More Funny Than Scary

Rating: 6/10 (3 April 2003)

I tend to think of Scream 2 as a comedy. The first Scream, obviously, was a by-the-books horror film that worked, because it knew its own tricks, but fell into them anyway. Very post-modern. But Scream 2, in my opinion, is more of a comedy. The opening scene at the movie theatre is a hilarious send-up of the weird phenomenon that the original film became. The movie satirizes Hollywood and the media, showing how truly ridiculous it can be when the press latches on to a particular tragic story, blowing it out of proportion until it becomes less about the people involved and more about the very fact that it even happened. I, for one, loved many of the little in-jokes ("it was my head on Jennifer Aniston's body"). Granted, we'll have to explain them to our kids when they catch it on USA twenty years from now, but no one ever said it was timeless. And yes, the ending is weird and forced (though i do love the line, "bob dole on the witness stand, IN MY DEFENSE") and lacks the surprise of the original. It certainly has its faults and doesnt live up to the original in many ways, but its still an entertaining ride.
7/10 stars