But Scream's success was largely deserved: Kevin Williamson's script was ingenious and witty, Miramax's ad campaign couldn't have been better, and director Craven, creator of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, found ways to breathe new life into one of Hollywood's most exhausted genres -- the slasher film.
Naturally, such a hit had to produce a sequel. And I'm happy to report that Scream 2 is handily in a league with its predecessor... as good a followup as one can imagine, given the built-in difficulties of sequels.
In fact, just as the first film blatantly discussed the rules and the stupidities of its genre, so does Scream 2 immediately address the pitfalls of sequels. In the second major sequence, Randy (Jamie Kennedy), the film geek who barely survived the first film, argues with the other students in his college film class: "Sequels suck," he says. "By definition they're inferior." "Aliens," various voices pipe up, "The Godfather" -- and perhaps less seriously -- "House 2: The Second Story."
Somewhat later Randy suggests three rules for sequels: "Higher body count. More elaborate murders. And, in order to continue the series, you can never kill off the --"
Presumably he's about to say "heroine," but another character interrupts him, so we'll never know.
Without spoiling anything let's simply say that Scream 2 follows most of its own prescriptions. The first scene takes place on the opening night of Stab, a film based on the Woodboro murders from the first Scream. For Stab Craven has almost exactly restaged scenes from Scream, with Heather Graham standing in for Drew Barrymore and, amusingly enough, Tori Spelling for Neve Campbell's Sidney.
In the movie's real world, Sidney and Randy are now students at Windsor College, trying to forget their traumatic pasts. But the opening of Stab is stirring up the press again: Sensationalist reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) is looking for material for a sequel to her best seller about the murders of two years ago (time flies faster on-screen); exonerated convict Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber) is trying to cash in on his fifteen minutes of fame; and, alas, yet another psycho chooses the film's local premiere to begin a copycat reign of terror.
It's not giving away any big surprise to mention that the opening sequence, with Jada Pinkett and Omar Epps going to see Stab, is a reprise of Scream's opening scene -- only more elaborate and with a higher body count.
Worried about Sidney, Deputy Dewey (David Arquette), the only other important survivor of the Woodboro killings, comes to campus. Dewey, who had a crush on Weathers, is still bitter about her portrayal of him in her book as a latter-day Barney Fife.
Craven and Williamson surround Sidney not only with all of her old (possibly traumatized-to-looniness) friends but with analogs for most of the characters who didn't make it to the closing credits of Scream. She has a new meathead boyfriend (Jerry O'Connell), who has his own weird sidekick (Timothy Olyphant).
Craven is such a practiced old hand at suspense that the tension almost never lets up, despite a two-hour running time. The plot is so full of red herrings and plausible suspects -- even more than in the original -- it's not only impossible to figure out who the killer is, it's utterly beside the point.
Along the way Williamson and Craven make Scream 2 as much fun as a sequel filled with fast throwaway jokes and broad satiric digs at brainless sororities and frats can be. "The Delta Lambdas are very sensitive to your plight," one bimbo type coos to Sidney, whose notoriety has made her the most valuable pledge on campus.
Scream 2 is both more blatantly comic and more blatantly gory than the original. If Deputy Dewey was a little eccentric the first time, Arquette, in the movie's most memorable performance, makes him positively goofy now.
Scream 3 is already in the works, and 2 would really have to bomb to derail it. (It won't.) As impressively as Craven and Williamson have managed to revisit a story that was almost painfully self-conscious and self-referential the first time around, you have to hope they don't push their luck beyond a third installment. The more convoluted and circular the relationship between film and film-within-film becomes, the likelier it is that the whole series will just collapse in on itself, having reached a level of silliness where even the patented thrills won't deliver any more.
Scream 2.
Written by Kevin Williamson. Directed by Wes Craven. Starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, and Jamie Kennedy.
