Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 6 of Scream 3 (0:19:25-0:21:55)

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



SCENE 6 of Scream 3
Length: 2mins 30secs
Primary Characters: Sidney Prescott, Neil Prescott (Lawrence Hecht) and "Maureen Prescott" (Lynn McCree)
Pop Culture References:

• The Curse of the Cat People (Sidney's mother appears in her garden dressed in white, perhaps most reminiscent of this 1944 sequel)

I like this short bit at the start of this scene purely because it features...

NEIL PRESCOTT!

I like that they didn't forget him in Scream 2, especially since the whole plot revolves around the original Maureen Prescott storyline that he is directly a part of. I think I read that there was meant to be a bit in Scream 4 that explained his absence. He supposedly died between Scream 3 and 4, but for some reason it was excised (like so much other stuff), which is disappointing since it would've made the whole family angle of that film even more potent since her Woodsboro relatives were probably all she had left.

"Psychos can't kill what they can't find."
But they can kill other people to get to you and to get you out of hiding. Well done, Sidney. Great plan.

No, but seriously, Scream 3 and Halloween H20 share a bit in common in this regard, just another way that film and the Scream franchise feel like curiously linked entities. Oh, and hey, both feature dream sequences!

I love that this shot mirrors the first film right down to the way Sidney is asleep on the couch and next to her is a table with a telephone and that very same photo of she and her mother. Of course, you think Sidney's about to get "the call", when really all that happens is a strange, out of place dream sequence. Or maybe since it is a dream sequence, that is why it mirrors the setup of her Woodsboro home? Hmmm.

Meanwhile, the same scene from Scream (scene 7, which I linked to just now with "the first film") I mention a similarity with Twin Peaks and just thinking about it now, this moment of Sidney having a nightmare about her dead, secretive relative on the couch is very much like what Mrs Palmer (played by Grace Zabriskie) did. Although with fewer dwarf's spouting dialogue like "fire walk with me." Naturally.

The best thing that I can see about this scene is that at least it's well lit.

Really well lit.

And yet so dumb.

Seriously.

I really do question the - to use a popular phrase on a show I just watched an entire series of, Project Runway - taste level of this scene. It irks me to see Sidney dreaming of her own mother this way. It comes off as crass and unnecessary. I much prefer the bed sheet mother scare later in the film because it's a genuine "WTF?" moment. This is never anything other than a dream (nightmare, sure) that fails to scare. If they had to have it, why not have Sidney think she's being stalked by the killer only to discover it's not him, and then have it revealed to be a dream? At least that makes sense for the franchise. The Scream films never went here and I wish they hadn't.

The scene doesn't even help set up the later mother scare. I mean, we can all assume that Sidney is "haunted" by the memory of her mother, we don't need this ghoulish scene to tell us this. Basically, I think this moment ranks alongside the "fuck Bruce Willis" quip from Scream 4 as the series' worst moment. Although maybe I've forgotten something else from Scream 3 that we'll discover along the way was worse than both. Martha Meeks, maybe? Nah, that scene is hilarious (for all the wrong reasons.

It did provide a good trailer moment though. Seeing the bloodied hand moving down the window had us Scream fanatics asking who it was? It looked like it was from a doozy of a chase and kill scene. Alas...

Likewise this shot, but it's such a superficial scare. I mean, these films are all about giving us the superficial scare to weaken the audience and then giving them the gut punch (gut stab?) of actual human violence, but this is just the filmmakers getting their money's worth from hiring the boo machine over a couple of weekends. It's not in aid of anything bigger, it's just there. If Scream 3 was really going to go there then why not get Wes Craven to work some of his old A Nightmare on Elm Street magic?


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, Scene 4, Scene 5

Review: Shark Night 3D

Shark Night 3D

Dir. David R Ellis

Year: 2011

Aus Rating: M15+

Running Time: 91mins

Where does one start when discussing the wholly ridiculous Shark Night 3D? I could begin by mentioning the flying sharks or the dog that helps perform CPR, but maybe that’s too obvious. I could talk about how all five cinema patrons on a Thursday afternoon (myself included) were chortling along at ludicrous dialogue like “Can we save it?” referring to the arm that has been bitten off by a ravenous shark, to which the med student lead character Nick (Dustin Milligan) replies “Sure, if we can find an orthopaedic surgeon in the middle of the bayou!” Or how about the plot that’s closer to Scream 4 (with sharks!) than Jaws. You can see where this is going.


Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

Review: Moneyball

Moneyball

Dir. Bennett Miller

Year: 2011

Aus Rating: M15+

Running Time: 133mins

Baseball and boxing have, for whatever reasons, become the most cinematic of sports, with filmmakers routinely fixated by the two. We recently had Warrior, and now we’ve got Moneyball. Australia may not exactly be mad for the game, but I suspect – I hope – that the latest film from Bennett Miller will inspire a few more people to become immersed in it.


Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

Review: The Debt

The Debt

Dir. John Madden

Year: 2011

Aus Rating: MA15+

Running Time: 113mins

Twin storylines play out in parallel time frames in The Debt, the latest film by John Madden. Despite its wartime thriller genes and gun-toting leads, The Debt is a much quieter film than you might imagine as it tells its story of misplaced heroics and dastardly deeds kept quiet by bloodthirsty governments. Based on a 2007 Israeli film of the same name, The Debt traces the lives of three young Mossad agents whose mission it was to track down, kidnap and hand over to officials a Nazi war criminal known as “The Surgeon of Birkeanu”. Some 25 years later, however, the secrets of their mission begin to unravel and… well, to say much more would ruin some of the few tricks that Madden and co-writers Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan have up their sleeves.


Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

Vale Sarah Watt

It was certainly a sudden stab of sadness on Saturday evening when, on a train from Geelong to Melbourne as I returned from an evening dinner, I read about the passing of Australian filmmaker and artist Sarah Watt. It was common knowledge that Watt, aged 53, was sick with cancer, but I personally wasn't aware at how bad it had progressed. Recent pictures of Ms Watt tell a tale that suggests the writing was on the wall, but the quiet grace with which this talented woman battled the disease is admirable.

Sarah Watt was certainly a late bloomer to feature films. Despite making short animation films since 1990, and winning a prestigious prize from the Venice Film Festival for Small Treasures (starring Rachel Griffiths) in 1995, it wasn't until 2005 that saw Watt graduate to features with Look Both Ways. One of the finest Australian films of the decade, and surely one of the most accomplished directorial debuts I can recall, Look Both Ways was a stunning achievement. Starring Justine Clarke and, Watt's own husband, William McInnes, the film blended the flesh and blood as people dealt with depression, cancer and love with Watt's own animated inserts on the perilous nature that is our existence. Watt won the AFI Award for best screenplay and best direction (the film also won best supporting actor and the big prize for best film of 2005, beating Little Fish and The Proposition) and rightfully so. In my own personal awards ballot for that year she "won" my award (little more than a virtual gold star) for her screenplay, which says a lot for how great I think that movie is. When looking around Google I came across this wonderful profile of Watt and Clarke from The New York Times

She would only make one more film - the 2009 comedy My Year Without Sex about a woman (Sacha Horler) who must lead a life of abstinence following a debilitating aneurysm - before succumbing to bone cancer this passing weekend. This heart-tugging piece entitled "When I'm Gone..." was published in The Age just a few weeks back and discusses Watt's life living in the western suburbs of Melbourne, her films, her photography and art, her husband and their children. She had an exhibit open shortly after that article was written and she was working on a screenplay that, family wishes pending, will likely never get produced, which is sad considering Watt's ability to craft such beautifully normal people finding themselves in captivating, implosive scenarios.

Watt won many awards, mostly for Look Both Ways, plus a third AFI Award for her short Living With Happiness. This AFI tribute is particularly lovely, and it's been wonderful seeing many identities within the Australian film and art communities expressing their love for Watt and her work. At only 53 she has died young, but with Look Both Ways to her credit she had already made a film of such thrilling quality, the kind that many directors spend entire careers trying to make. RIP Sarah Watt.

Review: This is Not a Film

This is Not a Film

Dir. Jafar Panahi & Mojbata Mirtahmasb

Year: 2011

Aus Rating: G

Running Time: 75mins

Iranian director Jafar Panahi claims that his latest documentary is “not a film.” Well, if he says so. Who are we to debate with this man on his own creative endeavour? This is Not a Film certainly doesn’t abide by standard filmic traits, even those of a documentary, so it could definitely be argued that Panahi’s title is on point. And just to further prove his point, Panahi and co-director Mojbata Mirtahmasb made it on a digital camcorder (and at one stage an iPhone.) It really isn’t a film at all!


Read the rest at Trespass Magazine

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.