Wes Craven’s Scream 2

• 2nd Apr 2011

Sidney goes to college and finds herself almost coming under the knife for a second bout of Ghost Face evading in this quickly produced sequel. And it’s sequels that are put under the microscope by Randy and his film student buddies (Sarah Michele Gellar, Timothy Olyphant and Joshua Jackson). The film does scrutinise as well as it did in the first film. The tone feels very much the same and therefore shapes up to be every bit the equal of the first film. It doesn’t aspire to go beyond that – making for a level sequel that continues the story as well as repeating all the right beats.

The opening scene is no less grisly than the opening of the first – this time taking place inside a live theatre (a film within a film – a version of the first film has been made called ‘Stab’). The good thing about this sequel is that later in the film we find a red herring that ties the names of the victims (or at least the letters) to the victims from the first film. It’s daft, but gets the message across that the killer will be coming for Sidney.

Add to the mix the reappearance of Cotton Weary– he’s seeking redemption, but a redemption wrapped up in dollar bills and fame. Sidney of course has other things on her mind which leads her to increasing paranoia. Soon she’s suspecting almost everyone around her is a would-be killer.

The returning cast from the first film manage to put in some wonderful performances, really building on the roles they created first time around. The new cast are plentiful – Timothy Olyphant in a role that would help his career (but perhaps when his mask is removed he goes perhaps a little bit OTT).

Thankfully the sequel has retained its writer and the level of cleverness and shocks are kept to a fairly high standard. The fact that Randy himself is offed at the halfway mark is a surprise as is the almost death (again) of Dewey towards the end. The set pieces are a bit more elaborate this time, but Craven films the sequel in the same fashion that he handled the first. There’s a heavy balance of nervous giggles in with the frights. When one of Sidney’s bodyguards ends up with a pole through the back of his head – his twitching, contorting corpse leaves grossed out laughs. This is probably the most gruesome death in the film – and thankfully too as it follows the film’s least inspired kill – Sidney’s best friend is knifed by Ghost Face in a sadly predictable part of the set-up.

But the identity of the killer, in this case Mickey (Olyphant), is easy enough to work out. Like in the first film, the killer appears in a scene after the opening kill (the classroom chat).  Also when Sidney is frightened onstage when she‘s practising the role of Cassandra (tutored by David Warner!), she runs into her boyfriend who tries to calm her down. When she randomly asks about Mickey she’s informed he is in editing (we can only assume that he’s editing the footage later used to petrify Dewey and Gale). I had that one tagged on the first viewing! It’s all about the subtleties of the script dropping little tid-bits here and there within conversation.

More of a surprise is the revelation of the mastermind behind it, as we’re given no indicator of the background to this character. So even if you guessed that the reporter would turn out to be a killer, there’s little information to support the reason why until she reveals it herself. Let alone the fact that she’s the mother of the first film’s killer.

In a nice moment, it’s great to see Liev Schreiber’s Cotton Weary character redeemed when he confronts Mrs Loomis and puts a bullet in her head. It’s nice that none of the leading roles put an end to the killer. Yet having said that, the two leading ladies do get to put Mickey out of his misery. He’s then handed his moment of fame leading to fortune in the aftermath by Sidney who dreams of nothing but the quiet life.

Steven Hurst