Movie Scum

According to Hollywood Reporter , Wes Craven has died at the age of 76. Likely only in stature to John Carpenter, Craven and his work has had a remarkable impact on not only my movie-going experience but life in general. Beginning with his first feature Last House on the Left , Craven has had the remarkable ability to inspire and horrify viewers for over 40 years. He dreamt our nightmare with A Nightmare on Elm Street . He made slasher films relevant again in his Scream series. He brought to life so many various stories of despair and trouble through voodoo, incarceration, and even robotics. While admittedly his output has been very hit-or-miss (more miss in his later years), Craven was always held up as a professor of the genre that he helped create. He, and his works, will be sorely missed. Wes Craven 1939-2016

As Randy so eloquently put it in Scream 2 , sequels by their very definition are inferior works. Often times they are derivative and lack any imagination that made their predecessors so powerful. But most sequels aren’t bad per se, just worthless. These sequels though are bad enough to almost make you angry at the series for spawning such dreck.

I know. I’ve already reviewed Scream 4 once before. It was hardly an impartial review though since it had been eleven years since the premiere of the preceding movie and it was not too thorough since I banged it out after a midnight showing opening day before going to work. But, since it was just released on DVD and Blu-ray this week, why not take another look? Beginning with a dizzying number of “opening” sequences, Scream 4 sets the action back in Woodsboro as Sidney (Neve Campbell) has returned on a book signing tour and reunited with Dewey (David Arquette) and Gale (Courteney Cox) who are now married. Dewey is now the Sheriff, Gale is retired from reporting and unsuccessfully trying to write a fiction novel, and Sidney is the proverbial black cat who is constantly followed by death and despair. The mayhem starts up again as Sidney’s cousin Jill (Emma Roberts) and her friend Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) watch as their neighbor is savagely (and I mean savagely!) butchered by Ghost...

To my recollection, Scream 3 was the first R-rated movie I “legally” saw in theaters once I was of age. Perhaps that is why I had so many fond memories of it even though the troubled production and distinct lack of the main character had given others a critical leg to stand on. I figured I would like Scream 2 more this time around but the end result was about the same. Would my Scream 3 memories fare any better? Well, yes and no. By 1999, writer Kevin Williamson had been involved with several Scream-ish productions as well as launching the pinnacle of teen angst, Dawson’s Creek. Thus he was either too busy to return or was burnt out from young adult affairs. Likewise, Neve Campbell was reportedly difficult to nail down for this installment, agreeing to it only with a reduced schedule (and thus reduced screentime). Since the rest of the important cast and crew returned, we have what seems to be a Scream movie, but doesn’t really feel like a Scream movie. The first lampooned h...

It is notable that for the duration of the Saw series , production company Lionsgate was able to keep banging out a new movie in the series less than a year apart with only two major duds out of seven. After the success of the first Scream , Dimension Films surely was quick to retain writer Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven for a follow-up that incidentally is set two years after the first. If real time had followed the story time, Scream 2 potentially could have been the best of the series but it comes off feeling rushed. Scream 2 does have the distinction of being one of a select few movies where the sequel mostly measures up to the first, albeit in different ways. In fact, some notable people (either Siskel or Ebert*) found this movie more likable than the first. The first film of course was packed with references to horror films throughout but Williamson takes the story of the survivors from the last story and interjects it with clever reminders of why this movie sh...

When I first saw Scream in theaters with my dad almost fifteen years ago, I did not care for it. I can’t really say why but the first viewing did nothing for me; I didn’t hate it but I was mostly just ambivalent towards it. Later that year, Digger had a copy on VHS which I watched again and fell in love. Here was a horror movie that was not afraid to pull punches, was not bogged down in some ridiculous backstory (see the Halloween entry from the prior year), and had a sharp wit to it. Since then, Scream has been in constant rotation of the movies I randomly watch. Mainstream horror in the mid-90s was not in a very good state. I’m sure there were plenty of indie or straight-to-video releases of whatever installment the Hellraiser or Puppet Master series were on but all of the big franchises were either completely finished or creatively drained. Scream came along to fill the void in a way that is still astonishing that it hadn’t been done before (at least not to the same degree of ...

Well, fall is officially upon us. At least according to the calender as the weather here apparently has not gotten that memo. Currently, we are a mere seven days away from the tenth month of the year, one which is most commonly associated with fall foliage, chilly nights, and of course Halloween. But there is a great deal upcoming in the next few weeks other than Breast Cancer Awareness Month and my favorite Leif Erikson Day that will make this next month one to remember. 9. The Walking Dead Okay, so this technically isn’t relevant on a site dedicated solely to movies but that’s okay. Because this upcoming AMC television series looks more and more badass with every trailer, clip, and image that is released. Based on an immensely popular graphic novel series which I religiously flip through while in Barnes and Noble, this will be a weekly series that takes place after some kind of zombie apocalypse renders the majority of people mindless flesh freaks (did you like that?). If yo...

Now, I get that this is a really broad generalization encompassing over a hundred different actors but the Nightmare on Elm Street series seems to have been a showstopper for many an actor. All one has to do is peruse through the IMDb pages of the various films in the series to see several who have stopped working, taken extended hiatuses, or have been relegated to brief TV-show appearances or DTV movies. While this phenemonon is also apparent in other long-running slasher series as well, for now we are talking Freddy. So let’s dig in. Lin Shaye: Random Teacher (Original) Being the baby sister of the studio head can’t hurt but Lin Shaye has managed to carve out a pretty decent resume. She was in There’s Something about Mary, Snakes on a Plane, both Dumb and Dumber movies, and Boat Trip? Okay, I didn’t say these movies were good but at least a good chunk of her appearances make a (albeit probably brief) appearance in theaters says something. Breckin Meyer: Spencer (Freddy’s Dead) ...

According to Box Office Mojo, the 1994 kids’ sports movie Little Giants grossed a meager $19 million in its theatrical release. Why is this movie relevant in a review for Wes Craven’s New Nightmare ? The Rick Moranis and Ed O’Neill PG-rated family movie had the distinction of being released within a week of New Nightmare . As such, I saw New Nightmare at least seven or eight times in theaters via Little Giants. I also had a VHS copy of Man’s Best Friend , the Ally Sheedy-starring Cujo-ripoff just because it was the first with a preview for Nightmare 7 before its release. For the record, I believe I watched the movie once and the opening previews at least a few dozen times. You see, somewhere between 1990 and this film’s release in 1994, I became very obsessed with horror films (healthy for an 8-year-old, huh?). When I first got wind of the newest Freddy film involving Heather Langenkamp and Wes Craven , likely through some random issue of Fangoria, I was excited. When watching it...

Here we are less than a week away from the release of the latest part of my childhood to be repackaged and resold to me. Rest assured, I will be there to see Nightmare 2010 on opening day but let us forget about that for now as I cannot say I have high hopes for it. Instead, just like every other horror and/or movie related website, I will revisit the original films and see how they hold up … or don’t. It is quite astonishing that Wes Craven was able to create such an iconic character with a budget reportedly of less than $2 million. Equally amazing is that through the various production and financial issues, the original Nightmare on Elm Street still remains as a highly regarded tentpole in the slasher subgenre twenty five years later along with the Halloween and Friday the 13th franchises. I would argue the Nightmare series did not fair as well as the Myers and Voorhees based ones due to studio interference and rushing production to maximize revenues at the expense of the stor...