Scream 4 Review

When I heard Wes Craven was confirmed to make a Scream 4, I was actually excited and didn’t groan the way I usually do at the news of a sequel/remake/prequel etc.  Scream was probably the highlight of Craven’s career – what better person to do a satire on slashers then the very director who helped propel the genre with classics such as The Hills Have Eyes and A Nightmare On Elm Street?  I loved the first Scream, it was refreshingly clever, with quirky characters and lots of blood, breaking the rules and revamping a tired genre while introducing slashers to a whole new generation of horror buffs.  Scream 2 I didn’t mind, but I always felt that Scream 3 was a missed opportunity to complete the series.  Ironically, Scream 3 could not escape the trilogy curse – and fell flat on its face, failing to keep up the genre it fought so hard to keep alive.

But Scream 4 had promise – enough time had passed to believe that Craven and writer Kevin Williamson wanted to do justice to the series, and end on a high note.  The original cast was back; even Courteney Cox and ex-husband David Arquette were willing to reunite.

The first minutes of Scream 4 brings us back to what we love about the series: the sequel-within-a-sequel-within a sequel sequence is clever, zipping through a host of appearances by the latest in pop pretty faces: Anna Paguin (True Blood), Kristen Bell (Heroes) and Shenae Grimes (90210) to name a few.  Before you can say “scantily clad blond” the first victims have fallen, and Ghostface is back with a scream.

Our favourite heroine, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), returns to Woodsboro on the last leg of her book tour for Out of Darkness: a tale of how she survived the Ghostface murders.  Her return brings out a copycat killer, and this time Ghostface goes after Sidney as well as her long lost family: her aunt Kate (Mary McDonnell looking pretty weathered since fighting cylons on Battlestar Gallactica) and cousin Jill (Emma Roberts, Hotel for Dogs).  Sheriff Dwight ‘Dewey’ Riley (Arquette) is not-so-quick on the scene, but tries to hold it together, despite having to ward off the persistent inquiries of his wife, ex-reporter Gale Weathers (Cox).  Together the old team hunt down and try to solve the new wave of Ghostface murders as the usual crop of victims are killed off in fantastically bloody ways.

An array of smart-ass Kevin Williamson characters add some more flavour to the mix.  Hayden Panettiere is surprisingly good – Heroes alluded to her being a one-note actress but with an edgy new haircut and attitude, she made a pretty cool character out of Jill’s friend, Kirby Reed.  Alison Brie (Mad Men, Community) is frickin’ hilarious as Sidney’s bitchy, over-the-top publicist.  Rory Culkin and Canadian Erik Knudsen play film club students Charlie Walker and Robbie Mercer – the film geek role that originally belonged to Jamie Kennedy as Randy.  Robbie films campus life live, streaming directly online via his helmet cam, and along with some other social media references sprinkled throughout, they attempt to make the film relevant – Ghostface App anyone?  Out of all the characters however, I found Sidney kind of disappointing.  Her character really lacked the strength of the previous installments and she seems neither that surprised nor too pissed off that Ghostface is after her again, and it feels as though Sidney is just going through the same old “fight-off-the-killer-in-the-cheap-costume” routine.

The film becomes a little disjointed in parts, succumbing to the very monster it mocks and unable to break out of its self aware mold.  The narrative becomes lost amongst characters who try to explain their motives with all the rules and exceptions of sequels when really, there aren’t any, and no one seems to care anyway.  The film zips along  at a fun pace, with Ghostface popping up and killing with even more zeal and ferocity than ever before.   When the killer is revealed in the end, it’s a bit far fetched but satisfying enough; it is a sequel after all.  In the end, nothing will beat the first Scream, but this one definitely helps us forget about Scream 3.

I Spit On Your Grave Unrated 2010 Review

Released: 2010                 Directed by: Steven R. Monroe            Cast: Chad Lindberg, Sarah Butler and Daniel Franzese

I Spit On Your Grave Unrated is one of the best horror remakes I have ever seen. Usually, I refuse to see most remakes, especially if the original still holds up ie. Nightmare On Elm Street.  However, for the remake of I Spit On Your Grave, I was intrigued from the beginning.

The original 1978 film Day of the Woman by Meir Zarchi became a cult classic over the years mostly due to its cultural significance.  The film was one of the first rape/revenge films that allowed for the woman to gain power, attempting to reverse the audience’s voyeuristic gaze onto the man.  Apart from this however, the film is viewed as a bad movie: poorly shot, with terrible acting stemming from a bad script.  This is the kind of film that screams for a remake, an opportunity to improve the original, but also a challenge to provide a satisfying revenge to a more desensitized audience.

The story remains the same.  A woman from the city, Jennifer Hills, arrives in a small town to rent a cottage for the summer so she can work on her novel.  She encounters some local rednecks, and they stalk her, break into her cottage, and then proceed to sexually abuse and gang rape her.  She later seeks her revenge, by torturing and finally killing each of them.

The remake starts off the same as the original and is nicely shot in the same style with muted colours, and a grainy film quality.  Sarah Butler is very well cast as the new Jennifer, a quiet but strong screen presence that we emphasize with and later cheer for.  The first half of the film is slightly different than the original but not enough to really notice.  A crooked sheriff is introduced into the mix, allowing for a longer build up in the first half, strengthening the narrative.  The original rape scenes were shot borderline pornographically, but the remake holds back, understanding what is necessary to depict for scenes that are already disturbing enough.

The transition to the second half of the film is wisely adjusted to be longer.  Jennifer disappears for a month after the ordeal, allowing for a more logical approach to the story in an attempt to explain how she becomes strong and plots out her revenge plan.  The tension is allowed to build and the voyeurism slowly switches over to the female viewer, as the male characters now become the victims.  The second part of the film is when Jennifer returns to enact her revenge on the rednecks, and she does so with a much fiercer force than the original.  The original was heavily criticized for the way in which Jennifer seduces the men first before killing them, taking away some of the satisfaction from a female point of view by degrading her further before her redemption.  In the remake, the revenge is much sweeter because she does not seduce them but returns as an unstoppable force.  Jennifer encompasses the role of the hero, giving the female viewer someone to cheer for.  Her actions are validated because of the need to balance out the horrors of the first half of the film, making the revenge scenes much more satisfying.  The tables are fully turned here for once, modernizing the film and allowing the female viewer to enjoy the male voyeuristic position.   Unlike torture porn horror such as Saw and Hostel, the revenge scenes are not just glorified violence but are creatively brutal, mirroring the attacks on her and directly relating to each of the redneck characters.

I Spit On Your Grave Unrated succeeds as a remake for it not only successfully modernizes the violence but transcends the horror genre by accomplishing what the original could not: reversing the gaze from the female to the male and opening the doors to a new kind of voyeurism.