Scream 2

This funny, gory stab-athon is as sophisticated about the mechanics of Part 2s as the original was savvy about horror flicks.

Paradoxically, there's a lot less gore. There is blood, of course, but nothing excessive by slasher-movie standards, and there are no depictions of spilled entrails. Craven has remembered that scares are more important that graphic displays of human insides and bodily fluids.

Early on, Randy suggests of sequels that "by definition they are inferior." That may be, but Scream 2 is more disappointing than it is inferior. Like its predecessor, it's both frightening and funny, just not as singularly classy.

It's not as good as the original - which was fresher, funnier and scarier - but if it were, then by the criteria of the film's resident movie scholar, it wouldn't be a genuine sequel.

For all its parodic elements, this clever 'whodunit' leaves us squirming and wincing at each slash of the killer. Prepare for a surprise and beware the person enjoying the film right next to you.

Contrivance and a horrendous body count combine to yield a morbid effect for discriminating filmgoers, despite a comic tone. Still, there's enough ingenuity and scariness to please plenty of fans of the first film.

The less ticklish bad joke of Scream 2 is that self-referentiality has its limits.

In terms of sequels, this does not disappoint at all. Personally this is the strongest slasher series really with no disappointing films.

Scream 2- it's got a dark twisted pattern and reveal that will stun you by surprise in a theatrical setting.

Scream 2 opens with another good terrifying opening sequence take place in the movie theater, and after that Scream 2 wasn't a horrible movie, it has it's moments, but for the most part underwhelming, the story wasn't as engaging as the previous one, it didn't have to be 2 hours, there is more cheesy moment, though it did kept me guessing throughout the film until the very last, once it reveal i ain't gonna lie to you even though i did not see it coming, it's not really that shocking and i don't think it deliveredly continue that well, but at least i still can't guess it and i'm still into it for that, that's probably the most positive thing about Scream 2, Neve Campbell and the rest of the returning cast was ok, not really buying David Arquette that much in this one though he's not terrible, again it still have it's moment, a moment where they get me scared more than the previous one, there isn't much of a stupidness in it, overall like i mention in the beginning, it wasn't horrible, it has it's moment, but for the most part Scream 2 is just an underwhelming sequel.

It gets on my nerves. The statement that opens the film, positioned as social critique—the supposed exclusion of Black women within the genre—is such an erroneous idea that it feels jarring. The slasher has always been highly stereotypical. I’ve seen enough films of the style to know that adding a Black character into the mix is neither novel nor uncommon. Putting that aside, "She's always in My Hair" by D’Angelo wraps the opening sequence with an energy I like, but unfortunately, it doesn’t last beyond those first few minutes. The epilogue brings back the metacinematic game, pushing it one level further, even more self-aware. The problem is that it works very well once; the second time around, it loses momentum and, therefore, impact. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this sequel. The opening never convinced me, and although it weighs on me more now, I still don’t like it. With it comes the recurring idea that cinema turns anyone violent—an excuse that has been exploited to exhaustion. A discourse more than worn out, equivalent to blaming video games for bad behavior. Of course, there will be cases, but the problem lies in generalizing—though if we’re talking about problems, this film has plenty. A painful truth that stays burned into memory is that sequels almost never work. They fail to capture the freshness of the first installment. 'Scream 2', as expected, in order to function as a constructive critique of the failed mechanism of sequels, behaves like one—applying and resorting to the clichés that kill these films. This second part isn’t a delirium or an unpleasant experience, but it is a weak echo. The cast once worked for me almost perfectly as a mechanism of suspicion and revelation, but here everyone loses weight. Perhaps my issue is that, knowing them all, the mystery no longer exists, and now there is only repetition. Campbell adopts a more adult, more self-aware attitude, and paradoxically becomes less convincing in her vulnerability. Her character no longer evolves; it’s the same as before, but worse. I no longer believe her delusions or her fears. Schreiber, who plays Cotton, simply doesn’t work. I don’t like him. He’s a completely flat character, who transmits nothing beyond the most basic traits—nothing that moves me at all. He’s a lightweight figure necessary for the plot. Curiously, my initial experience watching this film for the first time was very different. I felt fascination—perhaps falsely—and impact. Now, there’s an emotional distance I can’t shake off. It’s complete indifference. And I suppose it has to do with the mood I’m in when I watch films. Tomorrow I might wake up in a better mood and say it’s the greatest film of all time, but today it’s much worse than I remembered. The worst part is the invisible rules that cripple everything: confrontations conditioned by character importance, for example. It always breaks the tension for me. I see no risk, no real danger. Just a chain of weak deaths. Rarely have I seen films that show so little mercy toward their characters, disregarding hierarchy among them. I like it when films unsettle me with tragic moments by getting rid of major characters. That, combined with the hyper-forced construction of situations, kills it for me. Too many opportunities to confront the killer, all wasted foolishly. There’s no internal logic—none at all. It’s narrative necessity. 'Scream 2' works in essence as a critique of a bad sequel. In execution, it’s dreadful. Everything is so measured and calculated that it becomes pretentious and fatal. The climax is possibly one of the worst I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s so stretched out that it ends up breaking apart. It exhausts me and even gets on my nerves. There was a moment when I almost shouted, “come on already.” This reminds me of 'Mission: Impossible 2', a film I didn’t like at the time because of how overly “movie-like” it felt. Maybe I’ll like it the third time when the eighth installment comes out. Until then, one of the worst sequels I’ve ever seen.

Scream 2 recycles a bit too much from the original while lacking what the original so good. The story is atrocious and the multiple re-writes that when on during production did nothing but hurt the movie overall. The plot made zero sense, the twist involving the killers felt totally out of left-field. It was bad and it goes to show that sometimes you just can't capture lightning in a bottle a second time around.