← Back to Reviews
 

Scream 2
Horror Comedy Mystery / English / 1997

WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Cause the first movie was decent, but now it must combat sequel tropes, how will it fair?

WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
"I hope that was an off-the-cuff remark that holds no subtext whatsoever."

I have seen this movie before, but I don't remember any of it, so here's my own genre-savvy assessments of killer likelihood considering a whodunnit is now a viewer expectation:

1. Deputy Dewey, has an identifiable limp that could cause us not to suspect him, limp is questioned by other characters, delivers the "trust no one line" twice, displays aggressive behavior for the first time, appears in places without justification, asks about Sydney's security detail, is referred to as a "good guy" by other characters, Randy lectures him on horror movie tropes (he lectured the previous killers), defends Gale's character, objects to breaking and entering... VICTIM
2. Cotton (Falsely Accused Killer), obvious revenge motive, present during a death threat, wayyy too forgiving, wayyy too pushy, attention-seeking, already scrutinized by the police, self-implicates twice, accused of being the killer... HERO
3. Gale Weathers, shade thrown, attention-seeking, actual piece of shit... VICTIM
4. Joel (Gale's New Cameraman), implicated by movie's emphasis on "white male suspects", self-implicates... BYSTANDER
5. Derek (New Boyfriend), previous boyfriend was the killer, shade thrown, implicated by one of the killers... DIES
6. Hallie (Sydney's Roommate), shade thrown, implicated by movie's emphasis on "white male suspects", argues against revealing Ghostface's identity... DIES
7. Mickey (Random Friend), conveniently unavailable during a Ghostface attack... KILLER
8. Randy (Movie Geek), shade thrown, comedy relief... DIES
9. Debbie Salt (Reporter who hounds Gale), literally nothing to implicate her except the "white male suspects" line... KILLER

My Theory: Dewey was one of two killers, and to distinguish from the previous movie, the killers would have separate motives this time. PARTIALLY TRUE


As you can see, there was quite a lot of reason to suspect some characters more than others, it almost seems like the movie set up Derek and Cotton as the two obvious in-universe suspects, while also sneaking enough little details in to implicate Deputy Dewey for the lifeless smartasses like me.

While I appreciate being wrong in my prediction, I do not appreciate that this falls victim to one of the shitty outcomes of whodunnit movies I described previously. In this case, both killers were characters with virtually no screentime and neither were given any substantial reason to be the killer apart from one of them not being present at a single time they were expected to be.

Part of the fun of these movies/episodes is when the audience is given all of the information to guess the killer, but the information is often is often glossed over or misrepresented. In this case, "Mickey" is revealed to be the killer to fall in line with the theme of "movies are bad influences" which is referenced multiple times. His goal is to murder and blame movies because... that's the perfect defense I guess??

Mickey is called crazy by "Debbie Salt" who no one could have possibly suspected because her motive is concealed by the fact that nobody knows she's secretly the mother of the previous movie's killer.

Naturally it makes sense to tie it all back in to the first movie in some way, and this DOES partially justify the repeated insistence on "white male suspects" that gets hammered on about, but this is still completely out of the blue.

It doesn't seem fair when the answer to the question was never really on the table, which is true for both of these movies, because neither of these movies concern themselves with the hard facts of individual incidents, all they do is build distrust toward certain characters and pull the rug out. I really don't like that approach to whodunnits because that ruins my favorite part about them.

Speaking more generically about Scream 2, I am much more conflicted about the introduction this time. I like that it effectively retells the events of the first movie by presenting an in-universe movie called "Stab" which virtually parodies itself, presenting me the same thing with gratuitous nudity, broody characters, and and even more obnoxious score definitely pushes it over the edge into funny bad territory.

It also justifies Ghostface being able to kill in plain sight because he's popular now, everyone's pretending to be Ghostface. The costume isn't just easy to get ahold of, but his portrayal wouldn't look amiss at a movie theater premiere.



However this movie also opens with the line "the horror genre is historical for excluding the African American element" which instantly made me roll my eyes so hard I gave myself a headache.

They push this character's "polite" racism so hard and she's so ****ing annoying. I'm glad they made her out to be a reluctant horror movie fan before doing the only thing a movie like Scream should do in this situation, and that is to kill her and her boyfriend. Because they are the token black characters and the token black characters always die first.

...but, almost as an apology for this scene, they also include 3 other black characters with speaking lines in this movie. Which I think makes 5 more than there were in the previous movie... so it kinda seems like the creators actually felt bad the previous movie wasn't more """diverse""", but also wanted to rationalize it by repeatedly harping on the "white male suspect" line, which wasn't a sticking point in the previous movie's numerous allusion to "scary movies".

In fact, mentioning this when your earliest references were Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th kinda makes no sense, because in Halloween the threat had already been identified as Michael Myers, in Nightmare on Elm Street the killer is a dream monster, and in Friday the 13th the killer is Jason's mom.

So what movies is this movie trying to take after now with this line?
The laundry list of Z-Grade slasher fliks Randy lists off?

Honestly disappointed Randy died, the comedy relief is one of the few characters deserving of plot armor because his existence makes your movie better.

Also mentioning sequel tropes in your first of multiple sequels kinda sets your 3rd and 4th movies up for failure.

A lot of the dialog in this movie was annoying. I didn't mention it before but Gale was a gargantuan bitch in the previous movie and I don't want to be endeared to her. Seeing her relationship woes with derpy Deputy Dewey also does nothing for me. I don't like either of these characters, I don't want them to get together, and I don't want to watch anything about them getting together.

Seeing Gale get punched in the face or harassed by reporters herself is a nice dose of medicine, but when her character doesn't change that doesn't suddenly make me like her.

There's also an unforgivably stupid moment where Sydney scares herself off of revealing Ghostface's identity when he knocks himself out, and OF COURSE that's when he escapes. That's really ******* annoying.

I also don't know why Debbie didn't jump off the stage during climax when Sydney is attacking her with stage props. It seemed as though she was intimidated by the Ghostface mask on the floor??? Like, as though getting off the stage would maybe magic her fingerprints onto the mask and implicate her?????

That's my only read of how this scene is edited, it honestly makes no sense while watching it.

There's not a whole lot else to say. I can't really say I'm disappointed because I didn't expect much and I didn't get much, so there you go.


Final Verdict:
[Weak]