JB & The Chop Do: Scream (1996)

What the what?! Yes, you are seeing this correctly! The Chop and I return! We are back in business peeps! After all this time! This time we are back to see what we make of Craven’s slasher franchise. So gear up, get ready, and let it be like old times with our latest crazy collaboration!

SYNOPSIS: A group of teens are pitted against a masked murderer that tests their knowledge of horror movies. – via IMDB

What? A Scream collaboration with the Chop? YES! Dreams! You all know I have crazy love for this. Like, it is madness. My husband laughs at me, he thinks I have lost my mind, but he lets me get into it every time. It is one of my favourite things to watch, and something that gets my attention multiple times a year. I even recently got myself a Scream themed backpack, and I fucking love it!

I grew up watching the Scream movies, and as I have gotten older, I have seen there is even more to appreciate than I ever really realised as a kid – so they are both sentimental and smart for me, so winning! Scream is a stroke of genius. Why? Because it mocks on horror movies, does its thing, conforms (and yet stays original and fresh) and teases and jokes.

Scream also heralds one of the most memorable opening scenes ever. Wow. It stays with you and is handled so damn well, hooking you in the opening minutes. Barrymore was perfect as Casey, introducing the creepy call, and her death totally sets the bloody style for the movies right off the bat. So good!

Let’s not pretend Scream isn’t nineties as fuck, but you know what? It works for it. This movie just owns everything. I have serious feelings of nostalgia when it comes to these movies, and I know there are others out there. Love, love, love this, as you can all surely tell 😀

Then there is Sidney Prescott. For reals, this girl is a freaking awesome Final Girl. She doesn’t take flak, she puts up a fight, and she really goes for it. Sassy, smart, survival.

Speaking of specific characters, we cannot forget fan favourites Deputy Dewey and Randy. Man, Dewey you cannot help but adore, and Arquette is brilliant. Then, of course, there is Randy, the signature film geek you gotta love man. I enjoyed his references.

Scream has fun extolling the rules of the horror/slasher genre, and balances this so well with the movie. We get a fun movie, not something to be taken too seriously, but that still brings the gore, the tension, and the blood to the table. What more could you ask for?!

Also, gotta say, while he is not everyone’s cup of tea (and he isn’t even my cup of tea), Skeet Ulrich is doing the most messed up stuff here, but looks damn fine while doing it (I am specifically looking at all at the end – yes, I know how psycho that sounds).

Anyway, I say again, I fucking love Scream. I am going to stop here because I have reviewed these and discussed these all over the show, so I am going to leave it at these movies are awesome. I am looking forward to covering all of this with my partner in collaboration crime Eric. Much fun ahead. Now that you all know what I have to say about it, what did the Chop think?!

1st off – I would like to say THANK YOU to our JB for agreeing to do another series with me. I was afraid I scared her clean off after the Amityville run. When she came back around and asked if I wanted to do the Scream series, I was all “sure thing – I think I’ve only seen one of them” and now – WE’RE BACK!!!!!

Here’s my history with Scream: I really do remember when this came out and I really do remember that this was featured in the commercials here, where I live:

Obviously, I was intrigued but in 1996 I was going through a divorce and living in this shit-cheap apartment that was built back in the 1930s that really did have a BOILER in the corner for heat. That winter was VERY hard and cold and I basically had to sleep on the floor by the thing to try and stay warm at night. Anyway – one night, my friend and I went downtown to this bar and this band called Jackyl was playing behind it so we went out to drink beer and watch the show.  I’ve never been a really upfront/alpha kind of guy with the ladies – I’ve always let them seek me out – but, for some reason I started lurking lingering around this chick and let her sit on my shoulders to see the band and she ended up following me (us) home.

As things turned out, she had a bootleg copy of this movie on VHS so we popped it in and got under the blanket and started watching it and then *ahem* #romance happened and we never finished it. I also didn’t want to be in a relationship again so I never called her even though that was some of the best #romance I ever had. Several years later I was living with my girlfriend at the time who was totally cheating on me and one night we started watching Scream 3 and got most of the way through it before #romance happened so I’ve never really seen one of these all the way through.

Until now, but unfortunately there hasn’t been any #romance as a result of it although earlier I went and got my copy of True Detective back from my coworker since I’m leaving this place and I’ll never see her again and she said she’d be happy to be in my movie I’m working on and she’s willing to show her boobs if need be, so there’s that. Actually, I guess by the time this posts I’ll no longer be employed here so, hi Future Eric – remember to text XXXXXXXXXXX.

As for Scream – I thought it was good enough. I know I’m the old man of the group, so I didn’t grow up with these like JB and others did so it didn’t resonate with me in all of it’s 90s-ness like it will most people. I thought the “ghostface” costume was dumb and NOT scary and the wardrobes were awful – I half expected the cast to have their acid washed Guess? jeans cuffs pinched and rolled up over their ankles while they smoked Marlboro Light Shorts out of a box. They used to call that the French Rolled or Penny Rolling look around here and it was AWFUL but it looks like rolled up cuffs are making a comeback in Europe and they’re calling it “Pinrolling”. Shit.

Regarding the movie in general, I thought the cast did a good job and it was a lot bloodier than I thought it would be but I got kind of tired of the constant movie references and Matthew Lillard (who I like) drove me crazy at the end. If you’re not familiar with him you might remember him as:

I guess that’s it – I liked it enough and David Arquette was actually decent considering the giant douche he can be. Hopefully these get less 90s as they progress.

Sporadic Chronicles of a Beginner Blogger Trivia #1: due to the way I grew a great deal taller before everyone else and my lean physique, my nick name in high school was “Shaggy”.

Sporadic Chronicles of a Beginner Blogger Trivia #2: Sadly, that was not my nickname because I shagged all the hot chicks around town.

Review: Scream (1996)

SYNOPSIS: A group of teens are pitted against a masked murderer that tests their knowledge of horror movies. – via IMDB

Originally I had these lined up for a JB & The Chop collaboration, but extenuating circumstances meant that the outing would have to be cancelled. These have long been lined up for publication for the next few Fridays, and I was quite sad to see of Wes Craven’s passing on Sunday. What a pity, and the man gave us a lot of great horrors, slashers, and thrillers over the years. There would never be a more perfect time to line these up, and so they have become tribute posts.

Popping this in, as much as my other half was calling out how lame this was and how cheesy  and stupid, I have to admit that I had a total blast. Why? Not only because I grew up watching this, but as I got older, I could finally appreciate some specific aspects of these movies. When I was a kid, it was just about some weird mask and terrorizing teenagers and being different from other horror movies yet completely the same. I am older now, wiser. What this movie is, is actually a stroke of genius. Why? Because it mocks on horror movies, does its thing, conforms and teases and jokes.

In a quick way, it is fresh. Different. Goodness knows it has been ripped off from here to Kingdom Come, and it has endured a lot of mockery and cheese on its own, but when you get right down to it, Scream still holds up well after all this time. In fact, it holds up brilliantly. I swear I damn near wore the VHS out when I was a kid, I watched this movie so many times, checked it out of the video store a ton more.

The opening scene for this movie is infamous. We all know it. Or, if you don’t, I am not quite sure where you have been. A creepy, weird phone call to Drew Barrymore? Check. A strange conversation that starts as funny and goes sour, quickly? Check. The popcorn on the stove that she is prepping for a movie that is our timer? Check. A superbly grisly death by the end of all the taunting and the crazy chase? Check.  Totally just one of those movies that was going to nail all the things I love in a film, and handles the delicate balance so well. This movie could have bombed, but it didn’t because there is a certain finesse behind it that just makes it all come together wonderfully.

Scream is so nineties, there is no way to get around that, but on the other hand, that just gives rise to all the nostalgia I feel when I watch that. Not because the nineties were anything to write home about or anything, but that was my decade, rugrat that I was and all.

Scream is smarter than it is given credit for, and is constantly aware of what it is and how it is going about doing it. I find that awesome. It doesn’t get old, it doesn’t get boring, and it isn’t stale. It has an idea, and it runs with it, and is highly successful about it, too.

I was a big fan of the Freddy Krueger nod that was in here, as well as the way it was implemented. I had a pretty good laugh, especially seeing as it was Wes Craven in that outfit 🙂

While looking for the above, I found this… LOL!

Anyway, I also really liked the casting. I mean, half these people you don’t see in movies anymore, though they were pretty popular in the nineties. They all did a good job with what they were given.

They made me laugh, they made me roll my eyes and cringe, but they also had me invested in what was going to happen and how things were going to play out.

I feel for Skeet Ulrich – gosh, imagine getting a name like that as a kid and going through school?! I just couldn’t! Anyway, he was a cutie in a real fucked up, greasy sense, but it worked. Campbell was suited for the scared young girl with issues, David Arquette is a serious favourite of mine as the adorable Deputy Dewey, and Courteney Cox was perfect for the bitchy, sharky reporter. Seriously, like no qualms.

The movie is quotable, too, and played off on a lot of movie clichés that had been seen a million times then, and have been seen a million more since. However, they all just seemed to be done so differently here, which is awesome.

I know he is doing only the most fucked up shit here, but he is damn fine while doing it There’s something just slightly too erotic about the corn syrup licking and knife flicking…

I know I am not alone in my sentiments. I think. I hope. I actually don’t even care. Yep bestie, me and the psychos again…

If you can’t tell from all the points above, I am a huge fan of Scream, it’s smart, it’s great fun and definitely worth watching! Thanks to Wes Craven for having given us something so awesome!