Tag: 2000

Directed by Wes Craven [Other horror films: The Last House on the Left (1972), The Hills Have Eyes (1977), Stranger in Our House (1978), Deadly Blessing (1981), Swamp Thing (1982), Invitation to Hell (1984), The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1984), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Chiller (1985), Deadly Friend (1986), The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), Shocker (1989), The People Under the Stairs (1991), New Nightmare (1994), Vampire in Brooklyn (1995), Scream (1996), Scream 2 (1997), Cursed (2005), My Soul to Take (2010), Scream 4 (2011)]

It’s been a long while since I’ve seen Scream 3, and in fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen it once. Because of that, going into this one was a treat, as I pretty much forgot everything about it save that it took place in Hollywood. While it’s not quite as memorable as portions of the second movie were, I think Scream 3 is still an okay way to spend your time.

For being an almost two hour movie, I do think it moves at a pretty solid pace. There are segments in which there’s little in the way of murder, and the film focuses more on the investigation and the mystery, but as I was invested in the mystery (and I should say I was incorrect about someone who I thought involved), that wasn’t an issue.

Also, Sidney (Neve Campbell) has a somewhat smaller role in this film, but toward the finale, she certainly puts the work in, so it’s not something that’s really a negative. I think it helped that they brought back both Dewey and Gale – even if it’s not the familiar faces we might want to be focused on, we still care about where their storyline is taking them.

The movie does feel a bit neutered insofar as the kills go, though. I mean, it’s not like the original movie was particularly gory, but this just feels light in the way so many slashers from around the same time period felt (such as Valentine, Urban Legend, and Cherry Falls). Given I was interested in the mystery, and figuring out who the killer is, it wasn’t something that took that much away, but I definitely noticed that this veered a bit more comedic (though still within reason), seemingly in exchange for better kills.

Though she’s not really the focus for half of the film, it’s always nice to see Neve Campbell (The Dark). The movie throws more at her character, and it’s all a good time (especially that chase in the mock Woodsboro). Both David Arquette (Eight Legged Freaks) and Courteney Cox were quality, though I have to admit, I’m still not a big fan of Cox’s character. Patrick Dempsey was a fun character also, and definitely one to make your suspect list.

Because it’s a meta movie that takes place in Hollywood, there are actors here who play counterparts – for instance, since I’m awful at words, Parker Posey plays a fictional version of Gale. It’s a fun dynamic – Posey (Frankenstein) doesn’t get along with her real-life counterpart at all, and Emily Mortimer (Relic) did sort of feel like Sidney circa the first Scream. Though not every actor character does much, such as Deon Richmond (Hatchet) and Matt Keeslar, it was still a fun element to mess around with.

There are some additional familiar faces here – Liev Schreiber (The Omen, Phantoms) reprises his role as Cotton Weary, Jamie Kennedy made a surprising return as Randy via a videotape he made, and Lance Henriksen (Man’s Best Friend, The Pit and the Pendulum, In the Spider’s Web, Damien: Omen II, Gehenna: Where Death Lives, Mansion of the Doomed, Hellraiser: Hellworld) showed up for some reason. I mean, don’t get me wrong, his character is important, but I entirely forgot he was in this movie.

I don’t know Scott Foley, but he was pretty solid here. Two other faces, though, are ones I do know, being Heather Matarazzo in a single scene, and I recognized her immediately from Hostel: Part II, and then we have Patrick Warburton (Better Watch Out, and voice actor in Kim Possible, one of the best cartoons of all time). As soon as I heard Warburton’s voice, I knew it was him, so it was a nice surprise to see him pop up, and not in just a single scene either.

So we have a tamer story that seems to focus more on the mystery than the kills, and while that might disappoint some, like I said, I tend to think this is just as good as the second movie. The finale isn’t amazing, but it got the job done, and though it’s probably one of the most generic of the Scream films, it’s still not a bad sequel at all.

7/10

Directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans [Other horror films: Scary Movie 2 (2001)]

I’ve never really been a fan of parody films, which ties into the fact that once the comedy in a movie is too goofy, my interest level dries up. Naturally, this doesn’t bode well for Scary Movie, because it’s really just way too goofy for me to enjoy whatsoever.

What’s interesting is that I recently revisited Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth, another post-Scream parody movie, and I had an okay time. I still rated it below average, yes, but there were some legitimately funny scenes and quotable quotes in that movie that I dug a lot.

I can’t say what’s different about the humor here, but Scary Movie wasn’t anywhere near as fun. There were some amusing ideas, and I’ll touch on them in a bit, but I had a lot more fun with Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth. For one, I don’t think SIYKWIDLFtT was quite as over-the-top as this, and perhaps more importantly, there’s not a whole ton of gross-out comedy in that film, while Scary Movie does have some present (which isn’t my type of humor at all).

To expand on that, there were jokes dealing with women characters having testicles (well, technically the character was a man, but people thought he was a woman, so whateves), wild pubic hair (which was done away with by electric garden shears), a blast of semen that plasters someone to the ceiling, and naturally, plenty of flatulence jokes, because that lowbrow humor works for some. It’s just not my type of comedy, and I don’t really like seeing it. Gross, sexual humor isn’t my type of thing.

Now, I can say that I enjoyed the ending of the film. No, not the horrible Matrix-inspired scenes, but the last couple of minutes. I’ve seen this movie before, but I actually forgot who the killer was (and in fact, wasn’t sure if this would even reveal who the killer was), so when it then copied the end of The Usual Suspects (which I’ve seen plenty of times, and actually watched a couple of weeks ago, at the time of this writing), I cracked up. That was pretty funny, and I didn’t see it coming.

Though it didn’t have much in the way of substance, I did enjoy some of the humor around Ray’s character (played by Shawn Wayans), who was a ‘closeted’ gay guy, and related, while it didn’t add a hell of a lot to the movie, seeing Marlon Wayans cackle at everything was sort of amusing too. But when it comes to comedic high points, Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth has this one beat, and it’s not even close.

Anna Faris is one of the few here I actually liked. Regina Hall’s character annoyed the hell out of me, Dave Sheridan’s (Camp Twilight, Bloody Summer Camp, Blood Craft) Doofy was way too stupid for me, and Lochlyn Munro (Freddy vs. Jason, The Blackburn Asylum) unable to stand out. In fact, most people here, from Shannon Elizabeth (Jack Frost, Thir13en Ghosts) and Jon Abrahams (House of Wax, They) to Cheri Oteri and Rick Ducommun, weren’t notable. Again, both Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans occasionally cracked me up, but neither added much, and Faris, while consistent, didn’t add a whole lot either.

Largely focusing on parodying Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer (though not afraid to reference other popular films, such as The Blair Witch Project, American Pie, The Matrix, and The Sixth Sense), the story was about what you’d expect. Now, again, I want to give props to the ending. Again, I have seen this movie before, but it’s been so damn long, I truly didn’t see that coming, which surprised me.

Even so, much of the humor of Scary Movie just didn’t do much for me. I didn’t really have that much fun here. For the right group of people, Scary Movie could work, but as for me? Yeah, I’ll stick with Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th.

4/10

Directed by James Wong [Other horror films: Final Destination 3 (2006)]

While I’ve never had it in me to find Final Destination an amazing movie, I have always held to the opinion that it’s both pretty fresh, in terms of plot, and generally a solid movie. It’s not great, but Final Destination has a lot going for it, and is worth giving a shot.

If there’s any flaw, it could be said that some of the performances aren’t great. Though most of them are okay most of the time, lead Devon Sawa (of Idle Hands fame) was occasionally shaky. That may partially be due to the fact his character was somewhat illogical during portions of the film, so that may just be on me. Others that do well include Ali Larter (House on Haunted Hill), Chad Donella, Kerr Smith (My Bloody Valentine), and Tony Todd (Candyman). Though his character wasn’t that memorable, I also enjoyed seeing Seann William Scott (American Pie) throughout.

The idea of death as an antagonistic force works pretty well here. It seems quite innovative, and definitely something that hasn’t really been seen before. It also makes things tougher for these characters – while it’s not easy, one could feasibly avoid Jason or Freddy, but to avoid death, the lengths one has to take would be quite trying.

I do sort of wish we got more information on Tony Todd’s character, but for a single scene appearance, I guess I was okay with the information that he gave. Well, that and he was also quite quotable (“…and you don’t even want to fuck with that Mack Daddy”), so while I wish we knew more, it’s not all bad.

The elaborate death scenes were all reasonably fun, the most enjoyable probably being the broken mug/alcohol dripping into a computer/computer blowing up/things get fucked sequence about halfway through. Earlier, when someone gets a wire wrapped around their neck and struggles for footing was pretty solid too. Can’t complain about that decapitation; the most shocking, though, has to be the quick hit-by-a-bus scene. Beautifully done.

Also worth mentioning, the opening disaster (being an airplane crash) takes only a handful of minutes, somewhat unlike later films that would add a bit more detail in. The vision of the crash still looks great, and wonderfully frantic and horrifying, but I even noticed when watching it that it didn’t quite feel as involved as later opening disasters did.

One last note, I sort of like the different variations of “Rocky Mountain High” that pop up right before an unfortunate accident befalls someone. It’s a catchy song anyway, and the fact that Death apparently listens to John Denver is okay by me.

Final Destination has never been a movie I utterly loved, but I have always liked them trying something new, and by-and-large, and I think that it worked out well.

7.5/10

Directed by John Blanchard [Other horror films: N/A]

I have to admit that I didn’t go into this one with the best mindset. Though I’ve seen this parody movie before, it’s been a hell of a long time, and never having been much a fan of the comedy from Scary Movie, I didn’t think this rewatch would go that well.

And of course, surprising me, I found that I enjoyed this one a bit more than I thought. By no means is Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth a great movie, but it did have it’s amusing portions, and I will fully fess up to laughing a decent amount throughout the film, and more so, it parodies films such as Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer generally well.

Just to spout off a few of these, a girl calls her brother (this film’s answer to Dewey) a “dork,” to which he replies, “dyke.” Cue another girl (who is suspected to be a lesbian) to ask, her voice interested, “What?” It’s quick, it’s simple, but it still cracks me up. Or how we get multiple flashbacks from different perspectives of what each of the central characters are hiding (“Seems gene splicing is all the rage”), which was sort of clever.

Some of the humor shines through simple quotes (such as “24 Hour Pizza – if we’re not here in 24 hours, we’re not coming” and a student overhearing a teacher ask “Do you know where I can get an unregistered handgun?”), while others from just wacky scenarios (such as the Mentos parody, complete with the cheesy music, or the race between the killer and Majandra Delfino’s character). I think what got me the most was, during a “Greased Lightnin’” parody (“Greased Frightnin’” should you be curious), a stupid fucking dance this guy was doing. It was just so goofy.

So sure, maybe the humor here isn’t sophisticated (that German Club “Seig Heil” for instance), but about 45% of the time, it works. That doesn’t mean the other 55% isn’t without merit – it’s still a goofy, watchable parody, as I suspect most of the Scary Movie sequels tend to be (I have actually seen the second, third, and fourth, though I barely remember a thing about any of these).

As far as performances go, I only really want to bring up Majandra Delfino because she rocked the short hair look (and actually, briefly reminded me of Brittany Murphy in Cherry Falls). The others were decent – Harley Cross was sort of generic, but Simon Rex was fun, and Danny Strong was certainly something – but no one stood out like Delfino. Tom Arnold was sort of painful, as was Tiffani Thiessen, but that’s just the nature of over-the-top parody characters, so I don’t fault them for this.

And while I generally found the final twenty minutes the least engaging in the film, I did rather dig the song that played during a chase scene, being “Pretty in Pink” by The Grown Ups (a cover of the Psychedelic Furs song). This sequence was, I’m guessing, a parody of some video pop-up-facts-type thing from MTV, and was generally amusing (“The actor playing Dawson is afraid of heights. The director got him drunk and dared him to do the scene,” is one that I laughed at).

This isn’t my type of movie, and I definitely found some portions trying and not particularly amusing. All-in-all, though, it wasn’t a bad watch, and though I found it below average, I honestly sort of found some of this worth it.

6/10

Directed by Geoffrey Wright [Other horror films: N/A]

For a long time, this movie would always come to mind when I thought of my favorite post-Scream slashers, and while others that also made the list have dropped down in my appreciation (such as Urban Legend and Valentine), Cherry Falls is still a movie I have a decent amount of fun with.

Certainly the idea alone is worth it – a mysterious killer going around and killing only virgins. I think a decent amount more could have been down with this outline, and I don’t disagree with the idea that, more often than not, Cherry Falls fails to really follow through on the more potentially sleazy moments (though, to be fair, what post-Scream slashers didn’t?), but even so, the basic plot is fun.

What really adds to this is the mystery behind the killer. Past a certain point, it may be somewhat obvious who the killer is, but I definitely find the backstory quite compelling and pretty sympathetic, and brings to mind Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II with a secret being held by some of the adults of the film. Somewhat related, I did feel somewhat sour about the conclusion, as the lie is continued as opposed to revealed, so not all is perfect.

Brittany Murphy (Deadline, Across the Hall, The Prophecy II, Something Wicked) isn’t a name I really know, but I do quite love her as the central character. She has a great look to her, and I find her spunky attitude admirable. Alas, she died young in 2009, which I find a shame. Playing her father is Michael Biehn (Aliens, The Seventh Sign, Bereavement, The Insatiable, Psych:9, She Rises), who may come across a bit generic at times, but he seems suitable enough, and I have no complaints.

Though he didn’t have a lot to do, I did find Keram Malicki-Sánchez’s (Texas Chainsaw 3D) performance pretty fun, and he seemed pretty chill with Brittany Murphy. Perhaps most enjoyable is mild-mannered teacher Jay Mohr (The Orchard), who I don’t know outside of this movie, but ends up being a lot of fun, and he comes across as one of those teachers and mentors that won’t soon be forgotten.

The violence throughout the film does feel a bit muted (in much the same way the nudity does –  mean, seriously, during that giant “orgy,” there’s not one topless woman?), but because the mystery and characters are all pretty solid, that doesn’t bother me as much as it did in films like Urban Legend or Valentine. Plus, Biehn’s awkward conversation with his daughter, Murphy, about whether or not she’s a virgin is so horrendous it makes up for any other faults the movie might have.

Cherry Falls seems to have largely fallen under the radar as far as post-Scream slashers go, and I really think it’s a shame, as I certainly find aspects of it better than more well-known films such as the aforementioned Urban Legend and Valentine. Does Cherry Falls feel a little, for lack of a better word, cheap, at times? Maybe, but at least it’s fun, and save some complaints about the ending and that final befuddling scene of the waterfall, I’ve always enjoyed this, and likely will into the foreseeable future.

7.5/10

This is one of the films covered by Fight Evil’s podcast. Listen below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss Cherry Falls.

Directed by Janusz Kaminski [Other horror films: N/A]

I wasn’t really expecting too much out of this, given what little I knew about the plot (an atheist journalist finds out he’s the Antichrist, essentially), and also given this came out a year after End of Days, another Antichrist-based horror film, so after finishing it, Lost Souls basically went how I thought it would.

Certainly I’ll admit that it’s nice to see Winona Ryder (Beetle Juice and Alien: Resurrection) and John Hurt (Doctor Who and Whistle and I’ll Come to You), both of whom did an okay job, and I didn’t mind the other performances, though Ben Chaplin, despite being most of the focus of the film, never really resonated with me.

That said, the story, while occasionally interesting (the most enjoyable portions being the short time spent with Ryder and Chaplin investigating Chaplin’s origins), felt really rushed at times. I mean, that ending just came and went like zat, as my homegirl Fleur would say (that’s a random Harry Potter reference for all my wizard friends out there). There were some aspects in the story worth delving into (though no matter how hard this tried, it couldn’t beat Damien: Omen II in the Antichrist learning his origins), but that didn’t really happen here, even with the pointless twists thrown in.

Also, I just don’t buy for a second that all of those people at the end knew Chaplin’s character was the Antichrist his whole life and were able to keep it a secret. With that many random people, I don’t care how secure the cult, word would get out.

I feel like this movie was trying to cash in on the whole End of Days and Stigmata trend (Stigmata is a film I started once, but never got around to finishing, on a dull side-note I can pass off as interesting), and while I did like this marginally more than End of Days, maybe solely for Ryder’s presence and maybe that assassination attempt (which was almost tense), it’s not a hell of a lot more than below average.

5.5/10