BEFORE: Trying to get back into my rhythm after Comic-Con. You know, staying up way too late, oversleeping, getting to work late, barely making it through the day, dinner and one hour of TV with my wife, writing the blog, repeat. Or working 9 to 10 hours at the theater for a festival, not having dinner with my wife but grabbing fast food, falling behind on TV, writing the blog and then watching the next movie. Toggle between those until the end of the year. What does it say about me when "get up in the morning, be at work by 9, put in 8 hours, go home" is the unusual setting? Isn't that how most people live their lives?
I take comfort in that I sort of found my tribe, where the most important thing is getting the movie made or making sure the screening goes OK, everything else, including a personal life, has to come second to that. If I just keep making sure that I take enough time for myself, to celebrate holidays, go drive somewhere for a week now and then, then I might keep my sanity, but you know, nothing's for certain in this world and my whole life could change overnight, you just never know. Right now I just want to get to November and then maybe have some time to think about the nature of things.
Jenna Ortega carries over from "Scream" (2022) and so do a bunch of other actors. Tonight I'm also updating my life-list of actors and other famous people I've seen in real life, as I saw two more "Star Wars" actors in the flesh, Mads Mikkelsen at NYCC signing autographs and Samuel L. Jackson at the theater speaking after a screening of "The Piano Lesson". I already have both of their autographs in the collection, but now I've also seen them in the wild. Other notable people I saw at NY Comic-Con include comic legends Al Milgrom and Jim Steranko, author Timothy Zahn, actors Kyle MacLachlan and Phil LaMarr, and wrestlers Rikishi and Booker T.
THE PLOT: The survivors of the Ghostface killings leave Woodsboro behind and start a fresh chapter in New York City.
AFTER: In the final film (so far) of the "Scream" franchise (unless they make more) four of the characters leave Woodsboro (which could be in California or North Carolina, not sure) and move to Manhattan, which could be an homage to the "Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan" or possibly to "The Muppets Take Manhattan". At some point in a franchise's history, everyone still alive has to go to New York, it seems. I think that poem on the Statue of Liberty says something about "Give me your tired, your poorly-written characters, your huddled actors yearning to breathe free."
But sure enough, they're menaced by another Ghostface Killer - this makes sense, because I hear he does a lot of work with the Wu-Tang Clan, which is based in Staten Island. Or am I confusing him with someone else?
Again, as with last night's film, there's a lot that happened here that I failed to pick up on. The film starts with an attractive woman getting stood up for a date, and then when her date calls her and leads her into an alley (never a good idea) we realize that she's been both catfished AND tricked by Ghostface, but there's more to the story here, she's a university professor who was disliked by one of her students that she gave a failing grade to. Well, sure, that's an action that merits being killed? Two students at Blackmore University are getting some practice in killing people, because they really want to kill Sam and Tara Carpenter, who were in the previous film and have now moved to NYC so Tara can attend Blackmore, along with twins Mindy and Chad (also introduced in the previous "Scream" film).
But the two students playing the Ghostface game get killed by another Ghostface, so the true villain will remain a mystery throughout today's film, as per usual. And just for fun (and because they can) the series also brings back a character who "died" in "Scream 4", it seems she was popular with the fans and so, just like that, she was only "mostly dead" and is now alive again and an FBI agent to boot. Gale Weathers is also back again, but this franchise seems to be doing now what "Star Wars" did in Episodes 7 through 9, which is sacrifice the "Legacy" characters, one per movie. As long as their deaths are meaningful and well-played, the fans seem to be OK with this. But these are all like comic-book deaths, meaning that the next writer can just undo them, or claim they faked their own deaths for whatever reason, because it's a reality that can bend to the screenwriter's will.
Honestly this is all just more murder porn, just like my last five films and if I'm being honest, I'm quite sick of it. I have nine more films to go in October and I'm afraid that at least three of them will be in the same style. I'm just going to try to muddle through as best as I can, but I take no pleasure in watching 20-plus people die in a movie, no matter how original the killings are - and here they're not, it's all just stabby-stabby-stab. How about mix it up once in a while, like a good old-fashioned explosion, or push somebody off a skyscraper?
Two things kind of stand out here, though, that make this one just a "cut" above - one is that it shows our hero characters taking the subway right around Halloween, and SO many people are dressed as famous movie psychos, there seems to be an average of three Ghostfaces on every subway car, and then our Core Four gets separated into two pairs on TWO subway cars, each of which has so many costumed killers that they don't know which of them (if any) are the real one. Yeah, I've been on that Halloween subway ride home before, after working events on October 31, and it can be very jarring. Cartoonish ghosts and witches are one thing, but people walking around dressed like Jason or Freddie Kruger, well if the costumes are TOO good you might think there's a real chainsaw or blade-wielding maniac on your subway ride. Umm, thanks, but I'll just wait for the next train.
I've also encountered this at NY Comic-Con, you might think you're willing to accept turning the corner and bumping into an authentic-looking Pennywise clown, but you know what, it's OK if you're not. Some people's costumes are just a little TOO good. And a couple years ago I saw a Jason character in a hockey mask doing nothing but standing against a wall, looking menacing, and he didn't even have to move, he was scary enough just standing still, because that's exactly what the REAL Jason would do. (Yes, I know he's not real, but you know what I mean.)
Of course, one of the Ghostface characters on the subway is the real one, because where else would you hide a book, if not in a library? And so one of our core characters gets stabbed and NOBODY on this NYC subway train does anything to help, not at first anyway. Yeah, that tracks.
Another location in this film is a closed movie theater - and I'm sure there are tons of abandoned properties in NYC right now due to the pandemic. A closed movie theater is a pretty creepy place, there's one a block away from the theater where I work that's been closed for almost a year, and I sure wouldn't want to go inside it - and I worked there thirty-five years ago as an usher. Hell, sometimes I'm doing my final walk-through in the very not-closed theater where i work now, and I'll be 99% sure that all the guests are gone, but hey, you never know if some crazy killer snuck in with the crowd and stayed behind, and is just waiting for the manager to come turn off the lights before he strikes, right?
So I'm willing to cut this one a little slack, for correctly depicting how scary NYC and thus my everyday life can be. I would prefer to not have to leave my house on Halloween, but I usually have to work one job or the other, unless the holiday falls on a Sunday or something. I've also seen so many fake weapons at Comic-Cons that I might not even react if I saw someone with real weapons on the street, and that also worries me a little. I'm not going to say any more about the story or the identity of the killer or killers, because really, that's the one trick the movie has, and they really draw it out to tease you.
NITPICK POINT: Who keeps a full-size ladder in a NYC apartment? OK, maybe he was having some work done, but even then, you don't need a two-story ladder for that, probably just a stepladder.
Also starring Courteney Cox, Melissa Barrera, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Skeet Ulrich (all 5 carrying over from "Scream" (2022)), Dermot Mulroney (last seen in "Stoker"), Jack Champion (last seen in "Avatar: The Way of Water"), Josh Segarra (last seen in "Overboard" (2018), Liana Liberato, Devyn Nekoda, Hayden Panettiere (last seen in "The Object of My Affection"), Tony Revolori (last seen in "Asteroid City"), Samara Weaving (last seen in "Babylon"), Matthew Giuffrida, Andre Anthony, Henry Czerny (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One"), Thomas Cadrot (last seen in "Star Trek Beyond"), Barry Morgan (last seen in "Beau Is Afraid"), Chanel Mings, Erika Prevost, Jesse Camacho (last seen in "Rapture-Palooza"), Jenna Wheeler-Hughes (last seen in "Mr. Nobody"), Justin Johnson, Jason Cavalier (last seen in "Bad Santa 2"), Thom Newell, with a cameo from Akiva Schaffer (last seen in "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story"), archive footage of Jack Quaid (also last seen in "Scream" (2022)) and the voice of Roger L. Jackson (ditto)
RATING: 5 out of 10 frat boys in togas (didn't this trend die in the 1990's?)
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