Cynical Cinema

The Scream trilogy comes out in yet another form, August 26th from Alliance Films. And while the new edition of this trilogy is nothing special in terms of special features or extras or packaging, the series bears revisiting. It has been eight years since the final installment in the Scream trilogy, and there is a chance that the series has become somewhat forgotten, especially among the new generation of horror movie buffs. And this, I feel, is a shame. Because I truly believe that Scream is the best series in the history of horror movies. (Alien is a close second, and had they not gone ahead with Alien Resurrection I think it would be in first place. Alien vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem don’t count.)

Scream (10/10):  The first Scream film is an absolute classic. A magnificent work by Wes Craven that managed to take a very standard genre - the slasher movie - and turn it into something brand new and tremendously exciting. The standard things one expects from a slasher film were kept intact. The hot young cast (with Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and Rose McGowan this cast was hotter than most). The concealment of the killer’s identity until the very end. The creepy phone call that leads to a murder. And the other standard cliches - don’t go upstairs, or you’re dead. Don’t have sex, or you’re dead. Don’t do drugs, or…you’re dead. What made Scream fantastic and new was that it didn’t merely go through the motions with the cliches, it absolutely embraced them. In fact, the film is constantly calling attention to it’s own formulaic nature. It’s not formulaic out of laziness or lack of imagination, it’s formulaic by design. It becomes more than just a well done, genuinely scary horror movie. It also becomes a satire of pop culture, a jab at the debate over violence in movies, and an incredible moment for cultural reference. Scream contains many references to the past - other slasher films like Hallowe’en and Friday the 13th. But it also managed to become a part of that same culture in the future, giving rise to not only two sequels of it’s own, but a whole new genre of slasher film beginning with I Know What You Did Last Summer, and spoof movies beginning with Scary Movie. Very few single movies can boast an influence like that.

Scream 2 (10/10):  But Scream is not just the one movie, it is a trilogy. And the series did something unthinkable in horror movie history with their second installment. It got better. (Another nod to the Alien series here - #2 was better than #1.) The first movie was a genuine, scary, thrilling slasher movie while simultaneously being a parody of those same movies. An unbelievable achievement, but Scream 2 goes one better. It is a genuine, scary, thrilling and smart slasher movie. And it is also a parody of the slasher movies of the past. But in an amazingly successful and deft bit of directing by Wes Craven, it is a parody of the first film in the series as well, and becomes a parody of itself on a level the first movie couldn’t hope to attain. Famous satirists in history have attempted this incredibly difficult feat - satirizing one’s own subject matter while still maintaining a smart dialogue and interesting action. Perhaps only Jonathan Swift ever managed to perfect this art, with Gulliver’s Travels in 1726. Since then, maybe only Wes Craven has come close to matching that work. And it’s with Scream 2.

Scream 3 (6/10):  The third Scream movie sucked. Well, it sucked like The Godfather III, more because it couldn’t come close to living up to the previous two. Or, perhaps, like Alien 3. At the very least, however, Scream 3 was still scary and involved Jenny McCarthy and Piper Perabo, and brought back Courtney Cox and Neve Campbell, making it the hottest of the Scream movies. Oh, and it also had a cameo by Jay and Silent Bob. Cool points!

Thrilling, smart, funny, perceptive, contemporary and really truly scary, the Scream trilogy is a must-own for horror fans. If you already own it, don’t bother with this new Alliance Films release. There is nothing extra there. But for those of you who have never seen Scream or it’s two hugely successful sequels, this is a must-have addition to your DVD collection.

One of my pet peeves with TV shows on DVD is when those DVDs don’t have an option to “play all episodes” on the menu. If you get into a show, and you want to really watch a disc or two, it’s annoying to have to switch back to the menu and play each one at a time every 45 minutes or so. A minor quibble, but one that becomes immediately apparent with a series like Jericho. This was a series that ran on CBS in 2006, but was cancelled after that season. But, like so many other TV shows of late, a fan campaign (one would assume one of those oh-so-effective online petitions) resurrected the program for the 2007-2008 season. After seven episodes in that second season, the show was canned again. This time, one would assume, for good. Those seven episodes are available on the Second Season DVD tomorrow, June 17th, from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Jericho is a series that I believe may have been overlooked. I can understand getting into this show in a big way, which is one reason playing each episode individually is so irritating. It’s a series that answers some questions - like “whatever happened to Skeet Ulrich?”, and poses many more. Questions like “how would America respond to a nuclear holocaust?” which is the basic premise of the show. Jericho is a small town in what used to be rural Kansas, that is attempting to rebuild after a massive nuclear attack on major cities destroys the United States as we know it. This of course presupposes, as do so many other television programs today, that no country outside the United States actually exists, or has ever existed. And only Americans can help Americans rebuild America in the American way for good Americans. Maybe the idea here is that after the Bush response to the last terrorist attacks, the rest of the world says “screw you, U.S., you’re on your own”? Well, it doesn’t really matter.

The setting of this show is pretty solid, in that small-town USA is the best place to see misguided patriotism and right-wing crazies and NRA members and gun nuts and humble apple farmers and jovial greasy spoon owners and drunken locals can all come together in the big melting pot, pulling together in a post-apocalyptic world. Although most of those characters aren’t there. The army is there though. And so is the sheriff, Skeet Ulrich. And the government is there too, in the form of a giant corporation called Jennings and Rall. It’s a solid premise, with the idea of a corporation rising in the wake of a massive nuclear attack to control the entire country in every facet making some obvious comparisons to the current governmental situation in the U.S.

But unfortunately, that’s the best thing this series has going for it - the premise. The characters are, for the most part, one-dimensional. The plot, despite the complexity of the ideas, is too simplistic. And the series just doesn’t attain the level of other, similar programs. What made Lost so popular was the fact that the first season was so compelling that people were desperate to watch the second one. (Although the second season suffered for the exact opposite reason - people need to know there’s an end in sight.) Jericho is the kind of series proves to be tougher for us to connect with it, and as such lost a large portion of it’s potential audience right away. But it’s also the kind of show that once you get into it, you need to know how it ends. And since Season Two is the final season (at least on CBS, for now), the DVD set needs to provide closure. And - it does.

What seems to be a hastily devised wrap-up for the show, written once they knew it would be the last season and they felt obligated to provide that closure, gives us the final episode. This is the one that was broadcast on television, ending with a looks-like-everything-will-be-OK-now finish. A second, alternate ending is provided on the DVD set as well, the one that would have been broadcast had the series been extended - a cliffhanger, will-everything-really-be-OK ending. At least the closure makes this DVD series worth picking up.