Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- The Final Girls

      One of the screenwriters for the film, Joshua John Miller, was the son of Jason Miller, who was Father Karras in The Exorcist. Miller attributes the film's inspiration to watching his father die over and over on film, and the dissonance that invoked when his real father died in 2001. The film was ultimately optioned by Sony (after a brief period at New Line Cinema, who wanted to remove the emotional beats of the film), with screenplay by Miller and MA Fortin with director Todd Strauss-Schulson (whose biggest credit at that point was A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas. and would go on to direct this year's Isn't It Romantic). Originally an R-Rating, the director was forced to cut it down in a PG-13, which he was ultimately satisfied with (I'll get to that). The film was shot in Louisiana in 2014, before it's October 9th, 2015 release to critical success.

       Max Cartwright (Taissa Farmiga, sister of Vera) is the daughter of Amanda (Malin Akerman), who played the role of Nancy in the first of the popular Camp Bloodbath film franchise in the 80's, before becoming typecast. After one failed audition, the two get into a severe car accident, where Amanda is killed. Three years later, Max is still dealing with the aftermath of the incident, when she, as well as friends Gertie (Alia Shawkat) and Chris (Alexander Ludwig), when Gertie's stepbrother Duncan (Thomas Middleditch) invites all of them to a screening of Camp Bloodbath. While obviously reluctant, she and her group acquiesce. At the screening, however, a fire emerges, and the group, now including Vicki (Nina Dobrev), are forced to go through the screen using the fake machete to escape. They find themselves in a forest, when the van from the film, driven by Kurt( Adam DeVine) drives by. When he drives by every 92 minutes, it confirms to Duncan they have, in fact, been teleported to the film Camp Bloodbath.

     I reviewed Scream a while, and it wasn't that positive, but I conceded it was likely because it was a film of its era. The tropes it was mocking have been dissected and reevaluated over the years, and it was a film of that 90's. Given this is closer, (and the director did list Scream as an influence), it understands the audience better to know these slasher tropes, and doesn't just regurgitate them to the audience. It helps that there is the strong emotional core of Max seeing a younger version of her deceased mother and trying to save her life. That is basically the driving force of the film and the main conduit by which the audience can invest in the characters. I do like that they play around with various elements of film, from runtime, to flashbacks to tropes to ADR. It really helps build the world of the movie, while making the process of making films seem surreal when you really consider it. Some cast highlights include Farmiga, Akerman, Middleditch (I haven't seen many Silicon Valley episodes, but he's always good), and especially Kurt Devine, who relishes the role of the prickish, horny slasher victim with zest. There are some good jokes at the expense of slashers and their 80's setting. Finally, the Friday the 13th is very thorough. The filmmakers clearly love that series, and having now seen that series, there's a lot of nods and references, especially to the first two, and the recreation is pretty great (especially an 80's recreation of the 50's)

    Some of the jokes did fall flat, mostly the ones that did deal with the same material Scream did, at least in the morality of slashers (i.e. people who have sex tend to murdered). Again, I think this very much is just that this particular cliche has explored, parodied, and dissected enough that pointing it out seem rote (though they do integrate it into the plot and the ending pretty well). It also kind of dragged towards the middle. I think that the sequel bait, while apt for slasher, left the film with a bit of unsatisfying ending. I do wish there was a sequel.

     So, yeah, this was decently funny, and a good homage to the slasher genre. If you enjoy slashers, than this is definitely worth checking out. Otherwise, I can't say you'll enjoy it, but there are some good jokes here and there.

    Alright, this was an unscheduled change, because I realized there weren't a lot of post-2000's horror in the docket. Anyway, since we're on slashers, next week will be one of the biggest influences on the genre, Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace.

Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- Scream

     In August of 1990, a Shreveport, Louisiana man named Danny Rollings murdered 5 college students in Gainesville, Florida. The sheer grisly nature of the murders and the meticulousness by which they were committed caught national headlines. When the show Turning Point did an episode on the incident in 1994, it caught the attention of a struggling actor and screenwriter named Kevin Williamson. Williamson, then shopping around his script Killing Ms. Tingle (later Teaching Ms. Tingle, which was released in 1999 with Williamson himself as director), got inspired to write about a killer who stalks and taunts a young women in her home. Eventually, taking influence from his childhood love of slashers (especially the first Halloween), Williamson proceeded to add meta-elements alluding to the cliches of horror movies. Williamson's agent put the script, then titled Scary Movie, on sale in 1995, where it became the subject of a massive bidding war. Emerging victorious was Dimension Studios, a division of Miramax, owned by Harvey and Bob Weinstein. The Weinsteins, as per usual, made some changes to the script to increase the killings and give at least some of the killers motivations, but also remove some of the gorier moments. Wes Craven (already beginning to tire of the horror genre he had helped define for 20 years) read the script and had some interest, but was pre-occupied with a remake of The Haunting he was involved with. When that project fell apart (and star Drew Barrymore signed on), he subsequently accepted an offer by Bob Weinstein to helm the director's chair. At this time, the title was changed to Scream, an allusion to a song by Michael Jackson. Craven and Williamson resisted the change, marking one of several conflict they'd have with the Weinsteins during production (including whether to shoot in the US or Canada, a conflict that almost got Craven removed from the film). Ultimately, the film was shot in some California suburbs. For effects, the killer's mask was a 1991 design by Fun World, which was dubbed "Ghostface" before the debut of the film. The film used 50 gallons of fake blood. After further cuts to get an R rating, the film was finally released on December 20th, 1996 (meant to be for horror fans during the drought of the holiday season), and while the initial weekend earnings were disappointing, word of mouth made it a massive box office success. It was a critical success, but it was also embroiled in controversy due to some copycat murders and especially in the controversy over media violence after the Columbine Massacre.

    Teenager Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) is idly making popcorn and preparing to watch a horror movie, when a mysterious caller (Roger L. Jackson) begins to pester her, asking her about various horror movies. The caller soon escalates the stakes, saying he's just outside, and showing Casey's boyfriend Steve Orth (Kevin Patrick Walls) tied up in his backyard. Eventually, the killer breaks in, and after a struggle, kills Becker and hangs her as a warning to others. The killings make local news, and in particular impacts Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) whose own mother was killed in a similar fashion only a year earlier, despite the killer, Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber), on death row. While her father Neil (Lawrence Hecht) is out for work, Sidney is left home alone, her boyfriend Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich, and given the debt this has to Halloween, the name was likely intentional) sneaking in every now and again. The two pal around with friends Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan), Tatum's policeman brother Dewey (David Arquette),Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard, sadly not playing it in his Shaggy voice), and Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy, being obnoxious as per usual). One night, the killer targets Sidney in her home, but manages to evade him. As she is besieged by the media, including Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), who wrote a sensationalist book about the murder of Sidney's mother, she must figure out who is trying to kill her, especially when the principal of the high school (Henry Winkler. Yes, the Fonz is in this) is killed.

     First and foremost, Wes Craven remains a very effective director of horror. He uses tracking shots, subtle blocking, and lighting to make the kills and attacks even scarier and more effective. It helps to make it effective as a slasher, and keep the viewer interested. The mystery of Ghostface does provide a compelling impetus for the plot, and it does pay off with a good twist that is well explained (and does tie into slasher tropes of all types.) Some of the kills are pretty creative, and some of the jokes funny.

     Perhaps the metaness of the film was fresh in 1996, because the slasher boom of the 80's was starting to subside by then, but a lot of the tropes satirized is so spelled out that it comes off as tedious. Characters will literally stop and explain horror movies and their tropes and how it relates to the plot. It ruins any of the meta subtext working or even the scariness itself working in its own right. Sometimes, they'll explain movies, despite them being well-known or at least somewhat known. At one point, they describe the film The Howling. There's the famous scene of Jamie Kennedy describing horror tropes, which completely stops the movie cold. This is a big enough problem, given the whole film is centered on this aspect, but it also doesn't help that Ghostface is just not very intimidating as a villain. His phone voice sounds like I do at 6 AM, when I've got 2 hours of sleep, and he runs around like he forgot his keys. Sometimes, his deaths are entirely accidental, and he just runs with it. I thought he was going to be like a Wile E. Coyote type using gadgets, and he kind of is, only Wile E. Coyote mostly used inventions, and didn't alternate techniques.

    This is a very 90's movie, with a very 90's sense of postmodernism and irony lathered all over it like barbeque sauce on a pair of ribs. In this case, it's a good period piece for that particular point in time, and how a horror movie used it to comment on its predecessors. So, even if I didn't necessarily care for the film, it works to give what was the new horror of the 90's. So, if you're interested in 90's films, it might be some good viewing. Otherwise, I can't say this was a particular good slasher or a good deconstruction. A lot of it was just too blunt or tedious to really work.

  Tomorrow, we look at Brian de Palma's reinterpretation of the Phantom of the Opera with Phantom of the Paradise.