Halloween Review: Tales of Halloween

I was amused to find that, in my original review of Tales of Halloween, I noted that I didn’t expect to watch it again.  Well, two years later, I did just because I needed a review for Halloween.  It seems that, in the intervening years, my views have changed somewhat.

Firstly, I found myself less inclined to compare this film to Trick ‘RTreat.  Going in this time I knew what to expect, and it wasn’t Trick ‘R Treat.  I found myself comparing it to the short scary stories that get passed around on the internet every October (and, if you’re a horror nerd, year-round).  By that standard these still aren’t classics, but they are good.

I was somewhat surprised to learn that the tale I found the most memorable this time was one I didn’t even mention my first time reviewing it, Lucky McKee’s “Ding Dong.”  A man (Marc Senter) deals with the literal witch he married (Pollyanna McIntosh) and her craving for children on Halloween.  This story hits hard as both a fantastic story, and a great metaphor for spousal abuse.

I also have to ask myself how I didn’t mention that the killer in “Friday the 31^st” (Nick Principe) was such an obvious Jason homage.  I guess I just figured my readers would assume it, since most horror parodies draw something from Jason, but this example is so blatant I’m not sure why it isn’t lawsuit worthy, right down to the head of his mother on display in his house.

Most of my discussions of the other segments from my first review are still valid.  Most of them are still goofy, with plenty of morality tales sprinkled in.  The tones vary a lot in keeping with the different directors, but I don’t think any of them ever become truly bad.  The different tones actually help us to see many different perspectives of Halloween, and that goes a long way towards giving this film its own identity.

Aside from that, it’s still a fun movie.  If you plan a lineup of movies for the season, this is definitely a worthy edition.  I’m curious to see how it ages.

Green Room

This is another film that I previously covered in a Wednesday Review. In that review I talked about it primarily as a dilemma set up in the manner of Hitchcock. Rewatching it, however, I was more inclined to see it in more human terms. The movie doesn’t simply present us with a logic puzzle to solve, but with people who are trying to navigate their situation, their convictions, and their underlying morality.

A punk band called the Ain’t Rights are in the middle of their “tour,” siphoning off gas to keep their van going, when they find themselves at a dead end. Their next stop was canceled, and the only show available to them in the State is a Nazi bar. So, they take the job.

What impresses me the most about this film is the decision to heavily humanize the Nazis. This doesn’t make them any less intimidating, but it does make the film seem like a real conflict. These aren’t supervillains in their lair, or automatons who exist only to die at the hands of our heroes. They’re individuals who share a common, if deranged, ideology.

If there’s a defining moment for the Nazis as a group, it’s when the band goes onstage and sings “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” by the Dead Kennedys. A bottle or two are thrown, and some of the skinheads look outraged. Others, however, actually look on with admiration, or even laugh.

The conflict is created by a single, stupid event. The band are told not to return to the club’s Green Room because the headliners are preparing. But Sam (Alia Shawcat) left her phone charging, and Pat (Anton Yelchin) runs in and sees a dead body lying on the floor. From there, the band find themselves being held by a man named Big Justin (Eric Edelstein) along with friend-of-the-corpse Amber (Imogen Poots). The remaining members are Tiger (Callum Turner) and big guy-extraordinaire Reece (Joe Cole).

The Nazis, however, make the mistake of assuming Big Justin can keep the situation under control behind a locked door with a single gun, dealing with five people who all assume they’re going to die anyway. This is obviously a mistake, and in an effort to get the band out of the room the club’s owner Darcy (Sir Patrick Stewart) orders Justin to unload the gun and hand it to them. The situation is quickly reversed, with Justin as a hostage.

From that point onward the movie becomes a gigantic chess game. Obviously, the skinheads could just break down the door, storm the room, and kill them all. However, the band performed in front of dozens of witnesses, so their bodies have to be found with an explainable cause of death. Furthermore, they’re not eager to charge people with a loaded gun, competent to use it or otherwise.

Likewise, the band finds itself struggling to think of any realistic scenario in which they don’t all die horribly. Attempting to dig through the floorboards just leads them to a heroin lab, making them even more threatening witnesses. When negotiations are attempted Pat nearly looses his hand, and the “Red Laces” (skinheads who shed blood) are able to take back the gun.

Over the course of the movie we eventually get three escape attempts. The first two are utter failures in which the Tiger, Sam, Reece, and eventually Nazi-defector Daniel (Mark Webber) are all killed. At the same time, however, one of the Nazis’ attack dogs is mortally wounded, and more significantly the loyalty of Darcy’s minions begins to come into question. Aside from Daniel’s defection, a bouncer named Gabe (Macon Blair) becomes increasingly disturbed by the whole affair.

With the cast finally whittled down, Amber and Pat are able to stage a final confrontation in which they take two Red Laces off-guard by acting like complete lunatics. Killing someone who’s afraid of you is one thing. Killing someone with his face painted, who’s banging a machete wildly and screaming that he’s Odin is quite another.

After the Laces are dead, Gabe surrenders to the two, and they go to confront Darcy and his remaining skinheads while Darcy’s gang are in the process of setting up the bodies of their friends as trespassers killed when they attempted to siphon gas. Taken by surprise, the Nazis die, and Amber and Pat sit down to contemplate. Honestly, Patrick Stewart has the single greatest death scene I’ve ever seen. He literally turns to walk away moments before death, as if to say that his killers are not important enough to disrupt his routine.

I mentioned in my original review that I had a problem with the ending. I have now changed my mind on that. I mentioned the mortally wounded dog before. Through the last act of the film that dog is wandering through the woods, and we periodically cut back to him. We’ve even been told by his trainer (Kai Lennox) that the dog should die killing, and said that his attack word is “Fass.” So, naturally, we expect him to kill someone at the end.

So, in the final moments of the movie, the dog walks past Amber and Pat. They open fire, but are out of bullets. The dog lays down next to his apparently-dead trainer, and we brace ourselves for the final whisper of “Fass”...and it never comes. In the theatre I was furious, but honestly I can’t imagine anything would have had a stronger impact on me than those final moments. This wasn’t a mistake on the part of the filmmakers, they knew my anticipation, and they chose not to give me what I wanted because they wanted me pissed off. It was the most palpable reaction they could hope for.

To talk briefly about the characters, Darcy kills it. He’s a businessman who somehow strikes a balance between vicious, likable, and loyal. As of the end of the film the man remains something of an enigma to me, and I’m really uncertain if he’s a deeply loyal member of his own movement, or a cult leader guiding sheep. Either way, he’s an effective villain.

Amber functions well as a foil to all the others. She tells us that she’s “not a Nazi,” and her ideology is only discussed briefly. At some point she was the victim of violence by a person of color, and so she hangs out with racists. She’s a vicious person, who comes after Darcy and his men for pure revenge, and as with Stewart I’m not sure how much I really know about her. She could be a sociopath, or she could just be a damaged person trying to not be hurt again.

Finally, Pat is just one member of the ensemble for most of the film, but makes a great foil for Amber in the final conflict. He varies between badass and uncertain. Where she chooses to confront Darcy simply to kill him, Pat had hoped at least one of his friends might still be alive. While he makes it clear in the confrontation that he’s not messing around, it’s Amber who decides that murder is the best option after the Nazis have been disarmed and are at gunpoint.

Green Room is an awesome movies. These are awesome actors. Patrick Stewart is a legend. Anton Yelchin died too soon. Peace out.

Scream 4

I’m probably not the first to point out the obvious here, although I haven’t specifically seen anyone else do it: Scream 4 took on horror remakes in an effort to revive the franchise. It bombed, and failed to get a sequel, exactly like the remakes it was going after. In fact, in the climactic scene Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) recites the names of fifteen horror remakes, only three of which ever got a sequel (and one prequel). Of those three, none made it to a trilogy. I seriously wonder what Scream 5 would have done if it’s entire reference pool of “recent sequels to horror remakes” was Halloween 2, The Hills Have Eyes 2, and Piranha 3DD (and, I supposed, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning).

The movie is, as of now, probably my second favorite of the series. While it’s true there was a troubled production, this very much feels like the logical path these characters would have taken as they grew over the years. Dewey (David Arquette) is now the sheriff of Woodsboro, Sidney (Neve Campbell) is on a book tour promoting her self-help autobiography about how she overcame the hoard of serial killers coming after her, and Gale (Courteney Cox) is now a would-be fiction author married to Dewey and confined by the small-town life and her writer’s block.

The status of this movie as a new start, and a take on horror remakes, makes the new characters far less distracting than in the previous films. While the original three are still safe (and Sidney’s love interest from the last movie seems to have been abducted by aliens or something), the new cast integrates themselves effectively. Even though Scream 5 was never made, it’s shadow is here, and it’s clear these characters weren’t written to be one-shots. That does create some real tension to see which of them will make it to the next movie, which are the killers, and which get the ax.

In this movie Ghostface seems to be going after not just Sidney, but her surviving family. This makes Sidney’s newly-introduced Aunt Kate (Mary McDonnell) and her daughter Jill (Emma Roberts) primary targets as well. Through a mixture of Jill’s social circle, and Gale’s attempts to investigate with the aid of the younger horror buffs, we get a few other High School characters, throwing us back to the original. In addition to aforementioned horror-buff Kirby, we get Film Club co-Presidents Robbie and Charlie (Erik Knudsen and Rory Culkin), and Jill’s ex-boyfriend Prime Suspect Trevor (Nico Tortorella).

My favorite character, however, is Deputy Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton), who seems to be something of a loose Dewey equivalent for the film, as the innocent and goofy law-enforcement officer, while also bringing a new dynamic to the film. As Dewey’s deputy it’s clear to everyone there’s sexual tension, even as his marriage to Gale weakens. However, rather than going the obvious route of asking if they’ll cheat, they both simply suffer in silence as both are far too moral to ever take part in anything so illicit.

Even presenting lemon squares to Dewey is done in public, as if to silently say “I am doing this in full view of the public, so my morality is not in question.” I make this sound like some kind of tragic star-crossed lovers plot, but in practice it’s outright hilarious. Even Gale seems annoyed at Judy’s uprightness, being unable to challenge her with anything more than “Your lemon squares taste like ass!”

To talk about the actual plot: a new Ghostface returns just as Sidney’s book tour takes her back home, and as an annual Woodsboro screening of all the Stab movies approaches. Killing two girls, the killer dumps the bodies in the trunk of Sidney’s car, keeping her in town as a “material witness,” staying with her now-targeted family.

This Ghostface distinguishes himself from earlier versions primarily through a more overt obsession with fame. He frequently suggests in his calls that Sidney has benefited from her victim status, while leaving Woodsboro and those living in it behind. In that way this Ghostface is probably more distinct than any of the previous versions, being more overt with his motive. Ironically, in attempting to be genre savvy, this Ghostface manages to be sloppier than any of the previous incarnations, trying to force movie tropes, and being less prepared to adapt.

The movie doesn’t lay out the rules of remakes or modern horror as clearly as the earlier films, and I get the impression that’s because horror had reached a point where it was no longer as easy to define. Scream Wiki lists seven rules for this movie, as opposed to three for all the previous films, but some of them are much vaguer. For example, “unexpected is the new cliché,” and “don’t fuck with the Original.” They also note that virgins “can” die now, and that to survive a modern slasher “you pretty much have to be gay.”

The only two rules that define this film clearly, and separately from the earlier movies are that the ending of the original movie will be a fake-out ending, and to keep the movies relevant the killer will be filming the murders with the latest technology. Both of these rules are played with in clever ways.

The killer does film the events throughout. It’s not really drawn attention to as much as you might expect, but it is there. It’s commented on, and we’re told that the intention is to upload it to the internet. Given the eventually details we learn of the plan I’m not sure how the killer was going to explain the footage being uploaded after killing the patsy, but that isn’t too distracting.

Since we all know there will be a fake-out, the movie pulls a double fake-out. At the half-way point of the film the killer attacks Gale at the annual “Stabathon,” in what pretty much everyone in the audience knows to be the attempted fake-out ending. It’s a party with young people drinking and watching horror movies, so it fulfills the technical requirements of a fake-out, without any real effort to fake anyone out. I see this as entirely intentional: the killer isn’t even trying at this point, and that lack of effort renders Ghostface off the rhythm of the movie, as he believes himself to be in the final act going forward.

In the set-up of the final act Kate is killed, and the new cast flee to Kirby’s house, where Trevor shows up claiming he was sent a text from Jill’s phone, and Charlie and Kirby begin to fall for each other. Fearing that Jill is next, the old cast minus the hospitalized Gale, rushes to Kirby’s to protect her. Ghostface, of course, shows up, kills Robbie, and kidnaps Charlie, forcing Kirby into the trailer scene where she has to answer horror film questions in imitation of the opening of the original. Thinking she won, however, Kirby approaches Charlie, who immediately stab her (her survival is a point of contention among fans, the scene showing she lived was either never filmed or cut, I’m not sure which), revealing himself as the first killer.

The second killer, as we find out with Sidney’s capture, is Jill. As it turns out, our new target had the goal of assuming Sidney’s identity within the new “remake” as the soul survivor, and had manipulated Charlie by recognizing him as a misogynist pig who she could control with faked sexual interest. Trevor is now captured, serving the duel roles of Sidney’s father and evil boyfriend Billy Loomis, as Jill takes him hostage in the role of one to frame as the other. Only unlike Billy, Jill is smart enough to off Trevor immediately after the reveal.

Needing a second killer, she also kills Charlie who expected her to stab his shoulder so he could be “left for dead,” stabs Sidney, then seriously wounds herself in a scene that demonstrates both her obsession and her utter detachment. Her rants about modern culture and the affects the internet create an interesting character, although they do sound somewhat like an older person ranting about “kids these days.” While her motivation seems a bit weak as reality television finally seems to be fading from the public landscape, the idea of a stupid teenager yelling “I don’t need friends I need fans” works as a character, if not a message.

Also, while kind of obvious, I do like the idea that Charlie’s implied ultimate punishment was to die as a virgin, having killed the girl who would have happily solved that problem. I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to interpret him as a moron, thinking that the girl who killed her friends and family for fame would show loyalty to him. It’s kind of the ultimate karma for a young person who lets his sexual frustration boil over into misogyny.

Trying to think back to the first time I saw this movie, I think I knew a second fake-out was coming. If nothing else, I was pretty sure they weren’t going to kill Sidney and let the killer win (although a series of sequels about Jill with actual killers after her, as she hides what really happened, does seem like a brave direction). So, the final confrontation happens in the hospital, when Jill finds out that Sidney might pull through. Before going to finish her off, Jill makes a slip-up referencing Gale’s wound, which she couldn’t have known about unless he was the attacker, and Gale, Judy, and Dewey descend on the room to protect Sidney. After a skirmish, Jill is electrocuted, then shot, and we cut to a reporter calling Jill a “real survivor” and “right out of the movies.” Irony! Roll credits.

This movie is, in many ways, much closer to the first than either of the other sequels. It mixes real horror and humor in the same scene. Jill is easily the second best Ghostface, but the #1 slot is a pretty high hill to climb. Where Jill came across simply as shallow an unfeeling, there was a real sense that Billy Loomis was a person with a truly deep-seated evil that had merely expressed itself through the avenue of recreating a horror movie. In all probability Billy Loomis would have been a killer no matter what. I imagine that if the two had ever met Jill would have tried to take a selfie, and Billy would stab her while she was doing it.

The movie hasn’t aged perfectly, as web culture is probably less vapid than it was at the time of release. The Jersey Shore is long gone, replaced by Matpat producing thoughtful commentary on supposedly “shallow” entertainment. That said, reading Jill as simply a sociopath, the movie still works.

Scream 3

Scream 3 is the only film in this series that I don’t actually like. Don’t get me wrong, taken on it’s own it’s not bad. However, compared to the previous films, it’s lazy. It’s particularly annoying that the movie taunts us with the suggestion that one of the main characters will die, and all three of our leads are still alive when the credits roll. Furthermore, we’re told this in a posthumous videotape recorded by Randy (Jamie Kennedy), the main character who was killed off in the previous film.

That’s the problem with this movie: It’s supposed to be the concluding chapter. It’s the end of a trilogy, a finale, the close of the story. However, Scream 2 actually felt much braver in it’s decision to kill off Randy. This movie, however, doesn’t have any moments that are particularly shocking or surprising.

One point that is borrowed from the second movie: building the reveal around a brief line of dialogue from a previous film. That way, the movies feel connected, without getting too bogged down in continuity. For 2 it was the comment about Billy’s mother leaving town, setting up her reappearance. In this film it was the suggestion that Maureen Prescott had slept with a large number of men, setting up both her sexual abuse during her time in Hollywood, and the possibility that Sidney (Never Campbell) had an unknown sibling.

However, the movie chooses to expand and throw in new characters, when it should be slicing everything down to the basics, and building a film on established characters from the previous movies. All the elements for a good finale are here, but they’re assembled in the wrong way.

The set-up of the film makes sense: Sidney has gone into hiding, working on a womens’ crisis hotline. In order to get her attention, the killer begins a rampage on the set of the newest Stab movie, where Dewey (David Arquette) is working as a consultant. Gale (Courtney Cox) is contacted by the police and comes to the set after the first murder of the now-famous talk show host Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber). The killer begins targeting the actors in the order of their deaths in the film (Cotton had foolishly agreed to appear as himself in a cameo in which he would be killed off).

Eventually, Sidney is lured into the case. As she, Gale, and Dewey hunt for clues, it eventually comes to light that the killer’s motives relate to Sidney’s mother Maureen, who had spent some time in Hollywood under the name Rina Reynolds. It becomes clear that she’d been sexually abused by multiple men at the home of Producer John Milton (Lance Henricksen), who profited from her death by making the Stab films. Henricksen gives us a decent Wes Craven impersonation, although I kind of wish Craven had taken the plunge and played the role himself.

When the killer captures Gale and Dewey, Sidney is lured to his home, and finds out that her mother had a child who grew to be Stab 3 director Roman Bridger (Scott Foley). Roman had sought Maureen out before the events of the first film, and had the door slammed in his face. So, he groomed both Billy and Mrs. Loomis as killers in an effort to get revenge. From that revelation the film plays out as expected: Roman has a plan to frame Sidney as the killer, there’s a confrontation, and he’s killed. The only major deviation from the previous film is the lack of a secondary killer, and that only because a rewrite eliminated the idea of Sidney’s in-universe actress Angelina (Emily Mortimer) being his accomplice.

I don’t wish to give the impression that Foley does a bad job. Indeed, better established, I think Roman could have been an excellent villain. But, this wasn’t the time for new elements to take center stage. The movie also suffers from having Gale’s actress, Jennifer (Parker Posey), suddenly become a main character investigating the crime. While the idea of Gale competing with a fictionalized version of herself to be the best Gale Weathers is moderately amusing, it further distracts. This movie complicates what should be simplicity and humanity.

I spent a lot of time debating how I could criticize this movie without a better solution myself. And then it came to me: the perfect ending to this trilogy would be for Sidney’s brother to be a character known and beloved throughout the series. Ironically, Scary Movie got it right: the revelation of Dewey as the mastermind would have been both logical (why did the killers never finish him off in the previous movies?), and heartbreaking. While you could argue that Dewey would have little trouble finding Sidney, bringing her into an environment in which she was vulnerable would be far more difficult.

So, is this a bad film? Once again, no. However, if you’re going through the Scream movies and skip from 2 to 4, you won’t feel like you missed that much.

Scream 2

I first became a fan of the Scream movies in the mid-2000s when I was in High School. At the time Scream 2 was my favorite, but as I've gotten older the film hasn't aged well. It's still a good film, much better than Scream 3. However, in retrospect I think that I loved the sillier and more over-the-top story as a teenager, and as an adult I find the movie a bit immature in it’s tone. While the same issue could be raised with Scream 4, that film does an overall better job of hitting the right notes.

The single biggest weakness of this film is probably the new characters. The core characters of Sidney (Neve Campbell), Gale (Courteney Cox), Dewey (David Arquette), and Randy (Jamie Kennedy) all do excellent work. However, Liev Schreiber comes across as phoning it in his expanded role as Cotton Weary, and I really can't see Derek (Jerry O'Connell) without thinking Sidney is dating Quinn from Sliders. I'd say Hallie (Elise Neal) is the only new character who comes across as compelling or interesting, and she's given fairly little to do before being killed.

The single weakest point, though, is the villains. The concept behind them is clever: Billy Loomis' mother (Laurie Metcalf) returns to get revenge on the girl who killed her son, and teams up with Mikey (Timothy Olyphant), an attention-hungry troll who wants to kill people and then blame it on the movies so he can have a high-profile trial. Unfortunately, both of these characters are only featured in passing prior to the reveal, so neither is properly set up. This lack of development is just weird, since Mrs. Loomis goes out of her way to create a false identity when she introduces herself to Gale, and Mickey is a college classmate. Both of these gave the villains an opening to interact with the protagonists. Instead, we get a number of long scenes establishing Cotton and Derek as suspects.

Beyond their lack of set-up, the villains are just downright cartoonish. Where Billy and Stu from the original Scream came across as realistically disturbed, the villains here immediately jump into insane ranting. It doesn't help that the villains have no loyalty to each other, with Mrs. Loomis shooting Mickey shortly after the reveal, keeping him down until she'd been dispatched. While having two killers still helps to explain how Ghostface could pop up at random and never tire in a chase, having them turn on each other means that at no point do the heroes have to deal with two killers at once.

There is one thing that this movie does perfectly thought: Killing off Randy. The fact that 3 and 4 limit the deaths to new characters reduces the impact of both films. The Cassandra sequence in this film is taken by some fans to imply that Kevin Williamson intended to kill Sidney off in Scream 3. Personally, I would have offed Gale, since Dewey's survival is something of a running gag in the series.

I know that many people disagree with me on this point, but knowing that writers refuse to kill off certain characters kills the tension. Killing a main character is what made Psycho a classic, and in horror giving certain characters immunity from death just comes across as cheap. Anyone can die, that’s where fear comes from.

I know that I'm harping on the bad points here, of which there are a lot, but this is still a good film. It pales next to the original, and even next to Scream 4, but it still gives you the classic characters, a lot of tense scenes, and a mystery that works fairly well. If you feel like marathoning the Scream movies, include this one.