I watched all the 'Scream' movies so you don't have to

With '90s nostalgia all the rage these days, Halloween fast approaching and the first three Scream films being available on Instant Netflix (I had to rent the fourth), this seemed like as opportune a time as any to revisit arguably the most popular and successful horror franchise of the Clinton era.

I saw the first three Scream films shortly after they all came out, and the more recent fourth film for the first time this week. I've never found them to be particularly scary but they are wildly entertaining. These are not great films, in fact, with the last two they start to get a little too pleased with themselves, but I like that they tried to bring something new to the genre, by stepping outside of it a bit and by offering self referential commentary about its cliches, while more often than not indulging in them.

Basically when it comes to the Scream films there is a lot of good, bad and ugly to grapple with. They can be maddening to watch at times. Are they supposed to be scary or funny? Are they supposed to be campy or clever? Sometimes, when the films are clicking all cylinders, they are all this and more but I also feel they are more conventional than their creators would like to admit.

For example, from the first movie forward the series establishes three ostensible leads (played by Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette) who we come to understand will survive every Scream film (sorry for spoiling that) and so automatically the tension is diffused (and almost non-existent in later sequels) because we know our "heroes" will improbably survive in the end.

I think this was a fatal error in the series. I get having one character who you can relate to throughout the films, most great horror series do that, but without any real stakes there are next to no real scares.

And even if these movies are mostly meant as comedic-meta takes on the horror film, they would be more compelling if they were occasionally truly terrifying.

That said, they each have some very well staged sequences and pretty fun visual gags -- I just wish they took chances more (as they almost did in part four, but more on that in a minute).

My other huge complaint is about the endings, in even the first film (which is probably the best) the action is brought to a screeching halt by overwritten monologues by the villain(s), who are always revealing themselves callously in the last act (even after hatching absurdly intricate plans which usually defy the logic of time and space).

For all of these films' riffs on the rules and conventions of horror films, they too follow a pretty predictable formula. That recipe works for the most part for me until the ends which usually lean too much on gore and threatening speeches.

Scream (1996): Director Wes Craven was really having fun here, making fun of himself and his own peers. Right from the first scene with Drew Barrymore there's an in-joke about how he hated the sequels to his original Nightmare on Elm Street. Being self-referential is almost trite now but at the time it was fresh and the original film is well-paced and plotted, although the presence of Matthew Lillard was a constant irritant to me. As is the Dewey-Gail Weathers subplot which inexplicably grows in prominence with each subsequent Scream movie. Still, the first movie is great entertaiment, if not exactly psychologically complex.

Scream 2 (1997): A pretty solid sequel that tries to do what 22 Jump Street did to a certain extent by openly acknowledging the derivative nature of sequels. Besides the more flashy set pieces and extra-meta subplot of a movie within a movie, what struck me most about the second installment is how it's a yearbook of virtually every rising star of its era. There's Sarah Michelle Gellar and Timothy Olyphant and Patrick Dempsey and Omar Epps and Portia De Rossi and I could go on and on. There was still some gas in the tank here and I like how the Campbell character's backstory continues to be a motivation for the murders.


Scream 3 (2000): Ok, here's where things start to get a little too cute. I do really like how the movie utilizes the fictional Stab 3 movie set for scares but this film has way too many unsubstantiated plot twists and inexplicable story holes. This would have been a great opportunity to kill off someone we'd expect to be safe to play with our expectations but instead this movie goes the sitcom route. Dewey and Gail dominate the film, which is a bad thing, although I did really enjoy Parker Posey's loopy performance as the big screen version of the newswoman. The ending is a real cop-out though.

Scream 4 (2011): Coming out a full 11 years after the last Scream film, you'd think Craven and company would really shake up the formula, but besides adding a few more cellphones to substitute for landlines they don't really do anything new here. This sequel is a little gorier and starts to gain momentum towards the end, until it gives up on what would be a very cool and decidedly dark ending to provide the audience once again with a feel good finale. That's a shame because they were almost onto something. I hated the fake-out openings of this film, which feel incredibly dated even though it came out just four years ago.

Still, despite all their flaws, I will give all these movies this -- they are insanely watchable, even it's in a face-palm, talk-to-the-screen in disgust sort of situation. Do I wish the "Ghostface" voice was actually scary -- yeah -- but at least these films are full of energy instead of the dreary listlessness of say, Saw.