actually died. They even bring this up in 6, and when Lillard was actually announced as returning in this one, my heart sank a little, because I found it to be an incredibly stupid idea. I know this series can be sloppy in retrospect as each new sequel tries to rewrite some old history (i.e. Gale writing books about people but apparently never looking at a family photo), but even by their standards, I cannot for one second believe that in the FIVE times that a new Ghostface has popped up in these peoples' lives since Stu got a TV dropped on him, no one ever said "Could it be Stu?" if he somehow survived and was merely locked up somewhere. And if he was in hiding all this time, what the hell was he waiting for, for 30 years? You'd think he'd want to at least help out his successors and make sure he got the death blow himself. I won't spoil the particulars of his appearance, but I will say it was actually rather fun to see him again (especially since we've gotten two revivals of Billy) and Lillard seemed to be having fun with his part, despite his brilliant quote about how he appreciates what it did for him but ultimately doesn't care about the character (he likened it to a plumber still caring about a toilet he fixed decades ago). I saw somewhere that people were upset that the series was going the supernatural route, but that's not the case. That said, even a straight up Jason-style undead zombie Stu would be better than what they came up with instead.
Luckily the chases/kills themselves are largely fantastic, and as a result this is certainly the scariest entry since 2. 6 has some good setpieces (the ladder, the convenience store) but they're held back by the film's obvious inability to bring themselves to kill any returning characters. They get around that here by leaving our four returning friends largely out of harm's way (Gale never directly interacts with Ghostface once, and he flat out tells Sid that he's not going to hurt her because he wants her to suffer from seeing her daughter die) and having him focus on the daughter (named Tatum) and her friends. There's a terrific, Argento-y kind of kill involving a harness, and a moment with a beer tap that would make Mr. Voorhees proud. He also stalks more than he has in recent entries, at one point even doing a Michael Myers-style "fading in and out of the light in the background" move, which delighted me. And as bungled as the mystery might be, at least I can say "Yeah, I can see that person doing the Ghostface stuff we saw earlier", which hasn't been the case for five of the last seven murderers (I like 5 a lot, but I don't know if anything in this franchise is as silly as specifically making it clear that it's tiny Mikey Madison lifting Dewey off the ground to kill him). Alas, the flipside is that when you go back and rewatch, there can never be much of a "OK, THIS kill had to be _____, because [other killer] was accounted for" type of puzzling it out, because the culprits were so peripheral to the story anyway it could conceivably be both of them for every single kill. Now, is this better or worse than scenes like the convenience store in 6, where all THREE killers were accounted for elsewhere? You tell me.
And yet all those issues just kept getting shrugged off, because I was getting the first real full on Sid movie since 2 (she was kind of jammed into 3 as much as possible due to having scheduling issues with her show, in 4 she splits her time with the new cast, in 5 she doesn't really enter the story until the third act, and she's not in 6 at all). Neve Campbell came back firing on all cylinders; someone noted that thanks to H20 this is the 2nd time Williamson has brought back the lead for a part 7, but unlike that movie, where Jamie Lee was just playing herself instead of Laurie Strode, Campbell really does feel like the older, wiser version of that normal girl we met 30 years ago. And in a nice contrast from the OTHER return of Jamie Lee (for the DGG Halloweens), she hasn't turned her daughter into a survival expert - in fact it's the opposite, and she's sheltered her so much that the girl doesn't have much of a fight in her at all. Tatum doesn't really know much about her mom's history (at first I thought she was living under a fake name or something and the girl had no idea; she actually does know a bit, but wants to hear it from her mother, not the Stab movies and Gale's books, and Sid just brushes off such prying attempts). Sid has yet another career (now she runs a coffee shop!), but she does mention she used to act, with a note of sadness that she gave it up after her time at Windsor - another nice example of how much of her life has been affected by this stuff, and it's made clear that she's not hiding or running from it, but merely wants to stop having so much of her life being dictated by it as well, which is exactly what running would do. That she eventually finally takes a second to acknowledge how much all this misery has taken a toll on Gale is just icing on the cake - it's a legitimately great arc to play out for the actress, and while Williamson's script (with Guy Busick) may be spotty when it comes to the Ghostface stuff, it certainly doesn't let Sid down even for a second, which more than makes up for her absence last time around.
Of course, as we all know, this was not even the original plan. Whether she would have even been in it at all, I don't know, but the 7th Scream film was going to focus once again on Sam and Tara Carpenter, played by Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, but the former was fired from the film after tweeting in support of Palestine and the latter either quit over scheduling, salary, or in solidarity with her on-screen sister, depending on who you ask. This also led to the departure of Christopher Landon (who received death threats for Barrera's firing, even though he didn't do that himself or even agree with it), forcing Paramount and Spyglass to presumably back up an armored truck to Neve Campbell's house and let Williamson direct himself, something he's only done one other time (Teaching Mrs. Tingle, all the way back in 1999). Both of these moves can only be seen as "Let's make sure fans have something to be excited about to make up for our shitty business practices," and I have to wonder if, as one final punishment to the performers, Williamson was forbidden to even MENTION their two characters. So it's a cynically made movie, and I don't blame those who are boycotting or letting that cynicism (which isn't evident on-screen; if you don't read behind the scenes stuff you'd never know anything was amiss) inform their opinion on the film itself. But luckily, at least for me, while Campbell may have been enticed more by the big paycheck than a burning desire to play this character for a sixth time, it never once shows in the finished product. And Courteney Cox, who seemed a bit bored last time around in her limited role, seems to have some of her old spark again as a result of playing off her old pal instead of a bunch of kids she has no real connection to. A silver lining to a very dark, unfortunate, and frankly icky cloud.
So ultimately, it's another mixed bag like 6, though as of this writing I will give it the edge for the strong character work, the surprisingly graphic kills (holy shit, this film's obligatory "you gotta shoot them in the head" moment), and keeping it grounded after all the worry. Yes, it's a little weird that Sam and Tara aren't mentioned (another reason why Chad and Mindy's appearance felt so forced - the "core four" split up, I guess?) and the film occasionally feels like the very sort of slasher that the first film would have name checked (in fact, outside of the cold open, no horror movies - or the Stabs - are mentioned at all unless you count a marquee showing Texas Chainsaw Massacre). But the shift back to being suspenseful while downplaying attempts to be clever/meta was a relief for me, as I just wanted to get my slasher fix in a familiar setting. That it gave my girl Sid several layers to play AND some true bonding moments with Gale that we've been denied for quite some time now? Icing.
What say you?
P.S. Since it seems relevant for these things: 1 2 5 7 6 3 4.
Before I discuss the new I Know What You Did Last Summer, I should make something clear, since I never wrote a review of the original: I do not think the 1997 film is very good. There is a fantastic chase sequence with Sarah Michelle Gellar's character and I think Ryan Phillippe brings the movie to life whenever he's around, but otherwise I didn't think too much of it when I saw it on opening weekend, and time hasn't exactly helped. The mystery is a total wet fart (not to mention comes with a confusing motive: he's angry at them for thinking they killed the guy he actually killed?), the leads are as dull as you can find in one of these things (Gellar and Phillippe were the real draws, and they die while the blank slates live? Boooo), and it's just not all that fun, especially in rewatches. The best part of rewatching a good whodunit like Scream or My Bloody Valentine is seeing all the little clues you may have missed, something that's impossible with the OG I Know when the character isn't even mentioned until he shows up in the final reel.
Thankfully, this new one corrects that problem, and even adds a bit of unexpected ingenuity in its 3rd act that left me surprisingly finding it the better movie. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "good" movie, but considering my not particularly high expectations and the fact that the mystery is actually more or less well constructed, I was legit stunned to walk out and think "I hope this is a hit so we can get another one that delivers on the teaser."
I'll get into that stuff later with a warning, but first, alas, I have to vent about a few issues. One is that the heroes bizarrely do NOTHING WRONG this time, which is a baffling choice for a script when you consider how the entire movie revolves around this one incident. This time around, our group (of five; there's basically a stand-in for each of the original characters plus another friend who tags along) has stopped on that same road to watch the fireworks, and the new Barry (Tyriq Withers as Teddy) walks out into the road to make a "I love you guys and here's to us!" kind of speech, only for a car to speed along the curve and go off the road when it swerves to avoid hitting him. Teddy and the others make every effort to pull the driver from the car before it falls off the cliff into the rocks below, but to no avail. It's a total freak accident that Teddy (and Teddy alone) could maybe feel guilty about, sure, but they certainly wouldn't be on the hook for "manslaughter" as one character shouts before they, as is the law, make a pact to never tell anyone about it... except for the cops that they call and see arriving just as they're driving away.
Anyway, we cut to a year later and the group dynamic has changed a bit: Teddy and Danica (Madelyn Cline/new Helen) are broken up and she's about to be married to another dude (rebound!), and her and Ava (Chase Sui Wonders/new Julie) aren't as close as they used to be, with that 5th friend, Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon) taking up bestie role in her life. The new Ray is Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), who harbors a crush on Ava but doesn't seem to be able to pull the trigger. To the movie's credit, they do feel like a real friend group, but alas, none of them seem like folks I myself would want to hang out with. Well, maybe Stevie, since she works at a bar and thus could probably slip me a few free ones if I came in often enough.
But I'm an old! I'm here for Julie and Ray, right? Well, as anyone who has seen the trailer for this film can tell, they were clearly aping the structure (and thus hoping for the same success) as Scream 5, so it shouldn't surprise you that the legacy characters don't get introduced for a while. This is the correct move, to be clear, and a big part of why Scream 4 didn't really work for me: they let these new characters take center stage and make the movie their own *before* introducing our old friends. Scream 4 never let Jill, Kirby, etc. make this world their own before switching focus back to the people we already knew and (let's face it) wanted to be spending that time with, something they corrected with S5 and retained here. By the time Julie shows up (with Ray coming along a couple scenes later), we're already invested in this new group's plight, so it adds an extra level instead of feeling unfocused. And, again, I'm not a fan of their movie or them in particular, so honestly I didn't really care if they appeared or not, so I certainly wasn't getting impatient waiting for their appearance.
The main thrust here is that the town has become a big tourist destination, and Teddy's dad (the mayor or some other bigshot) has worked with the police to cover up these new things AND the original crimes from 1997, so that visitors wouldn't be scared of every fisherman that walks by. Julie has moved away and has put all this stuff behind her, but Ray still lives in Southpart, running a bar and annoyed that the town wants to forget the things that happened to him. I should note that in one of these conversations he says something like "This happened once before!" and I was annoyed that they were seemingly removing I Still Know from the canon (because it's happened *twice*), but thankfully I was wrong! Later on Ray makes a reference to it that almost seems more like a meta wink as opposed to actual acknowledgement, but without spoiling any particulars the film's events are brought up again later in a more concrete way, which delighted me since I also prefer THAT one to the original, thanks to its wacky cast (Jack Black! Jeffrey Combs! John Hawkes!) and faster pace.
As I mentioned, the mystery actually works this time. It's not hard to guess who the killer is, but that is certainly better than not being able to do so at all because they simply didn't exist in the story until they were revealed. I know Kevin Williamson was basically just riffing on Friday the 13th with the vengeful parent we never heard of thing (he couldn't copy the book's solution because the stalker there was two characters revealed to be one and the same to our non-seeing reader's eyes, which wouldn't work in a movie), so I get why he did it. But there's a crucial difference he didn't consider: in F13 no one is trying to figure out who the killer is, because they don't know there IS a killer until they're about to die anyway, so all the time we spend with Julie and Ray talking to Anne Heche and whoever else was all just useless padding and an unfair use of our detective brains. Here, the red herrings are fair game, something the OG never managed.
Plus many of them end up gruesomely murdered, so that's also a plus. AND they're spaced out evenly-ish, a vast improvement on the original which killed exactly one person in the first 70 minutes (Johnny Galecki) and then had the Fisherman wipe out the next (only other) four over a ten minute span. The body count here is, if my three day old memory is correct, eight (not including the car victim) and all but one of them are on-screen, which is a fair amount. Nothing overly spectacular, but there's a surprising viciousness to most that I appreciated, and unlike a certain other modern slasher, they commit to killing everyone - no unexplained epilogue "Oh they made it!" revivals.
Well, except for one, and now I gotta get into a spoiler. I don't really want to, but since it's kind of key to why I ended up giving the movie a pass I sort of have to. Skip the next paragraph if you don't want to know the reveal and also another weird thing about the movie's final scene!
OK, for those still here, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that there are two killers, since that's seemingly the law these days (at least it's ONLY two; Scream 6's *three* just seemed lazy to me). One is the one I said you can probably guess who it is, but the other was a legit surprise, because it was one of our two returning characters. And this worked great for me, a. because (once again!) I do not have any attachment to these people, so turning one of them into a killer is pretty much the only interesting thing about them as far as I'm concerned, and b. they were leaning so heavily into copying Scream 5's beats that having this kind of switcheroo legit worked as a shock to me, because I know that's something the Scream series will never have the stones to do. I know this choice has made die-hard fans furious, but that's the benefit of not being one! I thought it was great! But it also came with a bizarre choice, when this character said that the other killer (already dispatched) wasn't really dead. It seems like they're saying this to introduce that person returning with an explanation for how they lived, but they don't appear again. So it's just that OG character messing with our hero's head, right? Nope! In the very final scene, said hero tells another survivor "Oh, _____ is alive!" as casually as she might mention getting a new phone or something, and then the credits start! It's the weirdest goddamn thing, and my only guess is that they're just taking a shot at Scream's endless discussion of whether or not Stu actually survived.
Honestly if the whole movie had this weirdo/ballsy energy I would have been raving and trying to convince everyone to see it, but until that point it's merely fine (and yet, by default, the best of this four-film franchise, imo). It's got some funny lines here and there (a surprise nod to the AMC Nicole Kidman ad made me chuckle, and the aforementioned joke about I Still Know's plot left me practically wheezing) and decent slasher energy (the climax is set during the daylight too, which is pretty novel), but it's also got another group of mostly uninteresting kids, copying a few too many beats from not only Scream 5 (without which this movie wouldn't exist, let's face it) and its original, leaving it feeling more like a remake than a sequel. And the decision to stage their "crime" in such a way that would have left them with nothing more than a jaywalking ticket kept them from feeling guilty, which is part of the point of this kind of revenge story, so there's a disconnect as well. Maybe if they manage to get the promised sequel going (it'll make money, but nowhere near the levels of even the originals, let alone the new Screams) I'll check it out for sure, but honestly, I only really wanted this movie to be a hit so it would be more likely they'd revive my beloved Urban Legend as well. As amused as I was with the final reel of this one, I can't say I really NEED another trip to Southport in my lifetime.
If you’ve ever even taken as much as a cursory glance at this site before, you probably know how much I love slasher movies. But what you may NOT know is that I also harbor a similar soft spot for romcoms; I can’t recite them chapter and verse the way I can my favorite F13s and Halloweens, but I’m certainly just as easy a mark for a new one when it comes along. So needless to say, the elevator pitch for Heart Eyes-a romcom that revolves around a slasher killer-is about the most appealing one I’ve heard in ages. Like even if one side of the equation didn't work, I'd probably be happy with the other, you know?
Watching it unfold it actually dawned on me for the first time that the two genres offer a sort of comfort in their admittedly basic formula. Both have rules they need to live by in order for their respective fans to be won over; a deviation from that formula can lead to revolt. And that’s what makes Heart Eyes so impressive to me, because you can absolutely despite one of the genres but still feel pretty satisfied with it as an entry of the other type. This element was largely absent from the marketing so far; the few hints of the film’s romantic angle (leads Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding grabbing the same coffee, for example) were largely overshadowed by the slasher element, making it seem like it’s just another masked killer movie albeit one with a bit of romance thrown in (as opposed to the genre’s usual approach of just a general horniness among its core cast). But that isn’t really how the movie plays out at all-it really does function as a romantic comedy, perhaps even moreso than as a slasher in some ways.
So if you just heard the idea but thought it was going to cater more toward the slasher side of things: fear not! There’s a meet-cute, complete with accidental headbutt! There’s a mad dash to the airport! There’s the sassy friend who encourages our heroine to take her chance! Director Josh Ruben and the trio of screenwriters (Phillip Murphy, Michael Kennedy, and Christopher Landon) balance the needs of both formulas in an expert fashion, and honestly my one minor complaint concerns the slasher stuff. And given the relative dearth of such fare in theaters anymore (there was exactly ONE given a wide release in all of 2024, Fly Me To The Moon), I kind of wish the marketing had showcased the blend a little better, if only to assure potential romcom lovers that this would genuinely scratch that itch for them.
So how does it work? Well, after a cold open showing the killer (dubbed “HEK”) taking out a vapid influencer couple in a vineyard, a flurry of news reports tell us that this murderer has taken out a lot of couples in different cities (Boston and Philly) on the two previous Valentine’s Days, and now he seems to be in Seattle. Then we meet our leads: ad exec Ally (Holt) has turned in a dud campaign, and her boss has brought in an outside fixer to help come up with a new one. Said fixer? Why it’s Jay (Gooding), the handsome and charming guy she met in the coffee shop that morning! What are the odds???
Anyway, the two meet for dinner to figure out a new campaign, but his attempts to turn it into a date don’t go well. However, when Ally sees her ex with his new flame, she quickly retorts to the “We have to pretend to be a couple” tactic and kisses Jay so the ex can see and hopefully be jealous. Alas, the ex doesn’t really care, and worse: their kiss attracts the attention of HEK, who was staking out this fancy restaurant to find new victims. What follows is essentially a long chase scene as the killer stalks them throughout the city, with our heroes finding a way to check every romcom box along the way, allowing them to fall in love (awww) but with the killer never more than a few minutes behind them (ahh!!!).
At about the hour mark, the movie really nails how well this idea can work (and honestly, made me wonder why no one ever really tried it before that I can recall). HEK has chased our heroes to a drive-in, and they duck into a van, assuming its owners are elsewhere. Turns out they’re just in the back, fooling around, but the couple is kind of into having an audience and they continue enjoying the evening back there while Ally and Jay lay low to avoid detection from their hunter. While they do so, they have a heart to heart, briefly/softly interrupted by the sounds of the couple going at it in the back. It’s an incredibly funny scene, built around a tense situation, AND it’s giving the romcom formula the obligatory “This is why I get scared when I like someone” conversation, all at once. It’s a remarkable balancing act, and I spent the bulk of the scene just kind of in awe at how well it was working.
The balance goes a bit askew for the film’s finale, however (minor spoilers ahead!). Without getting into the details, I will say that the unmasking of HEK wasn’t particularly surprising. Part of the reason for that is that the film offered almost no other suspects to who it could be (honestly, I assumed it would be a Hell Fest-esque “He’s just some guy” kind of reveal, and I am leaning toward the idea that it might have been a better choice) due to its compact cast. The other is actually weirdly revealed in the film itself – a flashback sequence that includes a scene that was clearly cut. This scene explained where a character went during a previous major setpiece, and while I’m sure it was removed for pacing or something, it unfortunately left careful viewers wondering where that person was, and thus going by the law of slasher films, realizing this means also realizing that they’re the killer long before the film springs it on us as a surprise.
That’s why red herrings are so important, because you gotta have a few other characters as a buffer for these moments to really land. Take Scream: it seemingly comes down to “It’s either Stu or Randy!” but there’s still the sheriff or Sid’s dad to consider. Here? Well, I guess Ally’s boss could kind of count, but as she only appeared once before that (and is played by veteran comedian Michaela Watkins) I doubt that anyone on the planet would a. be thinking it might be her or b. would be satisfied if it was. To be clear, the identity of the killer isn’t the issue, and the actor is relishing getting to do the big “Why I do this” monologue, but without any other suspects, and a weird editing choice making it a foregone conclusion anyway, it didn’t quite pack the same punch the rest of the movie did.
Otherwise it’s a remarkably solid example of both of its genres. The leads have terrific chemistry and are both naturally engaging performers; I’m not as familiar with Holt but as for Gooding I actually kind of get why they let him survive certain death not once but twice in the Screams: it’d be silly to toss away the charisma (plus we let it slide for Dewey even more times). The kills are good and gory but without feeling like the filmmakers spent more time concerned with the punchline than the setup, an issue which plagues many modern slashers (so, yes, there are honest to god chase scenes here!). And one must give props to Gigi Zumbado for a late-movie monologue that I can’t explain without giving away the gag, but once it clicked I was cackling and cheering, and she delivers it perfectly. Everyone, as they say, understood the assignment, which is even more impressive when you consider how unusual that assignment was.
Basically it’s just a damn good time at the movies. I’d even go again, which is about the highest praise I can give anything these days. Plus it’s an amazing litmus test if you are, like me, a horror fan with a not-so-secret love of seeing Sandra/Julia/etc do their thing: take a date, and if they’re equally enjoying both sides of the equation, you got yourself a keeper. I alas saw it with my slasher-loving buddy (who didn't put out, the prude) but I couldn't help but be amused at the irony: my wife is not exactly drooling at the prospect of an upcoming romantic comedy (I see most of them by myself) but does enjoy slashers as long as they're more in line with Scream and such than, say, Rob Zombie's Halloween (i.e. brutally violent and not "fun" in any way). So while there are some horror fans out there who might have to trick their partner into seeing this by saying it's a romantic comedy, when this hits Blu-ray I might have to try the reverse approach to get her on board.
Given their phenomenal success and my own status as an easy mark for slasher movies, it may surprise you to learn that I cannot count myself as a huge fan of the Terrifier franchise. There's a lot to appreciate in the first two, no doubt, but the tonal shifts, sluggish editing, and random plotting keep me at arm's length; I've never been the guy who watches a F13 just for the kills, but when I watch these films that's pretty much all I'm there for. But I also watched the first two films at home on Blu-ray instead of in theaters, so I figured that seeing Terrifier 3 with an excited opening night crowd, along with the series' biggest budget yet, would result in some "third time's the charm" kind of reaction.
Alas, it didn't make much of a difference. The tonal shifts have been reduced (Art is less torture-y this time around; no salt in the wound or cat o' nine tails action), but it's still got that "Are we watching the assembly cut or a final edit?" feeling. And while it's not too random with its plotting for the most part, the climax just goes way off the rails with nonsense; I don't want to spoil anything but I have to note that I was not expecting to suddenly be thinking about Return of the Living Dead and Passion of the Christ as this slasher movie reached its conclusion, not to mention an out of nowhere _____ (it's on the living room floor) tossed into the mix with seconds left in the runtime. Again, I didn't DISLIKE it, but I can't help but feel disappointed that the same issues were present yet again.
Part of the problem is that it takes forever to get going. In the first 20 minutes, we get an extended (and ultimately completely disconnected) kill sequence, a resolution of T2's epilogue shocker, and finally a scene that sets up the film's five year time jump. Then we catch up with Jonathan and Sienna, the former at college and the latter just being released from a facility where she has been presumably letting her mind heal. She's off to live with her mom's sister and her family, trying hard to be normal but still having flashes of her dead friends, and doing her best to be sisterly to her little cousin who is unaware of her past but keeps sneaking peeks at her diary.
But here's the thing: by the 45 minute mark we haven't really gotten much further than what I already said. Vicky is now immortal like Art, for some reason, and also more or less taking the place of The Little Pale Girl (who is MIA and never mentioned) but there's no discernible explanation for this suddent shift in her character. In fact, since she birthed Art's new head, having him be vulnerable now due to her inferior DNA or something would have maybe made more sense? To be fair she makes for a more interesting partner than LPG, but it felt more like a decision based around maybe that actress being unavailable and not wanting to recast, as opposed to a purely creative one.
And for a two hour movie, there really should be more to the plot than "Art's back and wants to finish the job by killing Sienna and Jonathan." A chance encounter with a drunk mall Santa gives him new duds for this adventure (this scene is probably the movie's best, thanks to fun turns from Daniel Roebuck as Santa and Clint Howard as his drinking buddy, plus Art's genuine excitement about meeting "Santa"), but the reveal is slightly underwhelming since we saw it already in the movie's cold open (which, again, never relates to anything else that happens, despite the sequence ending on a cliffhanger of its own). And he takes his sweet time getting to them; the film is actually about 15 minutes shorter than the previous one (thank you!) but at times it felt even longer due to Art having no real urgency to complete his mission and very little else to the narrative.
It also curiously leaves some scenes off-screen. Sienna returns to the Terrifer to find her sword, believing it can kill Art, but we don't see any of his occur; she just comes home with it along with some dirty hands to sell the idea. With so much of the movie set either on Jonathan's campus or Sienna's new house, the change in scenery would have been welcome. More troubling, however, is that two major kills occur offscreen entirely, one of which is done to try to delay a surprise, but it doesn't really land. Basically Vicky tells Sienna that a mangled head is ______'s, but after a couple minutes her and Art reveal that person is alive and the head is actually _____'s. But the issue is, their proof is still flimsy, so it feels like it's yet another ruse, only the person seemingly is really dead because they never return. Also the movie ends on the series' most abrupt cliffhanger yet a few minutes later, so it's just a completely ineffective way of sending this character off.
All that said, it's certainly firing on all cylinders when it comes to being a Christmas slasher; even though I didn't like it as much as I hoped I would, I'm sure I'll add it to my mix of holiday horror along with the three Black Christmases, the Silent Night Deadly Nights, Christmas Bloody Christmas, etc. In addition to Art's Santa suit, everywhere he goes is decked out in full force with lights and decor, the soundtrack's got a lot of the standards, and it's even got some snow, which puts it above every SNDN sequel (all of them were shot in LA and certainly didn't have the dough for fake stuff). I wish he had implemented some seasonally appropriate weaponry into the mix (come on, you know my man coulda done wonders with an icicle or even a fireplace poker) but it's hard to miss that sort of thing when he has brought a chainsaw, liquid nitrogen, and rats along this time around. The FX continue to impress, and there's a cameo from a certain makeup guru that feels like he's giving it his blessing, which must have been an amazing score for the creative team. And David Howard Thornton is giving a truly great performance as Art, who never makes a sound and yet has a complete and identifiable personality; his reactions and expressions rarely fail to amuse and his physicality is up there with Robert Englund in Freddy's heyday.
The acting from the supporting cast is also much better than the previous entries as well, thanks to having the budget for more professional actors. In addition to Roebuck and Howard, Jason Patric also pops in for a few scenes (don't want to say as who, it's kind of a reveal), and Bryce Johnson from Willow Creek does some nice work as Sienna's sympathetic uncle. Lauren Lavera has a lot more range to display this time around (it's actually surprising how little time she interacts with Art as they are basically in two different movies for the most part; it's akin to Halloween Ends on that level), dealing with her PTSD, being a surrogate big sister to her cousin, but also having some adult bonding time with her aunt (her mother's sister) and trying to keep close to Jonathan, who is away at school and just trying to live a normal life.
I honestly think that with some judicious editing that this could easily be the best of the three, thanks to all I mentioned in the last two paragraphs. With improved acting and character work, a more consistent tone, and the fact that I'm an easy mark for Xmas slashing, it's really just the at times interminable pacing that kept me from enjoying it as much as I probably would have if someone came in and got it down to 90 or even 100 minutes. Like, the opening scene is solid, but it also runs 10 minutes and without any connection to the rest, in retrospect you look back at it and realize it could have been cut in half, which would make it more effective in its job (which, as anyone can tell, is to give the movie an opening kill before a long chunk of getting the audience up to speed). With the film slated to maybe even top the weekend box office (which is insane and awesome) the 4th film is a guarantee, and I'll be there, but I will no longer hold out hope that the pacing (which has been an issue for all three films, even the mercifully-in-retrospect 84 minute original) will ever be more to my liking. Here's hoping they can at least keep coming up with good kills and funny stuff for Thornton to do to make up for it.
What say you?
P.S. The film was showing as part of an event to debut the new Ice Nine Kills video (which I thought was great but as their one time lawyer I'm a bit biased!). Since the T3 trailer spoils half the kills, I'm putting the video here instead, though you have to sign in to watch due to all the gore (!!!). Enjoy!
Back in the day, I used to mix things up with what festival I went to in a given calendar year, but at this point I barely even consider the others, zeroing in only on the Overlook Fest in New Orleans. While I would love to go to Frightfest UK again, and... well, I would enjoy the company at Fantastic Fest since a number of friends go (I don't particularly want to support the company anymore seeing as how they laid my ass off at the very beginning of Covid, not even a "furlough"), I just have too much fun gallavanting around New Orleans for four days to really debate going somewhere else instead. Summertime fests are a possibility, but when my kid is in school, it's just too much of a hassle for my wife to do the parenting gig solo for the better part of a week just so I can watch some horror movies.
Some GOOD horror movies, I should say, and ones I might not get a chance to see in theaters with appreciative crowds again. I just looked at the films I enjoyed the most at last year's festival, and some still haven't even come out (Trim Season, which is finally hitting limited theaters and VOD in June) and the others, like Clock, were streaming movies. And Renfield, alas, never had any packed screenings if its depressing box office was any indication. Apart from the 2022 lineup, which I assume was very slim pickings on account of Covid, they've always delivered a solid mix of titles at the fest, and specifically horror (or close cousins like thriller or dark comedy), whereas FF dips its toes into pretty much everything.
And as I've done for the past couple years, I bought my own pass instead of trying to attend as press, so that I could just enjoy myself and not worry about filing reviews right away, or jotting down notes as I watched to make sure I was covering all my bases. But I figured it'd be nice to say a few things about what I saw, if for nothing else but to provide you folks with a few titles worth keeping an eye out for (and for me to quickly consult what I saw as time passes and I forget).
I DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU
The official opening night movie was Cuckoo, starring Dan Stevens, but it was at a theater further uptown that required transportation and also a bit of optimism, as badgeholders aren’t always guaranteed to get into every screening if everyone has the same idea. At the main theater, there’s always another option, but at this single screen location a potentially pricy Uber drive away, you might end up seeing nothing. So I stuck around the main theater and checked out this dark comedy instead, and I’m glad I did so as I don’t know if I’ll get another opportunity to watch it with a big appreciative audience. It’s an absolute crowd pleaser in the same vein as Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil, in which a couple (Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells) who are about to adopt a baby take a last “just us” kind of vacation to Italy. Unfortunately, the language barrier (Kroll is trying to learn the language via Duolingo) and some other standard mishaps result in them in a location that SEEMS like your standard Texas Chain Saw Massacre type house, and they act accordingly.
The truth is, of course, that the people there mean no harm, but their inability to properly communicate results in much comic bloodshed. Honestly it’s one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a long time; the chemistry between Kroll and Rannells is dynamite, and the smart script gets a lot of mileage from the idea that they think they’re being targeted for being gay when in reality the people they encounter are actually quite accepting of it (one Italian word sounds unfortunately close to a particular gay slur, which doesn’t help). And the gore gags are well done, so even though it’s not really a horror movie by any means, anyone who might have felt “duped” by seeing it at a genre festival should have been sated anyway. Keep an eye out for this gem.
THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT
This was produced by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (writer/director Michael Felker is their longtime editor) so it automatically got my attention. And the plot sounded intriguing; a brother and sister pair rob a bank and then hide out in an isolated farm that has a time traveling closet on its second floor, which will allow them to transport themselves to another period in time, hide for two weeks, and then return to their own time when the smoke has cleared (at no point does anyone explain how disappearing for two weeks after a robbery is the best way to escape attention, but I guess if time travel is real in this world then maybe applying real world logic isn’t a sound idea). Alas, when the two week period is up, they find themselves unable to return, and they are instructed by someone in the future (or past?) via tape recordings that someone is planning to disrupt the space time continuum and they need to wait there and kill them when they arrive.
It’s at this point that things start to go awry, as the vague time travel mechanics, plus the overseeing time travel… police? I guess? (Very TVA from Loki, which Benson and Moorhead steered through its 2nd season) start to ask more of the audience than the film is seemingly willing to offer in return, resulting in a frustrating back half. And it doesn’t help that the film’s closing sequence presents an idea that is fascinating and perhaps should have been a midway or even end of act 2 twist, so that the rest of the movie could have had fun exploring it a little. Instead we just get endless scenes of the brother and sister staring out at the surrounding area of their farm waiting for their unidentified attacker to finally show (their identity, when finally revealed, shouldn’t surprise anyone, though there’s next to no explanation of how they got involved in all of this). There are some fun moments with time travel logic, like when the sister (Riley Dandy) opens a cupboard to find it empty, slams it shut in frustration, and then opens it again to find it fully stocked (thanks to someone in the future sending it back into the past), but for every cute moment like that there are a handful of plot points that are woefully underdeveloped.
TRIVIA
As always, I opted out of whatever movies were showing at the time to go offsite somewhere and participate in the annual horror trivia game that the fest (and Daily Dead) put together. Unlike our own horror trivia game here in LA, this one is always at a bar, so it’s nice to get progressively more and more tipsy as I search my brain for otherwise useless facts in order to win a Blu-ray. Sadly, while we did win a round (actually two, but to give everyone a chance to win stuff, you can only take prizes once), my hard-won copy of Smile (on 4K UHD no less) was later left behind in the theater. Oh well. I was really only playing for the glory of being, perhaps, part of the only team in the venue who knew the name of the actress who played Sr Margaret in Silent Night Deadly Night.
ODDITY
Finally, a legit horror movie! And a really good one! (Indeed, as I was writing, word just came in that it won the festival's audience award.) The story concerns a woman who is murdered at an isolated house that she’s in the process of restoring, seemingly by a former patient of her psychiatrist husband. A year later, her twin sister (who is blind and also a psychic) starts to wonder if the man being blamed is truly the murderer, and… well, that’s when things get into spoiler territory, so I’ll hush up.
I CAN say that the movie (which occasionally employs the use of non-chronological storytelling to let us know things when we need to know them) offers some terrific scares and suspense, including a jump scare that actually made ME utter a little frightened sound, which hasn’t happened in ages (usually at best I just jump a little). Those who enjoyed Talk To Me will be right at home here, as it has the same kind of tense moments and reliance on a strange haunted artifact, in this case a wooden mannequin that may be able to come to life. Also, without spoiling particulars, if you enjoy seeing terrible men get their just deserts, you’ll walk out fully satisfied. This was my favorite movie of the fest, and can’t wait for it to hit Shudder so more people can enjoy.
IN A VIOLENT NATURE
I’m always up for a deconstruction of my beloved slasher movies, but unfortunately In A Violent Nature’s “promising on paper” pitch - a Jason movie where you’re with Jason the entire time – doesn’t translate into a fully satisfying film. After being revived from the events of some previous adventure, we do indeed stick with the hulking Johnny (who also has mother issues and prowls the woods; unlike Leslie Vernon’s amalgamation of several slashers, Johnny is clearly just Jason) for the majority of the film’s runtime. But here's the thing: said runtime is 96 minutes, which is more than most actual Jason movies. And that’d be fine if there was more going on here, but I’d estimate a full 75% of the movie is just Johnny walking through the woods, with the camera pointed at his back. There are a handful of victims of course, and the edit gives us just enough to detect their basic archetypes and even a little bit of their customary drama (one guy is being a jerk to his girlfriend, another still pines for his ex who is now with another guy, etc), but let’s put it this way: if filmed traditionally this would be among the least interesting slasher movies we’ve seen in ages.
Personally, I think it'd be funnier/more interesting if the victim group was absolutely fascinating, and the movie denied us resolutions or context for their ongoing issues because Johnny himself wasn’t interested and opted to just wander away to find easier prey. That said the trailer is hardly misleading, as it (like the film) is mostly just shots of Johnny’s back, so it's not like they're hiding what the overall experience is like. And it does contain a nice surprise for Friday the 13th hardcore fans (a certain victim of yesteryear pops up as a Good Samaritan), so that was appreciated. I think it will go over well with the people who love the Terrifier movies, as those too are endlessly dull for a while before offering a ridiculous and well-executed kill scene (the yoga one here is an all timer, for sure). But if you. like me, aren’t just showing up to these things to see the kills, I don’t know how much entertainment value it’ll ultimately provide.
BLACKOUT
Over the years, Larry Fessenden has become one of the most reliable genre filmmakers, taking familiar tropes and monsters and putting his own “somber” (his word) spin on them. Here it’s the familiar werewolf tale; our hero Charley (Alex Hurt) has been cursed with lycanthropy and, sure enough, a new full moon is approaching. And when a friend of his is accused of a recent murder that he knows he committed while under its spell, he decides that he needs to put his affairs in order and capture his confession and subsequent transformation on camera, to clear his friend’s name and explain to his former girlfriend why he suddenly broke up with her. Honestly I may have liked the movie even more if it had a 25th Hour style setup and took place all in one day; a slow burn leading to his only transformation, or at least showing the other times as flashbacks. But I’m sure the distributor is happy to have something a little more commercially minded, and Fessenden’s couple decades of experience have allowed him to rope in a bunch of familiar faces for bit parts: Kevin Corrigan, Barbara Crampton, and Joe Swanberg all pop up for a scene or two.
But the real appeal is Alex Hurt, who was the son of the late William Hurt (who, via photographs, plays his father here) and is just as compelling to watch. There are only a few scenes in the movie he’s not in, and his performance allows the movie to pass the crucial test for a werewolf movie: you feel bad for him even though he’s technically a murderer. It’s honestly one of the best werewolf movies I’ve seen in ages, and the final scene suggests we haven’t seen the last of him just yet. Count me in.
SCREAM DREAMS
I took another break from moviegoing to attend a taping of the Scream Dreams podcast, hosted by Catherine Corcoran, James Janisse, and Barbara Crampton (her again!). Janisse wasn’t there due to a convention appearance elsewhere, but that was OK as it allowed Crampton to take a bigger role than she usually does on the show, where she only pops in during its final 15 minutes. The guest was David Dastmalchian, who is always interesting to listen to, and we all got a tote bag for attending. In a city that charges for plastic bags at the grocery store, a new tote is always a plus. The episode should be available soon for their subscribers, keep an ear out!
ARCADIAN
Nic Cage fighting monsters is an easy sell for me, but this "A Quiet Place meets Darkness Falls" exercise doesn’t utilize his talents, making me wish they hired someone a bit cheaper and maybe put more money into another action scene or fleshing out the ones they had. Cage gets top billing but I can’t imagine anyone will be surprised when he is seriously injured at the halfway mark and barely appears after that – it’s just how it goes with these things nowadays. Instead we spend more time with his twin sons (not identical), who he has been caring for as a single dad since the monsters arrived 15ish years prior. And that’s fine, but… it’s just not particularly interesting or novel to see them go through the motions. It’s also too vague; it’s obvious that the monsters do not like the light and only freely roam at night, but it’s not like they melt or anything like vampires do in the sunlight, so they’re just… what? Wusses? It’s clear someone said “What if Quiet Place but light instead of sound?” and never really developed it further than that.
At least the monsters are cool. Like all modern movie monsters they move too fast/blurrily to really get a good look at them, but they DO offer – a few times! – shots of their mouth/teeth, which basically operate like out of control staplers? It sounds goofy but it’s actually quite effective in practice, and the sequence where they finally cut loose (against some out of nowhere evil humans, as if someone rushed on set at the 11th hour and reminded the rest of the crew that any movie like this that doesn’t have a “but man is the REAL monster” moment will be susceptible to fines) is pretty great. It’s fine, just not befitting Cage’s talents, especially at a time when he’s talking about retiring after a few more movies.
SHORTS COLLECTION
At this time I was very determined to be watching Azrael, a film I did the opening AND closing titles for (usually I only handle the latter) and was thus excited to see them on the big screen. But alas (for me, not the filmmakers) they had to turn folks away because it was such a hot ticket, and I was one of the ones who didn’t get in. If I hadn’t stopped for a coffee…
But luckily, the collection of shorts I saw instead was pretty great! These things can be hit or miss, as I’m sure everyone who has ever attended a “short block” can attest, but even the weakest one (out of eight) was still pretty good. I particularly enjoyed “Zit” from Amber Neukum, in which an office manager hoping to get a promotion is dismayed to discover a pimple on her forehead that proceeds to grow and bleed profusely as the day continues. However none of her coworkers can see it, so the comedic thrust is seeing her increasingly frazzled state as she tries to keep it together and not blow her promotion. Hannah Alline is absolutely perfect in the lead role, and kudos to her for pulling the whole thing off with that disgusting makeup effect on her at all times. I also enjoyed "MLM" from Brea Grant, which took the ongoing cult-like pyramid scheme nature of these things and took it to its extreme while also taking shots at online influencers (the full subject of another short titled, yes, "The Influencer" - also quite good!). And it had Barbara Crampton as the president of the company they work for! She was everywhere!
I SAW THE TV GLOW
I was totally with this movie until its final ten minutes, at which point it… I actually don’t even know how to describe it, beyond noting it involves a time jump for the main character. But until then, it’s a lovely and haunting look at how our childhood nostalgia can inform much (too much, if I’m interpreting things correctly) of how we try to navigate young/regular adulthood. The two leads’ shared love of a TV show that seems to be equal parts Buffy and Twin Peaks is something anyone can probably connect to, and how such shared adolescent things can be a tether to that person as we grow up and apart, for better or worse.
Most people absolutely loved it; I would probably be in their company if it didn’t spend the last chunk of its runtime making me wonder if I had accidentally blacked out for a half hour and missed something. Not really horror per se, but the lead villain of the TV show is a damned freaky sight to behold. Great soundtrack too. I absolutely plan to watch it again, as maybe it will unlock some answers (often the case with something told out of order, and more so when you're watching on very little sleep), so I'll revise at the time. Either way it got me more interested in checking out We're All Going to the World's Fair, the previous film from writer/director Jane Schoenbrun.
INFESTED
My last film of the fest was also my only foreign language one (not counting one of the shorts and a few scattered lines of Italian in I Don’t Understand You). And if you’re arachnophobic, you’ll also probably consider it to be the scariest movie they showed there. Basically a spider-fied version of Attack the Block, our hero Kaleb sells stolen sneakers and is also a budding zoologist who collects reptiles and insects, so naturally he eagerly buys a spider off a dealer who warns him that it might be dangerous and brings it to his apartment home. Surprising no one, the spider gets loose and starts to breed, and at some point we learn that this particular type of spider can grow in size as a defense mechanism. And then those bigger spiders start laying eggs, and… well, you get the idea. Before long the building is… what’s the word, oh yeah, infested! by all sizes of spiders: tiny ones that can sneak through your vents and under doors, and bigger ones that you can’t just swat away. The police quarantine the building, but our heroes are determined to get out… not everyone makes it.
Again, if you harbor a deep fear for the creepy crawlies, this might be unbearable to watch, as they think of pretty much every single way a spider can ick you out and add in the (less likely) idea that it can also kill you. But it started to wear a bit thin for me after a while; the film runs 105 minutes and I really started to feel it after a certain point, particularly when the cops turn aggro out of nowhere. The final scene, which finally explains Kaleb’s movie-long opposition to making promises, brings things back and even got me a little touched, but I think if they found a way to speed things up in the front and stay a little more focused in the third act that this could be an all timer monster movie (like Attack the Block). But hey, pretty good and worth watching isn’t too shabby, either.
Overall it was a solid fest; as with last year I didn’t dislike anything I saw, and I saw a good mix of selections that were on my radar already (Infested, Arcadian) and films I knew absolutely nothing about (Oddity, I Don’t Understand You). I sadly didn’t get to do any of the immersive stuff this time around (they now require separate paid tickets for such things, and as I like to just follow my bliss and keep options open, I didn’t want to lock myself into anything), but trivia and the podcast taping kept the “more than just movies” vibe alive for me. Plus, let’s face it: the city is half the fun anyway. If they relocated the festival to, I dunno, Cleveland or Des Moines, I’m not sure I’d make it a point to go every year. But as long as they’re in a city that I can walk around with my beer and listen to buskers perform Dark Side of the Moon on a trumpet outside of a fresh beignet joint (and they keep it to spring, before the humidity there hits its awful stride), I’ll be there.
For the past 28 years, whenever there’s a new masked whodunit slasher (as opposed to the Terrifier/Hatchet types that are centered on a named boogeyman) one would assume its makers were inspired by Scream. And that’s not a knock, I should stress – why NOT ape what is easily the best of its type we’ll likely ever have, in hopes of capturing that lightning again? But here’s the surprising thing about Founders Day: it did indeed seemingly look to a Wes Craven slasher movie for inspiration, just not that one. Nor were they going back to Nightmare on Elm Street, or even Shocker (though I’d be all for that). No, the point of inspiration seemed to be My Soul To Take, which turned out to be Craven’s penultimate film and (since Scream 4 was such a lackluster snooze) the last genuinely interesting one he made before his unfortunate passing.
To be clear, Founders Day is not a supernaturally or psychologically driven slasher movie. On paper it’s very much a standard whodunit, with a masked “Founding Father” (powdered wig and all!) using a mallet and its hidden blade to wipe out notable members of a small town who are celebrating their tricentennial alongside a very polarizing and heated election for town mayor. Both the incumbent mayor and her primary challenger find themselves and their families targeted by the killer, who also wipes out some teens associated with the candidates’ children, so you got your standard red herrings (the mayor’s assistant? The boyfriend of her daughter? The wannabe new mayor himself?) and such; in fact if it wasn’t shot around the same time I’d say they were actually influenced by Thanksgiving, as it has very similar vibes at times, with the equal mix of teen and adult victims, a remarkably similar sequence where our heroine has an encounter with the killer just after he murders two fornicating bully kids in the school, plus the “small town celebrating its history” backdrop that sets it apart from the usual influences. No one’s ever had a “Haddonfield Day” or whatever, far as I can recall.
But after a decent if unspectacular first forty minutes or so, the movie suddenly pulls out a pretty novel idea: announcing itself as a two-killer slasher by unmasking and offing one of them when there is clearly a lot of movie left to go. This is followed by a bizarre montage of nearly all of the film’s characters reacting to this development over a Kate Bush-esque power ballad cranked up to 11, at which point the movie’s true colors begin to shine through. From that point on, the film is loaded with more random plot turns, strange acting choices (I could write this entire review about the chief of police, who is obsessed with candy and seems like she wandered in from Funny Farm or one of those kind of “small town folk sure are kooky, huh?” movies), and nearly every character screaming their dialogue more often than not. The film’s highlight is not a murder scene or anything else particularly horror-y, but the mayor drunkenly bursting into a town council meeting and yelling absolute nonsense for a while before pivoting to a “And that’s why you need to vote for me!” message. The actress’ total commitment to playing this outlandish moment with utter sincerity made me cackle and applaud, and cemented my appreciation of the movie.
Don’t get me wrong, much like My Soul To Take it’s not particularly great in the ways you showed up for. The kill scenes are hit or miss (they’re brutal at times, but also marred by digital blood) and lack much suspense, and the whole plot hinges on the audience believing something that any seasoned (or even half seasoned) fan won’t buy for a second and makes even less sense with later reveals (if you can’t track it, DM or email me – I can’t figure out a way to even hint at it without it being a spoiler). The killer’s guise looks good (Tony Gardner created the mask, a nice get for this obviously small production), but it’s not utilized enough, as there’s only one chase scene of note and even the killer's big entrance is played mostly in shadows and long shots. But the movie’s straight faced approach makes it seem almost kind of alien at times, like AI spit out something after being prompted with “Politics + slasher + small town.” It was that – plus the genuinely admirable fact that it is a straightforward original slasher without any real genuine humor to speak of – that kept me fully engaged.
Back to the politics though, I can’t tell if it’s good or bad that the movie is pretty apolitical, as it turns out. When we first meet the challenger, a boorish man with dirty blonde hair who is wearing a blue suit and a red tie and clearly cares more about his campaign than his own children, even an infant could probably guess that he’s seemingly meant to invoke You-Know-Who. But it’s the existing mayor who turns out to be an opportunistic jerk who is using the office to pad her pockets, so it’s not the result of someone from either side of the aisle Making A Statement. The candidates’ views and party affiliation are never revealed, either, a necessity since the killer’s motive (spoiler of sorts) boils down to a “They’re all the same” kind of thing, so labeling the characters or hearing their individual thoughts about hot button issues would cloud that approach for viewers who have a pretty clear take on who the bad guys and good guys are when it comes to politics. It never gets any more "Us vs. Them" than the opening sequence, where opposing supporters for the two candidates are interrupted by someone who just survived a Founder attack, at which point they begin fighting over who gets to protect her ("She's on OUR side!") and fighting again, the victim basically forgotten. But after that, the arguments and antagonism never really feel politically charged, and when characters butt heads it comes off like similar moments in movies with zero political ties (the bar fight scene in My Bloody Valentine 3D came to mind, as there's a nearly identical scene here). Long story short, you won’t come out of this having a good idea of who writer/director/co-star Erik Bloomquist is voting for this year, and while that is probably good for the movie’s mainstream appeal, it’s somewhat disappointing to use the political backdrop (in an election year no less) and toe the line. I’d almost rather it was right wing propaganda with slasher dressing; it might annoy me, but it’d also be more interesting in that department.
So it’s a good thing it’s so weird! The scene where the killer explains how certain moments worked, with Saw style flashback footage, is an absolute howler and makes up for Scream VI’s utterly embarrassing reveal scene, coming closer to Urban Legend’s delightful unmasking scene (“Miss THANG!”) and yes, more yelling. Even when the killer has their obligatory “not dead yet!” return, they do so by screaming a line of dialogue I couldn’t even make out, prompting me to start cackling again (I assume the handful of other, quieter people in the theater thought I was deranged, but oh well). And again reminded me of My Soul To Take, as like that film we have killer and victim having an almost casual conversation where exposition is given to each other, as if there were audience members who needed to know where every character was at every point in the story that they weren’t on camera. Weirdly, both films also kick off with a murder on a bridge that has those bumper poles at one end to keep cars off, and I later learned that this new film was also shot in Connecticut, something I dimly recalled about MSTT. And both had animated end credit sequences too, now that I think of it. Future double feature!
I don’t know how well the movie performed over the weekend, as the box office was not reported for it. All I know is that AMC has had the posters up for months and ran trailers before Thanksgiving and Silent Night, only (around LA at least) to dump it on to one or two showings a day on the tiniest theater of the lamest of the three AMCs in Burbank, which means if its situation was like that everywhere else it COULDN’T make that much money. I ended up going to Regal (paying out of pocket! No A-List!) where it was playing at a more normal time in a large auditorium, but there were only like 10 other people there. With the strikes causing a massive reduction in theatrical output from the major studios, it’d be nice to see little movies like this continue to get big screen chances just so the theaters have something new to show, but if no one shows up then they’ll just bring back whatever the last Marvel or family hits were instead, which is a bummer. But once again, this is the kind of movie that isn’t QUITE good enough to all out recommend, especially since, as I mentioned, it kind of blunders the basics (no good chases, CGI kills, way too easy to guess main killer). However, if you enjoy slashers that seem like they’re a little bit “off”, as if they shot a first draft of a script with actors who each thought they were making a different kind of movie, then I wholeheartedly recommend it to quench that rarely satisfied thirst.
HMAD-ing is actually somewhat expensive! If you can, help BC pay for his various movie-getting services (Netflix, Amazon, buying used DVDs, etc.)! Thank you!!!
