The bads will outweigh the goods.

Rating: Null/10 (9 December 2000)

Scream 2 is a must-see in order to survive a trilogy. Since a trilogy was thought of after the first one came out, obviously they had to come up with a sequel. If you want to follow the entire Scream story, than see this. If you would like to enjoy the first one as it is and not even bother with two more, than don't waste your time.
Scream 2 is almost as entertaining to watch as the first one. During the first ten minutes or so, two people are murdered. What will follow? Everybody's reaction is to think that there's going to be tons of different and exciting killing scenes to occur throughout the film. Wrong. I'm not one for watching detailed slaughter shots. They don't bother me and I won't deliberately turn away, but what's the point of having all of the characters die when there is not a strong reason to back it up.
The variety of stabbings will keep the slasher film fans content. However, it's pretty easy to predict who is going to die next. It comes to the point where whenever you see a new character introduced, your first thought is 'oh, they're going to die too.'
One of the problems with this film is that there are too many actors involved. The survivors from Scream return and are now working with Derek, Cotton, Mickey, Debbie, etc. Another problem is that a lot of the actors are given a part just so that their character can die, but serve absolutely no purpose to the plot. CiCi, Hallie, Phil, and Maureen will fall under this category.
~*spoiler~*
The writing is all right if you're not looking for anything too complicated. Scream revealed that Billy was the killer because Maureen was having an affair with his father. That story works out okay. Scream 3 pulled all the loose ends together and explained everything during the first two movies. This movie has nothing to go off of. When I found out that the killers were who they actually were, I was very disappointed. I can partly accept the fact that Billy's mother returns, but I cannot understand why Mickey was involve. Apparently they needed two killers in order to follow in the steps of the first film, but this just doesn't work. Mickey's character isn't even given that much exposure before it is revealed that he is one of the killers. Neither is Debbie's character. A few lines here and there to Gale, and that was it. If you're going to present a horror movie to us, than give us a good ending to wrap it up with.
The only thing more annoying than Neve Campbell still sitting high on the "scream queen" thrown, is the way that the killers were indestructible. Throughout the years, having killers that just won't die have become very popular and very unrealistic at the same time. The fact that we had to wait until the end to find out who they really were was one explanation as to why they couldn't die. My opinion is that the crew ruins a movie by doing everything necessary to kill off the murderers, but it is impossible for them to actually die until it is at the end and in a convenient situation.

I'll say it again. This movie will please any Scream fan, but it wasn't a must to make. The story could have been left as a sequel with this one cut out, the third installment moved into the second place and the first one left as it was. A little confusing but I'm sure that with a few minor changes given to Scream 3, everything would have worked out okay.