Falling for Leone

Last week I had the eye-popping pleasure of witnessing Tarsem's The Fall and Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West on the big screen on consecutive nights. Such are the benefits of having The Astor Theatre right up the road, I guess. I had seen a couple of Leone's spaghetti westerns (so called because they have Italian heritage, and not because of Bugsy Malone style food fights) - namely A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More - and hadn't been particularly taken by them, but the opportunity to see Once Upon a Time in the West wasn't to be missed. I wrote about Leone's classic western over at Trespass Magazine for a new column in which we see films that we can't believe we've never seen. I think I got my own pieces off to an auspicious beginning.

The idea of having to see films like this on the big screen was worked into my brain long ago and I’m glad my first experience with it was in this way. Those arresting vistas with rocks of red and skies of blue are about as gorgeous as scenery can get; the way Leone and his cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli utilise the widescreen is hypnotic. Ennio Morricone’s music score is one of the all time greats and it goes without saying that watching Claudia Cardinale (The Leopard) for three hours is hardly unbearable. They quite literally don’t make ‘em like this any more.

What I haven't had the chance to discuss yet is Tarsem's The Fall. I have been a huge fan of his first film, the mind-bending serial killer thriller The Cell, since it came out and blew my mind, but his second feature took the long way to my eyeballs. Apparently it received a very brief released some years back at ACMI, but I don't think I was even living in Melbourne at the time. Nevertheless, some five years after completion and three years after its release in America I finally got a chance to behold The Fall on the big screen. It's certainly an experience, that's for sure. Filmed over four years in over 20 different countries, The Fall is the sort of film that was made to be seen in a cinema. No amount of big screen TV's would surely do it justice. Whether it's the imagery of a large elephant swimming alone in a coral reef, a swarm of assassins emerging out of the ruins of an ancient temple or a pasture of green grass hidden amongst a dusty mountainside, Tarsem's V-I-S-I-O-N is frequently awe-inspiring and always admirable.

It's surely no surprise that the film this reminded me of the most was Ron Fricke's Baraka, which was coincidentally the first film I ever saw at The Astor Theatre. They both share that travelogue form, but it's much more than that, with Tarsem's observations at times feeling as deeply rooted in a spiritual desire as Fricke's do in his 1992 masterpiece. I've seen Baraka many, many times and it strikes me every single time and while The Fall lacks some that documentary's wide-eyed power due to some rather average storytelling, Tarsem has succeeded in bringing a little bit of this world's powerful beauty onto the screen and that's a very powerful thing in itself. Both of these films are about observing our own place in the world and that makes everybody's viewing a particularly singular and personal experience. While The Fall grants itself the Hollywood spine of a plot and characters, it's still essentially a film that observes how we as people cope amidst this crazy world and that's something that be profoundly touching.

The Fall is somewhat of a remake of a Bulgarian film called Yo Ho Ho. I had never heard of it it before, but I'm instantly intrigued. Tarsem has surely expanded that film, whatever it was, to the form we see today, but it's still a rather simple and personal film. The central plot device of a suicidal stuntman telling a fantastical story of lost love and revenge to a small child is frequently filled with moments of human beauty just as much as the lavish location shots are filled with natural beauty. Lee Pace, who I'm to believe is quite well-liked in certain circles for his role in Pushing Daisies, is quite excellent as the stuntman who, in a beguiling black and white prologue, tries to turn movie magic in a death march. And anybody who says the young Catinca Untaru is not one of the cutest buttons they've ever seen is clearly a big fat liar. Seriously. Eiko Ishioka's masterful costume work (I cannot wait for the surefire costuming orgy that will be Tarsem and Ishioka's next collaboration, The Immortals), Ged Clarke's evocative production design and Colin Watkinson's extravagant cinematography all aid Tarsem in bringing this singular film to the screen. Any misgivings I had about the film feel inconsequential when compared to the intense feelings I had when viewing the masterful images on display. A-

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 5 of Scream 3 (0:12:28-0:19:24)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!



SCENE 5 of Scream 3
Length: 6mins 54secs
Primary Characters: Roman Bridger (Scott Foley), John Milton (Lance Henrikson), "Studio Executive" (Roger Corman), (Detective?) Wallace (Josh Pais), Tyson Fox (Deon Richmond), Tom Prinze (Matt Keeslar), Sarah Darling (Jenny McCarthy), Angelina Tyler (Emily Mortimer), Gale Weathers, Jennifer Jolie (Parker Posey), Dewey Riley (David Arquette),
Pop Culture References:

• Tori Spelling and David Schwimmer (Named as former Stab cast-members)
• LL Cool J/William Shakespeare and Usher/Pinter (Weird combo's for black actors mentioned by Tyson)
• Freddy Prinze Jr, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, Sarah Michelle Gellar, etc (All the Stab cast have names made up of other famous actors)
• 60 Minutes 2 (Gale was a reporter for this show)
• Brad Pitt (Jennifer Jolie used to date him)
• Roger Corman (Cameo)
• Jay & Silent Bob (Cameo)
• Connie Chung (Jay and Silent Bob mention her)

There was a brief rumour during the production of Scream 4 that it was going to have the subtitle of "Return to Woodsboro", but I never believed that because Stab 3 had that name and that'd just be silly.

Why hello there big burly security man on the left. Clearly this extra should've been cast in Patrick Warburton's role as Jennifer Jolie's security guard.

"Violence in cinema's a big deal right now, Roman. This is not the kind of news this studio is after."
"So if we stop making scary movies all the psychos in the world will retire? Come on."
I love that they got Roger freakin' Corman for a cameo as a movie executive telling a director that he's worried about violent content. Oh the irony. Of course, Corman's line right there is an obvious reference to Scream 3's own behind the scenes dramas, which had the original idea of a "return to Woodsboro" being scrapped due to the media's recent fascination with violence in media after the Columbine school shootings. Roman's line, however, is almost a direct lift from Billy Loomis in the original Scream, which is just the first instance of Roman Bridger being lame. The second instance are his clothes. Gawd, he wears ugly clothes. But, then, this was 2000 and Scream 3's costume designer, Abigail Murray, was clearly on drugs so not entirely her fault I guess.

Lame.

"Detectives, there's no reason to presume Cotton's death had anything to do with this movie, is there?"
"He was making a movie called Stab; he was stabbed."
Oh Wallace!

From left to right we have Deon Richmond as Tyson Fox as Rick, the video store employee clearly a "Randy substitute/homage"; Jenny McCarthy as Sarah Darling as Candy, the hot chick who dies third who does indeed die third; Matt Keeslar as Tommy Prinze as Deputy Dewey, no longer played by David Schwimmer; Emily Mortimer as Angelina Tyler as Sidney Prescott, longer played by Tori Spelling. Phew, make sense?

"I'm starting to see why Tori Spelling and David Schwimmer didn't want to come back."
I guess you know your low-rent horror franchise is in bad shape when Tori Spelling and David Schwimmer think they have better stuff to do with their time! Oh hai there Emily Mortimer. I love that the Scream franchise really does have quite a few actors who went on to become quote unquote legitimate like here Emily Mortimer. Now's she's in films by Scorsese and Pixar. Of course, Mortimer as Angelina Tyler would have obviously been so much better if they'd gone through with the original plan of having her as the second killer Oh man, what a wasted opportunity! And it's quite obvious, too, that they were setting that storyline up to occur and then they just... ugh. Yet another misjudged aspect of Scream 3, unfortunately.

Campfire Tales

This Halloween saw me sick at home in bed watching horror movies. I guess it could've been worse! I hadn't intended on watching so many movies about groups of camping individuals being picked off one by one, it just happened to turn out that way!

I began by watching Steve Miner's Friday the 13th Part III and, well, my love for it is well documented (warning: really old blog entry there. don't hold that against me) and it didn't fail to entertain me like it always has. It's everything I want a Friday the 13th movie to be, really. This franchise was never "scary", barring the occasional scene or two, and for me got most of its charms in distilling the clichés of the era into a single finely made product. Friday the 13th Part III is fun, violent, inventive and looks great. Throw in the hilarity of the gloriously funny, but painful and unwatchable 3D and Part III remains my favourite entry in the franchise and the one I go to more frequently than any other and will likely remain that way until the franchise does a turn around from the nadir-skimming level it reached with the recent Michael Bay production from 2009. I don't watch these films to experience the visceral thrill that I would hope to get out of a Halloween film, so it works. As it turns out, I watched two Steve Miner films this Halloween (following Halloween H20) so maybe I should've watched Lake Placid to keep the unofficial Miner and camping themes going!

I followed that one up with two films I had never actually seen before (after swerves through Lake Mungo, Halloween and The Faculty) as I gave Tony Maylam's The Burning and Andrew Davis' The Final Terror a go. The Burning was a whole lotta fun and I actually liked it more than Friday the 13th, which had come out just one year before and obviously kicked the summercamp terror trend into high gear (neither are as good as Sleepaway Camp, but not much is). Gorgeous to look at, The Burning is a really efficient bit of filmmaking that I'm surprised isn't mentioned more often these days (especially with a cast that includes a cute and comedic Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter and Fischer Stevens and its origins as one of the first ever Miramax productions for Harvey and Bob Weinstein).

Oh sure, I could've done with a bit more action in the opening half rather than that really bizarre scene with the prostitute, which felt like it was from a completely different movie (one about unattractive prostitute), but the prologue and hospital sequence directly after are really great. The final showdown between the horribly burn victim and his camping prey is curiously unspectacular (it involves a lot of walking and looking and walking), but the whole thing is is still immensely enjoyable if you're into this particular type of horror filmmaking. The first half is actually very quiet on the horror front, but is never boring. Things soon pick up with the slaying and the maiming and the killling, and then there is, of course, that glorious raft sequence that earned The Burning a place on the list of UK's "video nasties". Seemingly realising that barely anybody had actually been killed so far in this film, the filmmakers went about killing five people in rapid succession. Lovely.

Having grown up in a country that doesn't have these summer camps, I always wonder if they're all at like what the movies suggest. Not so much with the stabbing and the slicing, but everything else? Are they really a place where young people are so opening sexual (there's a scene in The Burning where Jason Alexander, clearly the inspiration for Morgan Freeman's character in The Shawshank Redemption, hands out copies of porno magazines to the younger campers)? Are they little more than an extension of high school with bullying and cool/uncool cliques? Are all American summer camps located in such stunning scenery? I remember watching bad movies like Camp Cucamonga (with a young Jennifer Aniston and Urkle!) and Ernest Goes to Camp and wondering what it was all about. Why didn't Australia have this? Hmmm.

Nevertheless, The Burning? Yeah. The Burning! If I had one confusion about the whole thing, it was that I didn't understand why Cropsy (the killer, so called after his weapon of choice) was targeting these kids. It's not like Mrs Voorhees/Jason who target kids who come to "their" camp. No, Cropsy just seems to wanna kill these people who had nothing to do with his horrible disfigurement at a camp that wasn't even the one he worked at. It kind of all came together in the end, but I still wasn't buying it.

The third and final campers in peril horror title I watched was of a different vain, The Final Terror. Not so much about a pack of horny, loud school-aged kids at a summer camp, as it is a bunch of "forest rangers" and their girlfriends going camping. It lacks the sunny spooks of other films in the genre, preferring a palate of deep blues, greens and blacks that occasionally make the action undecipherable (to be fair, I was watching a VHS-quality transfer). This, however, gives it a far more menacing tone, especially when director Andrew Davis stages wonderful sequences of the villain (a strange, camouflaged, squealing monster person) stalking. One of note, by far the scariest scene in any of the three films discussed in this entry, comes about when the terrified campers seek refuge in a bus only to be taunted from all sides by the maniacal beast. It's a doozy of a scene and I just wish The Final Terror had more of them.

One other thing I liked was that the characters here are, compared to most other films of a similar kind, relatively smart. Apart from obvious stupidity to kick off the plot, they actually have an idea or two about camping and about survival in the wilderness. They devise plans when in trouble and more often than not realise when they're doing something wrong. Having Rachel Ward certainly helps, with her authoritative British tones proving to be an almost soothing presence, although nothing can help Daryl Hannah who proves here that she was always a terrible actress and will almost never not be one (Quentin Tarantino notwithstanding). If there are too many scenes of characters walking around going nowhere and doing nothing then that's a shame, but I was quite surprised that The Final Terror turned out to be less of a fun slasher romp than I was expecting than a twisting of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Not as good, not even close, as that one, but somewhat impressive nonetheless. And far better than anything remotely suggested by the opening scene, so poorly acted that I thought I was set for a funny trip down bad 1980s slasher lane.

I was mainly just thankful they were all better than Cheerleader Camp!

Review: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Dir. Troy Nixey

Year: 2011

Aus Rating: M15+

Running Time: 99mins

The dark is a bad place to be left alone with one’s imagination. As kids our parents routinely tell us that there’s nothing hiding under the bed, no monsters in the closet and that those scary shadows are nothing more than moonlight playing tricks on our minds. And yet… what if there really was reason to be scared of dark? Would our parents believe us? That’s the premise of Troy Nixey’s debut film Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, a modern day retelling of a famous TV movie from 1973 about the ghoulish goblins that hide where the light can’t touch them. Despite being tricked out and modernised with computerised effects, gruesome gore and a new child protagonist where there wasn’t one before, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark still manages to succeed by being stylishly made and effectively old-fashioned.

Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

Halloween: H20 and the Unofficial Scream Sequel

I was watching Steve Miner's Halloween H20 the other night for the first time in many a year - let's face it, John Carpenter's 1978 original is the one most people, myself included, would go to when wanting to watch Michael Myers going chop chop - and recognised that it's actually as much a pseudo entry to the Scream franchise as it is to Halloween. The backstory to Halloween H20's screenplay is somewhat murky, but I think it's known that Kevin Williamson, hot off of the success of Scream, and the in-production I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2 and The Faculty (still the Weinstein company's golden boy), was asked to write the screenplay, but that was thrown out except for the bare bones, but then he was brought back in to rewrite parts and... well, it sounds a bit complicated. Nevertheless, Williamson's influence on the film is unmistakable and, really, is far more obvious on the finished product than John Carpenter. In the end. instead of noticing the similarities between Halloween H20 and Halloween (of which there are indeed many: the classroom discussion about fate; "everyone's entitled to one good scare"; etc etc), I was noticing the similarities between Halloween H20 and Scream.

The obvious connections begin right from the opening scene which, besides adopting the new hot "opening victim" trend of the time, utilises Marco Beltrami's music cues from Scream! At first I thought it was just a comical bit of pay back since Wes Craven quite clearly appeared to be doing the same thing with Carpenter's classic score at various points in Scream, but as the film went on it just got more and more noticeable with Beltrami's score reappearing time and time again, and in very obvious ways. Even the way Beltrami's music weaves throughout the action is the same. Sidney Prescott goes to open a door? So does Joseph Gordon-Levitt at the same music cue. It's truly baffling. The long dormitory chase scene between Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett and (Young Artist Award nominee for Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young Actress) Michelle Williams, as well as the final van chase, is scored entirely to pieces from similar scenes in Scream. I also think I hear cues from Tatum and Cici's death scenes from Scream and Scream 2 respectively, as well as Gale's chase scene through the soundproof studio in Scream 2.

Add that to the frequent inclusion of Carpenter's original theme (or variations of it), more Beltrami score, but this time from Mimic, and even a moment of Bernard Hermann's Psycho score during the scene with Janet Leigh, and it's hard to pick up any original music by the film's supposed composer, John Ottman.

Apparently Ottman's music was sparingly used, but that the producers wanted music "more like Scream". I guess coming from the same studio made actually using the music from Scream much easier and probably cheaper. Still, disappointing considering Ottman's score is very good (it was eventually released under the name "Portrait of Terror" and is available on iTunes).

However, it's more than just the music that brings about echoes of Scream. Much like Kevin Williamson's screenplay for Scream has characters named after famous horror icons ("Loomis" for instance), Halloween H20 has characters like "Casey". There's even a line of dialogue where Jamie Lee Curtis' longtime victim tells her son and his girlfriend to "drive down the street to the Beckers". This, of course, reflects upon the opening scene of Scream where Casey Becker's father told his wife to "drive down to the McKenzies", which was of course a reference to the same line being spoken by Curtis' Laurie Strode in the 1978 Halloween. Sheesh, are you still with me? Furthermore, the characters played by Adam Hann-Byrd and Jodi Lyn O'Keefe are clearly photocopies of Stu Macher and Tatum Riley from Scream, plus a large part of the focus being on the more adult characters is similar. I mean, for crying out loud, they even watch Scream 2 here!

Perhaps even more obviously a Scream artifact is the appearance by Janet Leigh. About eighteen different jokes in one, Leigh's appearance alongside her daughter (duelling scream queens if you will) as a character named "Norma" - oh yes - who drives the same car from Psycho while that film's music plays in the background and she recites lines from the original Halloween. That's even more twisted than the opening of Scream 4!

Thankfully, the LL Cool J character is just an original travesty! No erotica authoring security guards in the Scream franchise as far as I can recall! Still, I like Halloween H20. Sure, it's more of its time than the original, which was revolutionary to not just the horror genre, but cinema as a whole. It reminds me of that period of horror that coincided with my own growing love for cinema. The era may be decried by horror enthusiasts, but I will always view titles like this and Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Faculty, Urban Legend and so on with a tad more of a forgiving nature. Scream 4's failure to revitalise the slasher was that film's biggest disappointment. As for Michael Myers and his butcher knife of fun? Well, a 3D sequel to Rob Zombie's reimagined remakes is on the way. I think I'll stick to H20.

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 4 of Scream 3 (0:12:02-0:12:27)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!



SCENE 4 of Scream 3
Length: 25secs
Primary Characters: Sidney Prescott and "Female Reporter" (Nancy O'Dell)
Pop Culture References:

• None

"Hollywood is reeling today from the news of the murder of controversial talk show host Cotton Weary. Weary had only recently finished shooting a cameo as himself in the film Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro, the third and final part of the famous horror series based on the famous Woodsboro and Windsor College murders. Before his rise to television fame Cotton had been imprisoned and was later exonerated for the murder of Maureen Prescott, his former lov-"

That's a whole lotta news reporting as exposition right there! And by Nancy O'Dell, featured in Scream 2, Scream 3 and Scream 4.

Meanwhile, I love that instead of having Sidney drop a plate or a bowl and have it shatter all over the place, they had her drop a bag of dog food. Does Sidney like doggy chow, too?

Scream:
Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14, Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28, Scene 29, Scene 30, Scene 31 Scene 32, Scene 33, End Credits

Scream 2
Scene 1, Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14. Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28, Scene 29, Scene 30, End Credits

Scream 3
Scene 1, Scene 2, Scene 3

Review: Warrior

Warrior

Dir. Gavin O'Connor

Year: 2011

Aus Rating: M15+

Running Time: 140mins

Let’s face it – Rocky has been done to death! And yet its simple underdog tale gets routinely trotted out due to its unwavering success at moving audiences, most notably big manly men, to tears. Director Gavin O’Connor tries sprucing up the material by swapping out boxing for mixed martial arts, but it’s still the same old story told the same old way. At least Real Steel had robots.


Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

And just in case that review doesn't make it clear enough? I'm on Team Edgerton. For everything.

Yes please.

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 3 of Scream 3 (0:10:21-0:12:01)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!



SCENE 3 of Scream 3
Length: 1min 40secs
Primary Characters: Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox Arquette), Detective Mark Kincaid (Patrick Dempsey), Student (Richmond Arquette) and The Moderator (Julie Janney)
Pop Culture References:

• None

And thus begins what will become a Gale Weathers ritual during Scream 3 in which we ruthlessly insult her horrible hair. This current version of her hair isn't even the worst of it! When he lets it out it just... well, yeah. This was the first image released, if I remember correctly, and we were all like "what has she done to her hair?!?" And it's not a Scream 3 specific wig, either, since she had the same hair on Friends. What was going on at that time? Why did she think this was good hair? And after her awesome red-streaked bob from Scream 2, too!

That young man right there rolling his eyes is Richmond Arquette, David's brother and Courtney's brother-in-law. In this franchise's ongoing desire to become the unofficial Arquette family album (remember Lewis Arquette was in Scream 3 and I fully expect Coco Arquette to be in Scream 12: Ghostface in Space!) we get another of the Arquette clan. Where was Alexis though? Could Scream 3 not fit in a hot transsexual anywhere in it's two hour runtime? What's Jenny McCarthy got that Alexis Arquette doesn't? ...Wait, don't answer that! Patricia Rosanna Arquette, on the other hand... well, she's probably still busy trying to find Debra Winger to make an appearance in this franchise. Wouldn't that be a hoot thought! Did Dewey have a secret sister he didn't know about? Ooh aah!

"Excuse me! So you're saying that we should be ready to go out and cut each other's throats because that's what you did?"

"Metaphorically, yes."

"So tell me Ms Weathers... was it worth it?"

There are so many red herrings thrown about in Scream 3 that they were even making the glorified extras into suspects! This little exchange between Arquette and Cox Arquette (...) is clearly meant to be a "ooh, who is this character? i bet they're the killer, ooh!" moment and yet this unnamed character (known only as "Student" in the cast list) never returns. Lovely.

Looking at Richmond Arquette's filmography, I'm actually quite surprised at the number of movie's he has under his belt including several David Fincher movies (Benjamin Button, Zodiac, Fight Club and as the delivery man in Se7en!) and Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween.

"That's quite an impressive resume."
"Thank you. I assume you're not here for an autograph."

I love that they make Gale Weathers' career a running gag by now. In each film she's worked for a different television news program and I'm sure when the detective says "impressive" he means "long and undistinguished."

Speaking of the detective, I love that Patrick Dempsey is in Scream 3. I like to think that if it weren't for Scream 3 then Dempsey's career revival wouldn't have panned out the way it did and without it Grey's Anatomy would've have become such the hit that it did (that show was very good for, what? two seasons?) Basically, Patrick Dempsey has Scream to thank for everything he has right now. ...okay, perhaps that's a bit of an overstatement, and he was quite good in his brief Will & Grace tenure, too, and I was certainly surprised to see him pop up in Sweet Home Alabama. I was secretly disappointed that he didn't return in Scream 4, but we'll discuss that later.

And, of course, I love the Scream 2 photo shot used on her press tour marketing. She'd never looked better!

"I'm here because Cotton Weary's been murdered."
"Someone killed Cotton?" "And his girlfriend. Someone who left something he wanted us to see. I'll show you this because you're the Woodsboro authority and because you knew him. I promise you, if you share this with the world it's you I will be arresting."

"I swear on my Pulitzer Prize, which I plan to win one day, detective."

Oh Gale! Forgetting the lack of any sustained grief at the news that her early career pet project had been murdered (after Scream 2 I suspect they soured when his career get sky high and she had a failed gig at 60 Minutes 2), I do love her reaction here. In Scream she was going for the Pulitzer and she still is! We can never say that Gale Weathers rested on her laurels.

Also, gosh Patrick Dempsey's hair is amazing.

"This is Maureen Prescott, Sidney Prescott's mother!"

Dun-dun-duuuuuunnnnn.

The Scream films were always much more interested in being a whodunnit than traditional slice-n-dice slasher flicks, but Scream 3 really took it to a new level. I've already noted the lack of traditional slasher movie chase and kills, instead choosing less gore and more exposition. The whole Maureen Prescott story... I ultimately don't think it works as well as they wanted it to, but it was a gallant effort at making a more grandoise stand for these films being taken more seriously, even they were always considered amongst the higher class of the teen horror craze.

Scream:
Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14, Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28, Scene 29, Scene 30, Scene 31 Scene 32, Scene 33, End Credits

Scream 2
Scene 1, Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14. Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28, Scene 29, Scene 30, End Credits

Scream 3
Scene 1, Scene 2

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 2 of Scream 3 (0:08:21-0:10:20)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!



SCENE 2 of Scream 3
Length: 2mins
Primary Characters: Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell)
Pop Culture References:

• None

Again with the gorgeous California location work. Whoever did the location scouting these films really did a great job. While Scream 3 doesn't make good use of these newfound open surroundings (remember in Scream when we saw Stu's house seemingly in the middle of nowhere and yet it was somehow more claustrophobic because there was nowhere to runaway to?), it's still nice to look at.

Aw, hi Sidney Prescott! Long time no see. Meanwhile, why does this movie dog get no credit?

I'm getting the sense that Sidney doesn't feel particularly safe anymore. What with the "Beware of dog" sign and the multiple security entry locking systems. How does the system work in that second picture? Is it electrified? What's to just stop a killer climbing over that fence? Hmmm. Meanwhile, the security password is 1-2-8-8... is that a horror reference? I feel like it must be. The address of a famous horror movie house? Something?

I like that she has The Fall of Troy poster on her wall. Probably a reminder of Derek and that her college drama department had really bad flyer-making skills.

Aw, she has Dewey on speed dial! Bless.

Ya know, despite all the killing and dead boyfriends and the raped mother and all of that, Sidney seems like she has a nice life. Beautiful surroundings, working as a counsellor helping women (albeit under the fake name of "Laura") and a pet dog. Stupid Ghostface, always with the calling and the killing.

Scream:
Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14, Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28, Scene 29, Scene 30, Scene 31 Scene 32, Scene 33, End Credits

Scream 2
Scene 1, Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14. Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28, Scene 29, Scene 30, End Credits

Scream 3
Scene 1