Scream 4: Meta Whateva

I am not going to go in depth on my feelings about the original Scream film or the subsequent sequels.  As usual, another blogger did that much better than I could.  Please check out:
Dinner with Max Jenke
He pretty much says everything I would about the franchise but with much more art.  What I will share is my own personal Scream story.  First of all, let me say that I have never felt older than I do now.  Everyone (bloggers that I admire) is talking about Scream.  For quite a few of them, it is a seminal film.  Because they saw it when they were 12!  I was already a grown ass woman when this film came out.  I can't believe people are talking about it like its the fucking Exorcist!  Really, a retrospective for a film that seems to my old ass like it came out yesterday?  Whatever.  Not that I am done with that rant, let me say I am 36 years old.  When the original Scream was filming I was working at the front desk of a very swanky hotel in Santa Rosa, California.  Yes, the same Santa Rosa they filmed Scream in.  Now a confession: I wasn't the awesome horror geek then that I am now.  But I was a pretty big film nerd and was very jazzed that they were filming a major Hollywood film in my town.  I was even more jazzed that the producers of the film were staying at my hotel.  The cast was stuck at the cheaper hotel up the hill.  Nevertheless, I got to make copies of the script, I met the producers, I "saw" David Arquette and Neve Campell briefly, and I got to listen in rapt attention while the bellboy I had a crush on told me about running into the cast at the local bar and pissing off David Arquette.  It was a pretty exciting time in my young life.  I don't think I even owned a computer yet.  And I had yet to embrace my inner Horror geek.  What a shame.

That is my Scream story.  I loved the first film.  The sequels kind of sucked.  I remember being disappointed.  The first film was original and funny.  You really had the feeling that anyone could die at anytime.  The sequels?  Not so much.  Now we come to the "reboot."  New Decade, New Rules as the tag line says.  Really, just more of the same.  The opening scenes I thought were stupid as I was watching them and after some reflection I decided they were the best part of the film.  Sidney returns home after 10 years to promote her self-help book.  Sid's cousin, Jill, is pretty much a carbon copy of Sid at that age.  Sure enough, old Ghostface returns, now armed with Facebook and Twitter.  He targets Jill and her media savvy friends.  His intention is to torture Sidney, the ultimate Final Girl.  Blah, blah, blah.  There is nothing new here, except the revelation that Julia Roberts' niece is actually a decent actress and that Hayden Panettiere is not as annoying as I had suspected.  Also, Rory Culkin should consider a new career.  I wish I could say this was mind blowing, funny, or even scary.  Can't say it is any of those things.  Go see it.  Scream is now like the Saw films (which it mocks).  You have to see it.  You have invested the time.  Might as well see what your old friends are up too.  Like a class reunion.  My suggestion: get Stinko.

Saw 3D

The seventh (and hopefully final) Saw film hit theatres right before Halloween.

Seven years. Seven years of Saw movies.  Who would have thought that this inexpensive, at the time original, horror film made by two Australian guys would go on to become a major horror franchise?  Like many, I really wish it hadn't.  I go every year to see the new one not because I really want to, but I feel like I have to.  The producers and writers were very clever to have turned the franchise into a horror "soap opera."  There are betrayals galore, people you thought were dead returning to settle scores, tragic romances, convoluted story lines that make zero sense, and a cliffhanger at the end of every episode.  Jigsaw is a bit like Erica Kane.  The whole mess revolves around him. 

In this weeks episode of As the Saw Turns, Hoffman is out for revenge.  His target is Jill, Jigsaw's wife. Jill attempted to kill Hoffman by attaching the Shawnee Smith jaw clap from the first film to his head.  Because she is not engineering genius like Jigsaw, Hoffman, and Amanda, she doesn't do it right, and Hoffman gets away.  Jill is taken into police custody for protection.  Meanwhile, with all of his free time, Hoffman is setting up more traps.  His main target is Bobby, a supposed "trap" survivor that has written a self help book about his experience.  Bobby even runs group therapy for other survivors of Jigsaw, including...Dr. Gordon from the first film!  Yeah, Cary Elwes is back! 

While the cops are hunting for Hoffman, Bobby is running around a trap filled warehouse, trying to save his pretty young wife from destruction.  Along the way he must decided the fate of his "handlers," people who helped him with his deception. 

Will Bobby get there in time?  Will Jill survive?  Will Hoffman get what is coming to him?  And why did Cary Elwes return for the seventh film?  And where is Shawnee Smith?  These answers and more coming right now:

No. No. Yes. Money. Not enough money and her character is dead. 

I really hope this is the last one.  I have a feeling we need to prepare for the next seven years of Paranormal Activity sequels.  I can only handle one horror soap opera at a time.

Trailer: Saw 3D

Cheeseball!

The Collector: Unnecessary Kitty Trauma....

The good news is that I loved Kick-Ass.  Do yourself a favor and go see it!  The bad news is that I did watch The Collector, and while watching it I kept staring at the Netflix envelope and thinking "when will this 1 hour and 28 minutes be over?"

The Collector is a low rent Saw brought to you by the makers of........Saw.  The Director, Marcus Dunston, wrote Saw IV, V, and VI, also known as the "lesser" Saws. 

Josh Stewart, who looks like a young Sean Penn and who was awesome in the short lived TV show "Dirt" plays Arkin, an ex-con who decides to rob a house to help out his insanely hot ex-wife pay off some loan sharks.  I know, already this is boring the shit out of me.  Anyway, he gets to the house, gets in, and just as he is about to open the safe, he hears a noise.  Someone else is in the house.  Arkin hides, and then begins to hear screaming.  It is the family who lives in the house, locked up in the basement.  Seems a serious asshole in a mask is torturing the family.  Arkin picks up the phone to call the police and in an instant he gets a nail through the ear.  This is one of the many elaborate traps the masked asshole, by now known as "the Collector," has set up throughout the house.  Since he has the family tied up, he must of set the traps just in case some ex-con decided to break in at the same time he was playing happy fun torture. 

The traps are pretty nasty.  I kept thinking the whole time that I hoped the "Collector" had drawn some kind of map or diagram to remind himself of everything he had done, because it would suck for him to be killed by his own knife chandelier.  The "Collector" is like the Macgyver of serial killers.  This seems like a lot of work just to kidnap one person (see the Collector only keeps one person, the rest he kills.)  Arkin keeps trying to rescue the family, but since the family are also a bunch of assholes, they keep getting killed.  Even the family cat gets killed.  Well, first the cat gets stuck in some acid, and then kitty guillotined.  My cat Yao was not in the room while this scene took place.  Thank God. 

The Collector does have it's good qualities.  It is beautifully shot, some of the traps are quite interesting, and Cujo makes a guest appearance.  If you really love the Saw films, you will probably love The Collector.  I only mildly like the Saw films so I watched this flick.  What can I say?  I'm a sucker.

As a side note.  I am noticing a weird trend of former child stars (of the girl variety) showing up in horror flicks, usually playing a quasi-slutty girl who more likely than not is going to get killed.  And they also show their boobs.  Saw this with  Zombie's Halloween, saw it with Hatchet, and now The Collector.

Apparently the little girl from The Hand that Rocks the Cradle is hot shit.  All I know is that it was driving me crazy trying to figure out who she was!