Scream 2 (1997)

Wonderful bedfellow to the first film.

I'm just not buying into the bad rating for this film, in 1996 Wes Craven's Scream reinvigorated an ailing genre and got fans back into the horror groove. The love for that film, I feel, tends to skew opinions of the second instalment in what became the Scream foursome, Scream 2 seams perfectly from its starting point to up the daring ante, and plonk tongue even further into its cheek in the process.

Sidney Prescott has moved on from the horrendous murders in Woodsboro and is at college getting on with her life, but the peace and hope for a bright future is quickly shattered because the Scream killer is back for more carnage...

The film's opening perfectly sets out the tone for the entire picture, we see a cinema full of fake knife wielding y...

So, moving along two years from the first carnage, "Sidney" (Neve Campbell) has moved into the Omega Beta Zeta frat house and is getting on with the her life. Well, that is what she hopes anyway but after a few minutes of this derivative and unimaginative sequel, we are back to square one when she learns on television that the grim reaper is back taking out fans at a sneak preview of "Stab!" - a film based on her first terrifying experiences. Then her friends start to drop, one by one - slasher style. Can she and reporter "Gale Wethers" (Courteney Cox) stay alive long enough to find out just who - or whom - is behind these ghastly crimes? I'm sorry, but this is just a straight and pretty shameless rip off of the first film. It's entirely devoid of menace or originality and the concluding t...

**_Scream 2_ starts off strong with a fantastic first act, but slowly stumbles into mediocrity with a lackluster finale.**

The beginning of this film was exhilarating, it was so messed up seeing how infatuated people were with this real-life killer and their seeming lack of awareness that a woman was being brutally murdered in their presence. They crank up the gore from the original, leading me to believe that we were going to be in for a treat, but I was wrong. The first act was really strong, and I enjoyed the college campus setting with some exhilarating scenes in the sorority houses. But towards the end of the second act, the film starts to drag on, with too much down time spent on character development and lackluster chase scenes. I think the main killer’s motivation is pretty we...