FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHTS LIVEBLOG: Scream 2 (1997):”What’s Your Favorite-ER Scary Movie?”
As is the agreed upon, stone cold tradition of any successful horror movie: When you’ve got a hit, ya gotta fast track that sequel. Immediately following the box office success of the first installment, Scream 2 was greenlit and hit theaters the very next year. We may never know whether or not this was the plan all along but what we can say is tha-wait, what? Oh nevermind, the internet just told me that there was an outline ready for this thing before cameras even rolled on the original. Ok, well anyhoo out of all of the Screamses this is the one that I’m the least familiar with so this should be kind of fun.
Let’s hop right in!
- And it starts with the opening of a movie called Stab based on the events of the first movie. The theater is packed with a bunch of dipshits wearing glow in the dark ghost face masks. This is promising!
- The flick that our characters are watching begins and well lookie at what we have here! If it isn’t Heather “Roller Girl” Graham playing the Drew Barrymore character. Wow, she’s really nailing that bad acting.
- I have to admit that it’s kind of cool to watch people in a movie watching a movie that’s recreating the events from the movie that I just watched. Got a real soft spot for that kind of meta shit right there.
- And the first black guy to appear in the entire franchise just got stabbed in the head in the bathroom in the opening scene. Oh you silly 90’s, you.
- Oh wow, Will Smith’s wife was just stabbed to death in front of the packed theater. There are far too many jokes I can make here.
- Here’s Sid with a shorter hair cut and wearing a sports bra. I wonder if she’s going to open up a can of “Ripley” on whoever the bad guy turns out to be. Someone just prank called her using the scary voice and she called him out by using caller ID. Wait, we had caller ID in 1997 but not 1996?
- So I guess she’s in college now. Turns out our second favorite horror movie nerd Jamison F. Kennedy was accepted into the same school because he’s in a room full of film students (including Sarah Michelle Gellar) talking about, guess what? Movie SEQUELS and how they’re never any good as the original. Until Timothy Olyphant correctly drops that Godfather Part II bomb.
- JFK has some really distracting facial hair. I guess he hit puberty in between the two movies.
- Hey it’s that chick from those old noxzema commercials playing a sorority sister! You know, the one that in real life did time for running over and killing a little kid because she was texting while driving! What a babe!
- I’m not sure why, but every returning character is hanging out at this college right now. And Gale has some hagsville red streaks in her hair. Even for 1997 there are some terrible fashion choices going on.
- Sidney just hit Gale in the face on camera again. Intentional riff on something that happened in the first movie or just lazy scripting? What? Why not both, you say?
- I have a lot of fun looking on TV screens in the background to see what the director chose to have playing. You’ll find a lot of that in horror movies. In Halloween, John Carpenter has the title screen from The Thing From Another World pop up at one point (which he would later go on to remake). In the last Scream I mentioned Craven chose Halloween. And now in Scream 2 it looks as though Sarah Michelle Gellar is about to get it while the original Nosferatu lights up the living room. A clever nod to her status as Vampire Slayer?
- Oh hey, what’s her name…the sister from Roseanne is in this. That’s…odd casting.
- I don’t know what it is exactly but this movie just isn’t very exciting so far. For a sequel to a movie that was trying to break all kinds of cinematic “rules” this feels pretty bland. We could really use a hard left here soon.
- It really is such a shame that out of all of the promising child actors with incredible talent who were for one reason or another tragically cut short before their prime, Jerry O'Connell made it through just fine.
- Well, this is a fairly acurate depiction of College in that it’s filled with unlikeable dipshits that you can’t wait to watch get brutally murdered.
- Oh wow. Tori Spelling is playing Tori Spelling who plays the Sidney character in the movie Stab based on the first Scream. I wonder if she caught all that.
- Even though he’s played by Jamie Kennedy I really do genuinely like the movie nerd in this series. Just wanted to throw that out there.
- If it seems like I’m not really talking about the plot that much it’s because jack and shit is happening so far. Sidney seriously just delivered the line “I’m a fighter.” with a straight face. Good God, how many more of these did they make?
- Ok. so I guess everyone from the first movie is at the school right now because they’re concerned for Sidney since Buffy got a taste of her own medicine. But now Sid is acting in some kind of elaborate school play and I have NO IDEA how we got here or what the fuck is going on.
- Don’t know why guys keep wanting to date this poor girl. She’s so neurotic. I mean, she also murdered her high school BF ten minutes after he took her virginity but neurosis is a hard pass for me.
- Dammit. I remember that the movie nerd got killed in this one but it still sucks to see it happen.
- I’m really not clear on what the hell the deal is with this Cotton guy. I know it was revealed that he was actually innocent of raping/killing Sid’s Mom or something but why is he at the school too? Just to provide another potential suspect? Not everybody from the first movie has to come back you guys! Oh wait, contractually mabes.
- All kinds of random stuff is getting introduced at the oddest times and repeating nonstop.
- Oooh, Courtney Cox is about to tap David Arquette’s ass.
- I can’t tell whether it’s more suspenseful or not when you can’t wait to see these characters get killed. It’s like “C'mon, Ghost Face you slow bastard. They’re getting away, shake it off and hurry the fuck up!”
- This crashed car scene with the murderer unconscious at the wheel and Sid and her friend having to escape from the back seat by climbing over him one by one is actually pretty tense. Good idea writer man!
- Gale thinks the killer is Cotton Underwear. I’ve always found them to be quite comfortable.
- So we’re back on the set of that weird play Sid was randomly starring in. Her boyfriend is tied up as bait I guess? But that doesn’t make sense because she’s already in the building. I smell a final sequence happening here. At least I hope so.
- Yep, Timothy Olyphant is the culprit. He didn’t really do the best job of concealing his bad guy-ness. But he has a partner? I really don’t remember this movie at all. I’m curious as to why he wants to screw with Sid’s hea- Wait, he just wants to be famous? Oh, Help me, Jeebus!
- And the partner is the sister from Roseanne!? Y'know…what’s her name? And she’s Sid’s first boyfriend’s Mom? This is what they came up with!? Well, ok if I think about it I can see that maybe the intention was to inverse the Friday the 13th thing. Where in that movie the Mother is the killer and in the second the son gets revenge, here it’s the opposite. I guess that’s the idea. Email me with your thoughts @idontcare.fakeemailaddress.com
- So Cotton saves the day by blackmailing Sidney into help publicly clear his name of murder by murdering someone to save her life. Is that right????
- Sidney’s last line after putting a bullet in someone’s forehead isn’t quite as clever this time around.
ROLL CREDITS.
Well now, how are we all doing after that!? Way to just throw a brick wall in front of any and all momentum the first movie created. It kills off the most relatable character and for only a part 2, already feels so damn tired and bored with itself. I wouldn’t even really consider this a horror movie because to me that implies excitement on some level. Also, bad call on linking the killer’s motivation SO directly to the first movie. The script screams rush job and if there’s anything you don’t want to see Wes Craven get behind the camera for, it’s a bad screenplay. He can barely handle the good ones.
