Posts Tagged ‘Courteney Cox’
Friday, March 17th, 2023
As I mentioned in my SCREAM VI review and elsewhere, I consider Wes Craven’s SCREAM (1996) to be one of the great horror films of the ‘90s, and since then I have dutifully watched each of the sequels as they were released and enjoyed at least parts of them. SCREAM 2 seemed quite good in 1997, but my attachment to it has faded over the years. SCREAM 3 was disappointing in 2000, and hasn’t much grown on me. That seemed to be the end of it, and it seemed questionable when a SCREAM 4 came along 11 years later.
I remember I saw it at a preview screening. After the debacle of CURSED and the (enjoyable) mess of MY SOUL TO TAKE, I didn’t necessarily believe that Craven would be able to pull off the difficult task of a decade-plus-later part 4 that few had asked for. I also remember there was a guy sitting near the front talking to himself and the screen throughout the movie, being pretty annoying, but when it was over and he was leaving he made direct eye contact with me and said, “That was great!” with so much more enthusiasm than I had for the movie that I forgave him. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Brody, Aimee Teegarden, Alison Brie, Anna Paquin, Anthony Anderson, Britt Robertson, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Ehren Krueger, Emma Roberts, Erik Knudsen, Hayden Panettiere, Kevin Williamson, Kristen Bell, Marielle Jaffe, Mary McDonnell, meta-slashers, Neve Campbell, Paul Harris Boardman, Roger L. Jackson, Rory Culkin, slashers, Wes Craven
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, March 15th, 2023
Nobody else seems to see it this way, but I still think SCREAM was the perfect name for the sequel to SCREAM (1996) that came out in 2022. It revived the seemingly concluded series after 11 years, and for the first time without Wes Craven, so naturally it took today’s legacy sequels – where a set of new, younger characters teams up with returning characters from the old series in a story loosely structured like the first film – as its format and subject. The movies it’s based on never have a number in their title; it only made sense to follow the naming convention of such modern horror franchise entries as HALLOWEEN (2018), HELLBOY (2019), THE GRUDGE (2020), CANDYMAN (2021), WRONG TURN (2021), TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2022), HELLRAISER (2022) and the upcoming THE EXORCIST (2023).
A year later here we are with another one from the same directors (Tyler Gillett & Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, READY OR NOT) and writers (Guy Busick [READY OR NOT] & James Vanderbilt [ZODIAC]) and this time it does have a number in the title – the historic first Roman numeral of the series. SCREAM VI is a good title mainly because the trailer showed the M in SCREAM get slashed and split into a bleeding VI, and secondarily because it’s admitting that yeah, we can’t lie, this is the sixth movie in the SCREAM series. It stars mostly our new set of characters introduced in the last one, but makes reference to characters and events from all five previous SCREAMs. I gotta admit, I’ve been there since the beginning, I’ve watched SCREAM many times, SCREAM 2 several times, SCREAM 3 maybe three times, the other two one each, but they drop so many names so fast I had trouble remembering what they were talking about. Not that it matters.
(Note: There were two guys behind me and one of them had apparently never seen any SCREAM movie before so the other guy tried to explain who each character was as they appeared. Not ideal.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Courteney Cox, Dermot Mulroney, Devyn Nekoda, Guy Busick, Halloween, Hayden Panettiere, Jack Champion, James Vanderbilt, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Jenna Ortega, Josh Segarra, Liana Liberato, Mason Gooding, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Melissa Barrera, meta-slashers, Roger L. Jackson, Samara Weaving, Skeet Ulrich, slashers, Tony Revolori, Tyler Gillett
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 43 Comments »
Monday, January 17th, 2022
We interrupt this Sam Raimi series so I can have a semi-timely review of the new SCREAM movie.
I have some bad news. SCREAM – a teen horror movie that came out when I was older than a teen but I enjoyed it along with the younger people anyway – is 25 fucking years old! And you remember how it was a trilogy and we assumed that was it, but a little while back kind of out of the blue they made a way late part 4? Well, I’m sorry to say that even that happened eleven god damn years ago. How is that possible? It’s not. But it happened. We are old, my friends. Very, very old.
But some of us still like SCREAM and the i.p. gods or whoever decided that the time has come for another one in another era. Many things have changed since the last one. Obviously horror has changed, as it always does. But more importantly the director of the original four, Wes Craven, has passed away, and (in better news) the Weinstein Company has died and gone to Hell, so this is the first time the series has been continued by a new set of people. The rights were picked up by Spyglass Media Group, James Vanderbilt (THE RUNDOWN, ZODIAC) & Guy Busick (READY OR NOT, Castle Rock) wrote the script, and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett (the team behind READY OR NOT) directed it, in the Craven spirit but not trying to be a throwback or anything. (There’s even a joke about overlit ‘90s movies.) Original writer Kevin Williamson did give his blessing and sign on as executive producer, and has given many interviews (such as on Mick Garris’ podcast Post-Mortem) verifying that he really was involved and is excited about the movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Dylan Minnette, Guy Busick, Jack Quaid, James Vanderbilt, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Jenna Ortega, Kevin Williamson, Marley Shelton, Mason Gooding, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Melissa Barrera, meta-slashers, Mikey Madison, Neve Campbell, Roger L. Jackson, slashers, Sonia Ben Ammar, Tyler Gillett
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 32 Comments »
Monday, October 5th, 2015
SCREAM 2 is a slasher sequel that had a rare level of difficulty. The fringe nature of the subgenre normally allows part 2s some leeway as exploitational cash grabs, making room for everything from an okay continuation (HALLOWEEN II) to an experimental misstep (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART 2: FREDDY’S REVENGE) to a perfection of the formula (FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2) to a re-inventing masterpiece-in-its-own-right (TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2). But SCREAM was such a mainstream smash hit, and it created such a new interest in horror among non-horror people, that it had different expectations to live up to.
Also, its horror-movie-where-the-characters-know-about-horror-movies gimmick positioned it as sort of above horror movies, so they couldn’t get away with a normal sequel, they had to also say something about sequels. At the same time, it couldn’t really follow the template of the sequels it was supposed to be commenting on because it’s a series where the bad guys die and the good guys come back in sequels, so it’s a totally different type of story from most popular slashers.
As if all that wasn’t a tall enough hurdle to jump over, this was maybe the first movie production to get screwed by internet spoilers. A first draft of the script got leaked online, so they changed the twist ending during filming. (I bet Elise Neal was bummed she didn’t get to do her killer reveal speech.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Elise Neal, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jamie Kennedy, Jerry O'Connell, Kevin Williamson, Laurie Metcalf, Liev Schrieber, meta-slashers, Neve Campbell, Omar Epps, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Timothy Olyphant, Wes Craven
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 64 Comments »
Friday, March 8th, 2013
MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE is a Golan and Globus production starring Dolph Lundgren, but it’s a little more mainstream than that implies because it’s for the children, it’s based on action figures and on a cartoon based on action figures. I was looking for that same authorial voice and unique perspective we saw represented in the TRANSFORMERSes and GI JOE, but it turns out that’s Hasbro, this one is based on the works of Mattel. That’s like mixing up H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe. I feel like an idiot.
I guess Cannon was trying to make their version of a STAR WARS type fantasy sci-fi-deal. You can tell that when a character says “You got us here, you Thumerian wurbat, now get us home,” but it was already clear from the opening credits over a starfield and the STAR WARSy themes by Bill Conti. Then the credits explode into a shower of sparks. How could this not be exciting? (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: based on a toy, Bill Conti, Billy Barty, Cannon Films, Chelsea Field, Courteney Cox, Dolph Lundgren, Frank Langella, Gary Goddard, Jon Cypher, Mattel, Meg Foster, Robert Duncan McNeill
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 81 Comments »
Sunday, April 17th, 2011
The SCREAM movies had their day in the sun. They arrived at the end of 1996, during what seemed like a horror drought. “Horror” was so out of sorts that the characters just call it “scary movies.” The actors, while promoting it on talk shows, called it a “thriller.”
We all remember that, but I thought it would be interesting to look up the specifics. According to my research there were only six other scary movie thrillers released theatrically that year: CANDYMAN: FAREWELL TO THE FLESH, THE DENTIST, THE FRIGHTENERS, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE* and THINNER. DTV releases included TREMORS 2: AFTERSHOCKS, CARNOSAUR 3: PRIMAL SPECIES and CHILDREN OF THE CORN IV: THE GATHERING.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Anderson, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Kevin Williamson, meta-slashers, Neve Campbell, slashers, Wes Craven
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 187 Comments »
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
Producers of violent horror movies like to claim their movies are “controversial.” Here’s a more mainstream-acceptable horror movie that actually is controversial among movie fans. It was hugely popular at the time, but it seems to me like most horror fans today look down on it or sent it. Like it or not, SCREAM was an important landmark in the ongoing history of the horror. It singlehandedly resuscitated the rotting corpse of the slasher movie (at least in its whodunit form inspired by FRIDAY THE 13TH, SLEEPAWAY CAMP, PROM NIGHT, TERROR TRAIN, etc.) It made horror big business again, paving the way for an onslaught of low (and medium) budget horror that otherwise wouldn’t have happened. But alot of horror fans see themselves as outsiders, so it bugs them when a horror movie is popular with people who aren’t as into stabbing and monsters as they are. And in my opinion there is a certain amount of sexism there, because they get mad about teenage girls liking the same movies as them. (Don’t tell them that HALLOWEEN is about teenage girls, they might cry.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Kevin Williamson, Neve Campbell, slashers, Wes Craven
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 13 Comments »
Friday, February 4th, 2000
Hi there Cool Girl fans. My name is Vern and I gotta be honest and upfront about this, I am not a blond lady with big tits if that’s what your thinkin. One of my readers pointed me to that review Cool Girl did of Bruce Campbell’s show Jack of All Trades, and I don’t know if anyone else noticed this but there were naked pictures between the paragraphs. And I mean, hubba hubba, am I right? But I’m sorry to say there will be no naked pictures on my reviews and you REALLY won’t be getting a boner from them, sorry. Nope, I’m just a regular male type motherfucker seeking redemption for my past sins through Writing on the films of Cinema. Some may say that I don’t know of what the fuck I speak because, to be frankly honest, I was out of the picture for a while and missed alot of movies. Most of the ’90s in fact due to a fall I took for armed robbery and complications thereof. That is all in the past though and now in my opinion I am one of, if not THE, most important film Writers on the web, at least in my age group and social class and with my type of background, hair color etc.
Well generally my favorite type of picture to write about is the crime type picture, the action picture or especially the Badass Cinema. I like bad motherfuckers like Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, Steve McQueen and these type of guys, guys who would knock your teeth out just because they wanted to make their nephew a baby rattle. From the younger generation I like Chow Yun Fat of Hard Boiled and a few of the Bruces, Willis and Campbell. But hey bud I also like a good horror picture and for my first Cool Girl guest review I felt I should do the big movie this week, this Scream part 3. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Courteney Cox, David Arquette, meta-slashers, Neve Campbell, slashers, Wes Craven
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 3 Comments »
