Camfrog Blogs

Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts

Scream 3

The trilogy is as old as the ancient Greeks. In their time the convention consisted of three tragedies performed in succession followed by a satyr (tragicomedy)¹. The (modified) form has since been adopted in novels (The Lord of the Rings pub.1954-55), poems (The Spanish Trilogy pub. 1913²) and film.

Film is the bastard cousin of the arts of storytelling because it alone is created primarily as a source of commerce. The art in film is despite the motion picture industry not because of it. As such sequels quickly appeared in the history of the movies: the first feature length film is the Australian The Story of the Kelly Gang 1906³; the first feature length sequel is the American The Fall of a Nation 1916⁴.

Hollywood produced repetitive sequels which formed incidental series such as the Tarzan, Dracula and the Wolfman films. It wasn’t until Star Wars (parts 4-6) that the industry packaged the trilogy as a brand.

In the 90s Hollywood discovered the vociferous appetite of the home video sell-thru market. To wit consumers are prepared to buy bad films as long as they are packaged with good ones eg The Godfather trilogy. Thus the trilogy is good for business.

However Hollywood is not in the business of producing trilogies. Hollywood produces sequels that lead to series. If two of these sequels are made the series is marketed as a trilogy. Yet such is the avarice of the industry that this does not stop more sequels being produced in the same series (Alien 1979 – Alien: Resurrection 1997).

Red White and Blue

A true example of a trilogy is Three Colours directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski. To watch these films is to witness the art of cinema in the knowledge that they cannot be mass marketed to an English language audience. Another example is the Dead trilogy. Each film is connected by theme and separated by time with ill attempt to accommodate the market.

Therefore the ‘trilogy’ is a marketing ploy of an industry with a scorched earth policy. That is to beat a horse to death and then flog it. The horse in this analogy is the narrative. Indiana Jones will do in the next film what he did in the last one.

There was a respectful lapse between Scream 2 1997 and Scream 3 2000. There was enough time to make a sequel. Kevin Williamson was otherwise engaged on a TV project so writing duties fell to Ehren Kruger.

It all fell apart from there.

Prior to Scream 3 Kruger had proved himself penning Arlington Road 1999 – a credible psychological drama. After Scream 3 he proved himself again by writing The Skeleton Key 2005 – a quiet and effective horror yarn. What these two films have in common is intent and purpose. Their respective stories are linear and focussed.

The Scream films have no plot to boast about. They are constructs to deconstruct. Hence they are a series of vignettes dotted together by thin story. It is within these parameters that Kruger fails. With no plot to speak of the urgency must be in the characters, dialogue and individual scenes. Kruger fails on all three fronts.

If Scream 2 had the new character of Joel the cameraman – played by Duane Martin – then Scream 3 has Jennifer Jolie played by Parker Posey (she used to be a somebody⁵). Jennifer plays the role of Gail Weathers in Stab 3. Scream 3 is a film within a film – a metafilm. It’s not confusing. It’s irritating – much like Posey’s character.

The Scream 3 cast

Kruger’s observations about trilogies are neither insightful nor revealing. They are invented for the purposes of this film. The concept of metafilm is not developed or explored. It is solely used as a sight gag. The audience is invited to laugh at unknown actors dressed up as the original cast – and no more.

Krueger is a proven better writer than Williamson but he’s no good at irreverence. The dialogue is scattershot and hysteria. The attempts at commenting on the industry via the Lance Henriksen character lead to nowhere. None of the kills are memorable.

Four weeks into filming Back to the Future 1986 director Robert Zemeckis and producer Steven Spielberg fired lead actor Eric Stoltz and replaced him with Michael J Fox⁶. Wes Craven should not have shot the Kruger script.

The wrestler Matt Morgan turned up at Ohio Valley Wrestling. Kenny Bolin, one of the executives, was surprised to see him. Morgan was supposed to be at WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment).

“What are you doing here?” Bolin said.

“The writers didn’t have anything for me,” Morgan replied.

“So they fired you?” Bolin said. “Fire the fucking writers.”

Kenny Bolin of Bolin Services

Scream is a one film trilogy because the concept is a one trick pony. With the release of Scream 4 2011 at least they can drop ‘trilogy’ and start calling it a ~~series~~ franchise.

Scream 4 opens 15^th April. Advance word from the critics is in the middle^{7 8}.

Read more Thrill Fiction: Before Wes Craven Screamed

1 The Oresteia of Aeschylus public domain at InternetArchive

2 The Spanish Trilogy The Washington Post

3 first feature film Associated Content

4 The Story of Hollywood

5 Parker Posey Wikipedia

6 Back to the Future Wikipedia

7 Scream 4 Rotten Tomatoes

8 Metacritc

Technorati Tags:scream 3, ehren kruger, horror films, the scream trilogy, sequels, trilogies
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Scream 2

The first feature length sequel was a flop. The Fall of a Nation 1916 followed the notoriously racist The Birth of a Nation 1915. The studio involved (with the former) went bust five years later having made the one film¹. The first American horror sequel is Bride of Frankenstein 1935. It was a commercial success. Blogger Ricky Sprague says it’s better than the original. He’s not the only one².

Business is synonym for profit and sequels are good business. In horror’s golden 30s two of Universal’s monsters – Frankenstein and Dracula – headlined five movies. In the renaissance 80s Freddy, Jason and Michael Myers headlined 17. In this 21^st century boom there have been 7 Saw movies.

Sequels are not good for creativity.

These films suck

There are sequels on a creative par with their originals (The Godfather Part 2 1974, Aliens 1986, Terminator 2 1991) but the exception is not the rule. Likewise while there are examples that outperform their predecessors³ the projected gross of a sequel is 75% of the original. Its simple arithmetic: Scream 1996 amassed a worldwide box office of $173million⁴ ($243m adjusted for inflation). The business demanded a sequel.

The Star Wars trilogies are a perfect example of sequels. There’s a three year interval between each film and there’s a reason for this: screenwriting guru Syd Fields⁵ suggests a spec script be written over a 12-18 month period. The average Hollywood movie has a 13 week shoot⁶. Post production including editing can take up to a year for soft deadlines. Thus from first draft to final cut the incubation of a motion picture is about 2½ -3 years. A shorter length is to the detriment of the film. The audience pays for it.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge 1985 hit theatres 357 days after the original. Despite its betrayal of the mythology created by Wes Craven in his 1984 landmark I have sympathy for both writer and director for attempting to further the story in a new direction. However the mistakes and missteps are glaring. I believe given time to develop the script they would have made a great movie. Nevertheless it is hated by the Elm Street fan base.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 box office receipts equated to 113%⁷ (adjusted for inflation) to that of the original.

Scream 2 1997 was released 357 days after Scream.

The Drew Barrymore curtain raiser is the most famous sequence in Scream (and subsequently the franchise). In their attempt to duplicate it Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven were establishing a tradition – much like the James Bond openings and to a lesser extent the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.

The Barrymore sequence is a carbon copy of the opening scenes of When a Stranger Calls 1979. In Scream 2 the Stab curtain raiser is lifted from the dénouement of Popcorn 1991. In 1996 the Scream audience – myself included – weren’t aware of When a Stranger Calls but neither were the critics⁸. In 1997 the Scream 2 audience weren’t – and still aren’t – aware of Popcorn. A pilfered opening can be defended as an in-joke. It can’t be defended twice.

The opening does not work. Where Scream had Drew Barrymore Scream 2 had Jada Pinkett. She is not a star now and she wasn’t a star then. Like Kate Capshaw she is best known as a wife. Her acting was stiff and she had zero chemistry with her co-star. Omar Epps is a proven talent but neither he nor Wes Craven could coax an appropriate performance from Jada. Pinkett is a worthy actress⁹ but in this role she was miscast. Vulnerable is not her forte.

Black Power

Jada was not the only cast member rendered awkward. Neve Campbell was only 24 when Scream 2 was made yet she looked older than her similarly aged co-stars. Perhaps it was that ill judged hair-do. College freshmen don’t go for the politician’s wife look. As for Jerry O’Connell he beggars belief as Sidney’s boyfriend. The Topgun 1986 ‘parody’ could only be written by a gay man or a Hindi. It’s still cringe inducing 14 years after.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is horror royalty and a Final Girl¹⁰ but her casting looks like star padding. The Drew Barrymore scenes signalled anyone could die in Scream. Sarah Michelle’s extended cameo is Barrymore redux. This was the signal the franchise had run out of invention. Gellar and Jada should have switched roles.

The cumulative effect is a cast that do not display the chemistry and familiarity that the originals did. It’s only when the Scream survivors interact that the film comes alive. When Jamie Kennedy’s character dies the emotional investment dies with him.

money in the blood bank: Scream 2 queens (l-r) Heather Graham, Neve Campbell, Jada Pinkett, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Tori Spelling

The plot for Scream 2 is ghostface stalks Sidney Prescott and will kill everyone including her friends who get in the way of his slashing her. It’s the same plot as the original. The difference is in Scream the convoluted execution is forgiven due to the wit of the script. It’s a movie where the horror/action set pieces are a vehicle to connect the dramatic scenes of genre deconstruction amidst comedy. No one cares who the killer is.

Scream 2 makes a brave attempt under constrained circumstances. The film class scene is amongst the best written in the franchise. The Laurie Metcalf character is a good addition. The subplot of fame seeking is astute if underdeveloped. Therein lies the problem; not enough time to develop the script; not enough time in casting; not enough time for a sequel.

Scream 2 grossed a North American $101million¹¹ ($138m adjusted); 96% of the originals domestic tally.

Sequels are not good for creativity but the business demanded another one.

La Casa Muda

The Blair Witch Project 1999 is not the first found footage movie. Amongst others preceding it is The Last Broadcast¹ 1998. However Blair Witch was the first film of its type to attract the public’s attention.

So successful was the film that its ‘type’ is now a subgenre. Point-of-View (POV)/ first person/cinema vérité/found footage was revolutionary in 1999 when the film first screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Smoke signals drifted from America over to England but it wasn’t clear if this was documentary or fiction. The smoke signals were hazy.

It wasn’t clear in America either. Blair Witch opened wide July 30^th. By the time it was released in the UK (October 22^nd) it had done $140 million² domestic ($184m adjusted for inflation). Its success was reminiscent of Orson Welles’ 1938 broadcast War of the Worlds and coincided with a period of hysteria that comes once every thousand years. The gross result was a worldwide box office total of $248 million² ($326m adjusted).

Hollywood is a business. It was time to add another business model called the POV movie. The nature of the commercial beast means there will always be more opportunists than auteurs. So when a subgenre comes in vogue (eg torture porn) more dross is produced than quality movies. No one remembers Head Case 2007. POV movies are announced with irritating regularity over the news wires.

Yet what was revolutionary in 1999 remains dynamic in 2011. The POV film is a valid style of storytelling when applied to the narrative. For example in [●REC] 2007 the film was shown through the lens of a TV cameraman on the job. In Apollo 18 2012 the astronauts helm the camera – as astronauts have always taken cameras with them.

The legacy of Blair Witch lives in the success of low budget independent filmmakers. Oren Peli shot Paranormal Activity 2009 on a home video camera with a $15k budget. The audience responded with a $197 million³ worldwide gross. Foreign filmmakers have benefitted too. [●REC] was successful enough to spawn a sequel and an American remake. La Casa Muda 2010 has also spawned an American remake – starring one of the Olsen ~~twins~~ sisters.

La Casa Muda premiered last year in Cannes and similar to the Sundance screening of Blair Witch it has been making noises ever since. This is POV film without found footage. There is an invisible cameraman recording events which begs the question why use POV? Perhaps the filmmakers were aware of their irrational use of style so to camouflage the fact they added a further gimmick: they claim this is a one-shot movie a là Rope 1948 by Alfred Hitchcock.

Rope is not a one-shot movie and neither is La Casa Muda. The gimmick is nigh impossible to pull off and when it has been done (Russian Ark⁴ 2002) it turns out to be nothing but a white elephant in widescreen. Film theory critics may effusive over this sort of celluloid indulgence but film theory critics effusive over Citizen Kane 1941.

No one else does.

Strike three for La Casa Muda is the ‘based on a true story’ tagline. Autobiographies are not based on true stories and anything in front of a camera is faked. The true events purportedly happened in ‘a small village’ in Uruguay in the ‘40s. Whatever happened in that village cannot nearly be accurately depicted onscreen. The ‘true story’ tag is another marketing gimmick. The cumulative effect of this three pronged publicity strategy worked. La Casa Muda has the world’s attention:

Florencia Colucci

Teenager Laura accompanies her father on a job to renovate a rural cottage. It is when they bunker down for the night that they come under siege from unseen forces.

Florencia Colucci plays Laura as a daddy’s girl in a tomboy outfit. She’s likeable sans makeup and sensuality even as her character disintegrates into feral panic. The story is not a bad one but it is badly told. Due to the POV format it dredges into torpor.

It is telling that the best ~~scene~~ section of the film is at the beginning: the exterior shot induces isolation without it being sinister. The accompanying score compliments the sojourn toward the silent house.

La Casa Muda fails in its remit to entertain but as disappointing as this film is the American version is bound to be worse.

La Casa Muda goes on general release in the UK on April 8^th. There is no release date for the US however the remake The Silent House 2011 is to be announced.

Read more Thrill Fiction: Re/Made in the USA:Let Me In

1 The Last Broadcast 1998 Google Video

2 The Blair Witch Project The Numbers

3 Paranormal Activity The Numbers

4 Russian Ark (trailer) Youtube

Technorati Tags:la casa muda, florencia colucci, the blair witch project, found footage films, pov films, horror films
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Wes Craven's Scream

Due to its box office bonanza the independently made Halloween 1978 seized the attention of Hollywood. John Carpenter and Debra Hill’s film grossed a worldwide $70 million¹ - $243m in today’s language.

If there were 70s movie brats² then there were 70s horror bastards. George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead 1968 removed horror from the classic/gothic and cemented it in the contemporary psyche: horror was not to be observed – it is to be experienced. In Romero’s wake Wes Craven made The Last House on the Left 1972, Tobe Hooper filmed The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974 and John Carpenter helmed Halloween.

Hollywood weren’t the only ones mesmerised by the Halloween box office. Sean S Cunningham, the producer of The Last House on the Left, recounts in Going to Pieces: The Rise of the Slasher Film 2006 how he intended to extend the concept of Halloween to its extreme: to show as much gore as was ~~tastefully~~ legally possible.

So he produced and directed Friday the 13^th 1980 which took almost $60million³ ($168m adjusted) worldwide. That film was distributed by Paramount. A Hollywood punt had paid off. The rest of the industry jumped on the bandwagon.

There’s gold in them thar hills.

Let the mainstream accuse the 80s of excess and let the horror folk remember it as the renaissance. That decade birthed folklore in Freddy, Jason, Chucky and Pinhead. It was inventive with An American Werewolf in London 1981, Poltergeist 1982 and Monkey Shines 1988. It catered to a youth market. It was a good time to be a teenager.

It was also a time of opportunism. Output was laden with rip-offs (My Bloody Valentine 1981), sequels (Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers 1989), and direct-to-video exploitation (Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland 1989⁴). At the end of the 80s the creative boom had led to bust. Inevitably so did profitability.

Western culture shifted in the 90s. Reagan was retired and Thatcher was deposed. The media promulgated a more caring sharing decade. Horror movies took notice. The People Under the Stairs 1991 directed by Wes Craven and Candyman 1992 espoused social issues. This was reminiscent of 70s horror and hinted at the genre being cyclical in popularity.

As successful as these films were^{5 6} this was not to be the case. There were two movies indicative of a broken cycle: Popcorn 1991⁷ satirised the genre. Its finger was pointed not at horror films themselves but at the audience. Said audience rewarded it with a domestic box office of $4.2 million. Back in 1991 that was a flop ($6.8m today).

Wes Craven’s NewNightmare 1994 was an exploration of the Freddy phenomena in a fictional context masquerading as reality. It threatened to break kayfabe but didn’t. It never winked at its audience. It never cracked a smile. It also flopped.

New Nightmare’s original ideas can be found in Wes Craven (and Bruce Wagner’s) 1^st draft of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors written in 1986⁸. New Line Cinema rejected the story. It turned out they were right to. The audience was not ready in the 80s. They were not ready in 1994.

Then along came Scream 1996.

Nothing can convince me Kevin Williamson had not seen Popcorn and was inspired to write his own take. This in itself is not a criticism. The criticism comes in his not acknowledging it.

There have been instances of lifting/borrowing/inspiration/plagiarism throughout cinema history; Walter Hill (The Driver 1978) swore he had never seen Le Samuoraï 1967; Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs 1992) kept mute re City on Fire 1987 until challenged by the press. The opening scene of Jeepers Creepers 2001 is carbon copied from an episode of Unsolved Mysteries⁹.

Scream’s curtain raiser itself is homage to When a Stranger Calls 1979 though this was acknowledged after the fact. Within the now famous Drew Barrymore sequence a packet of popcorn plays a prominent role. It’s an insider reference – not an admission. Be that as it may though Scream’s concept and template is identikit to Popcorn there is a difference.

In 1989 Vince McMahon of the WWE (then WWF) admitted wrestling is scripted (fake). In the 90s there were TV shows that exposed trade secrets: one of the more infamous was Breaking the Magician’s Code 1997 in the age of David Copperfield. In 1995 the DVD hit the home entertainment market and quickly became the ‘most successful consumer product of all time’¹⁰. It arrived replete with ‘Behind the Scenes’ and ‘the Making of’ extras. Some of which were broadcast on television before the actual release of the movie.

The audience wanted more. In 1996 they were ready.

Team Scream

The difference between Popcorn and Scream is humour. Scream smiles at the audience and winks at the same time. Craven and Williamson invite the viewer in on the joke. The movie breaks kayfabe by deconstructing the genre as if it wasn’t part of it. It was fun. Still is.

Drew Barrymore’s curtain raiser establishes the tone. The viewer is seduced and trusts the director will entertain and not offend. Craven delivered. Scream is not original in concept but it is brilliant in execution. It is the culmination of Craven’s oeuvre from A Nightmare on Elm Street 1984. It is his apex.

He couldn’t do it alone. Kevin Williamson’s script is satirical, witty and observant. The ensemble cast is pitch perfect. They play it like a comedy until they start to scream. Their performances are convincing because they communicate with each other. It is their dialogue and not their characters that let on to the audience.

Scream dropped jaws and opened eyes. Its worldwide box office was $173 million¹¹ - $243m today. It wasn’t the catalyst for this present boom in horror – that honour goes to the Blair Witch Project 1999. It has its faults. The dénouement is convoluted and Sidney’s multiple fist fights with armed male killers is hokum. It isn’t perfect.

It didn’t have to be. It was a scream.

That’s what horror is supposed to do.

“She looked dead – still does.”

- Stu

Husk

Barry Norman¹, the dinosaur film critic, once suggested that theatres should charge audiences less for independent films because of the obvious budgetary deficiencies and since studio productions are the yardstick for the mainstream moviegoer.

Norman said this in the 90s – at a time when American independent cinema (Reservoir Dogs 1992 etc) was forcing its way out of the arthouse into the multiplex. His reasoning was that if theatres were asking punters to take a chance in good faith on these cheaply made films then the ticket price should be less than the standard.

The suggestion was ignored (or wasn’t heard) but in a sense capitalism has since regulated ticket prices: 3D and IMAX cost more than the norm. Direct-to-DVD (online rental) costs less. This is particularly pertinent to horror films.

Horror has breached 3D (My Soul to Take 2010) but not IMAX. Yet the watermark for high end horror remains The Exorcist 1973: big budget, based on a best selling novel, helmed by a name director and a box office return of over $1billion (adjusted for inflation²). With its typical inclusion of movie stars high end horror is projected to attract the mainstream. Recent (bad) examples are The Wolfman 2010 and The Rite 2011.

Cinema horror is genre. It has a theatrical release and no crossover appeal. A classic example is A Nightmare on Elm Street 1984. Hardcore horror is subgenre (eg torture porn), exploitation and direct-to-DVD. It shouldn’t cost a theatre ticket to see Husk 2011.

high concept

After Dark Films gave birth to Horrorfest aka 8 Films to Die For in 2006. Initially they distributed the films but this year they made (and distributed) eight of their own. Husk began a limited release on January 28^th. Fast forward to 5^th February and it premiered on the cable network Syfy. On 29^th March it is released on DVD.

The market determines the price of horror but Husk is a better film at the bottom end of the totem pole. The difference between DVD and cinema horror can be as simple as story. Where Halloween 1978 brought a fresh perspective to the genre Husk adds nothing new. Ergo to watch it is to be entertained – or not – for the duration: Not worth a night out but maybe a night in.

The high concept of Husk is the killer scarecrow. Scarecrows may not work on crows but they seem to work on people – at least the types who watch horror films. There is a sub-concept to this move; one that is more inventive:

The Breakfast Club 1985 took its cast of characters and isolated them in an empty school for Saturday detention. Its concept to story was organic and plausible. In Husk the cast wander through a cornfield into an abandoned farmhouse and remain isolated throughout the film. This part of the production is inventive and natural. The building blocks to a good story are in place. However a good story supersedes its concept. The alchemy is in the telling and/or showing.

low process

A gang of five teenagers/young adults road trip through the American hinterland whereupon a crow smashes into their windscreen. Chris skids off the road into a gulley and totals his 4x4. After a head count there’s the fact that Johnny is missing. Brian and Scott go looking for him in the adjacent cornfield.

The accident happens at the end of the first scene so there’s nary time to build the characters. Thus what the filmmakers are content with is characterization via action. This allows the audience to discover who’s who by the way said characters interact with each other. There are hints of this:

Natalie is Brian’s clingy girlfriend and Chris resents her presence but as soon as Brian and Scott enter the cornfield the tension between Natalie and Chris evaporates. The character interplay never recovers. Instead the viewer is left with stock types talking at each other.

There is a reason why Dracula, Frankenstein, Freddy and Michael Myers are icons. They all have personality. The scarecrow in Husk serves as cipher – that limits its domination of the film on and off screen. There is an inexplicable revelation to one of the characters rendered so bad it will induce either laughs or groans. There is inconsistency in the big bad’s behaviour. The dénouement is protracted resulting in a twist ending that fails to chill.

Yet the overall effort is laudable and visible onscreen. The four main actors never stumble. Wes Chatham as Brian and especially Tammin Sursok as Natalie invest their portrayals in the film. The daylight cornfield scenes are intriguing and the search for Johnny is replete with the tension requisite in a horror film.

If the viewer doesn’t pay movie ticket prices to see Husk then there is no need to feel cheated. This is a horror film that should have been better, that could have been better, that wants to be better. As is it is unremarkable straight-to-DVD fare that fills an hour and half while bigger pictures like Apollo 18 get bumped to next year.

Camfrog Blogs

Scream 3

Scream 2

La Casa Muda

Wes Craven's Scream

Husk

Total Pageviews

Blog Archive

Followers