MY MOVIE SHELF: Scream

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 197  Days to go: 138

Movie #241:  Scream

I don’t really like scary movies. They’re gross, gory, exploitative, and I’m predisposed to nightmares. As a rule, I avoid them. Scream, however, is a scary movie of a different color. It’s a horror film that turns the genre against itself. With a knowing wink at the well-worn tropes, it skewers and sends up the very nature of scary movies. The result is a clever thrill ride, and I’m a big fan of those.

The movie starts with a gut punch, so to speak, as the adorable young Casey (Drew Barrymore — a big name for such a role) answers the phone to what seems like a wrong number, but the audience knows better. That ominous voice (Roger Jackson) on the other end of the line means bad things are about to happen in what little remains of Casey’s short life, but first they’re going to play a little game.

The killer in Scream likes scary movies a lot. He talks about them lovingly, seductively. He likes to ask his victims about the scary movies they watch. And he masterminds his whole killing spree as if it is itself a movie, with plot twists and frame-ups and rules. When movie geek Randy (Jamie Kennedy) parses out the rules for horror flicks, it is both a keen observation and a mocking put-down. And then the film goes ahead and both adheres to those rules and turns them on their ear.

Our heroine is Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell). She doesn’t like horror movies either. She finds them dumb and insulting, and I can’t disagree. Sidney lives in the small town of Woodsboro where a bunch of brutal shit is about to go down. It reminds her of the vicious rape and murder of her mother the year before, and her relationship with boyfriend Billy (Skeet Ulrich, who has managed quite a name for himself considering he’s named after a clay pigeon — PULL!) has suffered under her distress. Her best friend Tatum (Rose McGowan), however is a snarky yet supportive shoulder to lean on who takes Sidney in while Sidney’s father is out-of-town. The town is kind of in mass hysteria from the killings, which feels both outrageous and plausible, and they end up closing school and imposing a curfew. Naturally, this means it’s time to throw a party. Tatum’s boyfriend Stu (Matthew Lillard) has conveniently absent parents, so he has a big bash at his house — a perfect stage for the killer’s final bloodbath. Sidney is tormented and confused and continually bothered by her nemesis newswoman Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) who has always asserted the man convicted of killing Sidney’s mom — Cotton Weary, played by Liev Schreiber — was innocent, but they come together at the end (with a little help from Randy and Tatum’s brother Deputy Dewey, played by the goofy and adorable David Arquette), to write a new ending to this movie.

I catch a few of the (many, many) references here to other famous horror movies, but since I’m not a fan of them I’m sure I miss a lot more. The only ones I’ve watched with any regularity, in fact, are the Freddy Krueger films and since Scream is directed by Wes Craven, I actually think I notice more of those. (My favorite will always be the TV to the face. “In your dreams!” God, that movie cracks me up.) The magic of Scream, however, is that since I’m sure there are so many more inside jokes I’m not getting, it actually makes me feel like I should watch more horror movies. And I have, but they’re mostly just Scream sequels. I have my limits, after all.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 198  Days to go: 139

Movie #240:  Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed

When we rejoin our (mostly) fearless crew, Mystery Inc. (as they call themselves) are the big hot thing in their hometown of Coolsville. There are news cameras, red carpets and screaming fans at their latest appearance, the opening of the Coolsville Museum of Criminology, and they each have their own individual fan bases: cute chicks love Fred (Freddie Prinze Jr.), weird gross guys tattoo Daphne (Sarah Michelle Gellar) on their chests, nerd girls go wild for Velma (Linda Cardellini), stoners think Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) rules, and dogs love Scooby-Doo.

Things go awry, however, when the displays of old monster costumes turn into real monsters and wreak havoc on the building, with Shaggy and Scooby’s help. The team is discredited, and have to repair their reputation by solving this latest mystery. Only now Shaggy and Scooby feel like screw-ups, like they’re constantly letting their friends down, so they try to prove themselves on their own, with wacky results.

This time around the stakes aren’t necessarily raised, but the guest star quotient definitely is. We’ve got Seth Green as Velma’s crush Patrick, Alicia Silverstone as vampy news anchor Heather Jasper-Howe, and Peter Boyle as Old Man Wickles. There are even cameos by former Access Hollywood host Pat O’Brien, character actor Tim Blake Nelson as legendary baddie Jonathan Jacobo and American Idol season two winner Ruben Studdard singing over the closing credits because why not.

I have actually heard people compare this sequel unfavorably to the original, but I don’t see the point. They’re basically standard Scooby-Doo episodes, each one, and neither is better or worse than the other. Plus, this one features a weird dance number with an afro-bewigged Scooby and a fight scene where Gellar gets to show off her Buffy fighting skills (fitting, since her Buffy pals were often called the Scoobies). I also really got a kick out of Hot Velma wearing an approximation of Britney Spears’s “Oops I Did It Again” outfit and not being able to walk or apparently bend her legs in heels.

On top of all that, there’s a double unmasking at the end! Honestly, what more do you people want??

MY MOVIE SHELF: Scooby-Doo

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 199  Days to go: 139

Movie #239:  Scooby-Doo

So last night I discovered that a bunch of my S movies were out of alphabetical order, which is going to irritate me until the end of time. Unfortunately, I can’t go back and fix it, so now there are SEVEN GODDAMN MOVIES that are being covered out-of-order, including the last one. I blame the kids, because it’s probably their fault one way or another.

As for this little double-feature (which, each film gets its own entry — I am not trying to cheat here), I inherited it when my husband and I were dating and he moved in with this adorable little girl (his daughter, obviously) with big blue eyes and a wildly silly disposition who ate “much cookies,” wrote the names of her friends in a little bank calendar, thought dancing was “too humiliating” (really) and loved Scooby-Doo more than anything. She watched this flick all the time. It was her very favorite thing.

For myself, I hardly think they could’ve cast these main characters any better. It’s like, I never would’ve pictured Freddie Prinze Jr. as Fred until this came out, and then it’s SO OBVIOUS. Same for Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne, honestly, and Matthew Lillard is like Shaggy come to life. Even Linda Cardellini makes for an impressive Velma, though I’m not sure how I didn’t realize it was her before now — especially since I immediately recognized her today. (Also, she is a tiny person. Has she always been tiny?) Scooby himself is of course CGI, which there was a bit of griping about beforehand, though I’m not sure what other option there was. It’s as weird-looking as you would imagine a CGI Scooby-Doo would be, but if you’re looking for a movie based on Scooby-Doo that isn’t weird-looking (at a MINIMUM), then maybe your expectations are a bit too high.

The action picks up right in the middle of things, which was confusing at first, especially since there are two movies on one disc here and for some reason I always thought this one was the second one. So I had to double-check, but confirmed this was the right one after all. The gang is feeling a lot of tension among themselves, what with Fred being vain and Daphne being sick of being helpless and Velma being sick of doing all the work and getting none of the credit. (Shaggy and Scooby feel no tension ever, unless there are monsters involved. Must be the weed.) So they solve their case and all go their separate ways, joining up two years later when an eccentric millionaire (Rowan Atkinson) who owns an island theme resort called Spooky Island invites them all over to solve the mystery of his catatonic teen guests. Your basic Scooby-Doo episode ensues.

There is a nice little bonus, though, in the form of a love interest for Shaggy named Mary Jane, natch (played by Isla Fisher, who, with blonde hair, looks nothing like Amy Adams). She’s very cute and sweet and she, too, loves Scooby Snacks. (They’re a vegetarian treat.) I like her quite a lot.

Of course, there’s also the act of the gang coming back together, with Daphne becoming a self-sufficient black belt and Fred acknowledging all their teamwork and Velma being the object of a little male gaze. It’s, for a five-year-old at least, a pretty satisfactory arc. They even pay off adult fans of the old cartoon series by making Scrappy-Doo an insufferable menace who nobody likes. Scooby-doobie-doo!

Okay, it’s not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but what do you want? It’s Scooby-Doo.