Movie Review Scream 6

Scream 6 (2023) 

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett 

Written by James Vanderbilt, Gary Busick 

Starring Jenna Ortega, Melissa Barrera, Courtney Cox, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding 

Release Date March 10th, 2023 

Published March 9th, 2023 

After having seen Scream 6 I can now confirm that there are only two possible truths in this franchise. One possible truth is that no one in Scream has any vital organs. Or, second possible truth, Knives are capable of malfunctioning. It has to be one or the other. There are no other rational explanations as to how human beings can survive so many, many stab wounds. Characters in Scream movies now are basically a series of blood balloons tied together to form human beings. No vital organs, just places where they can be stabbed and partially deflate. That's it. 

Stabbing someone in movies used to be far more effective than it is today. In Psycho you did not see Marion Crane getting up and sharing witty banter with anyone after being stabbed repeatedly by Mrs. Bates. Heck, even in the original, 1996 Scream movie, Drew Barrymore died in the opening minutes from a number of stab wounds. Granted, it was the first indication of the growing overall ineffectiveness of knives in horror movies, but she did die from her wounds, eventually. 

I'm being petty. It's just a matter that I have been able to suspend disbelief in previous entries in the Scream franchise. Scream 1,2,4, and 5, feature such good scares and such great characters that the implausibility melted into the background. Writer Kevin Williamson, aided by the skilled direction of horror veteran Wes Craven, was able to distract us with wit and charm while Craven's camera blocking and old school approach to building suspense, carried us over the harder to believe ideas about how many times Sidney Prescott was going to survive a serial murderer. 

Now however, without the wit and with greatly lesser character and direction, the seams of the franchise are beginning to wear away. There are only so many times that Ghostface can be knocked on the head and walk away. There are only so many times we can see someone have most of their vital organs punctured and live that such a thing remains effective. With Scream 6, for me, the franchise has pushed beyond my ability and willingness to suspend disbelief. With nothing to elevate the movie above the horror tropes, we're left with a downright comical number of stab wounds that people manage to survive. 

Picking up the story from Scream 5, the Carpenter sisters, Samantha (Melissa Barrera) and Tara (Jenna Ortega), survivors of the most recent massacre in Woodsboro, are now living in New York City. Tara is attending college, along with old friends Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and her fraternal twin brother, Chad (Mason Gooding). And, of course, they've picked up strays including new roommate Quinn (Liana Liberato), and Chad's new roommate Ethan (Jack Champion). Samantha has also picked a secret boyfriend, a neighbor named Danny (Josh Segarra), who, naturally, will become an immediate suspect when Ghostface returns. 

Indeed, Ghostface is back as a pair of film students appear to be trying to finish the story that Randy Kirsch (Jack Quaid) and Amber Freeman (Mikey Madison) tried to tell in Scream 5. That story centered on Sam being the big bad due to her history as the illegitimate daughter of original Scream killer, Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich). These dorks want to finish Randy and Amber's movie by killing the Carpenter sisters and framing them for all of the murders from Woodsboro to New York City. Before they can accomplish that however, they too are killed and a new story of revenge begins to unfold. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review: Zodiac

Zodiac (2007) 

Directed by David Fincher

Written by James Vanderbilt

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox

Release Date March 3rd, 2007

Published March 2nd, 2007 

Director David Fincher has a childhood connection to the case of the Zodiac killer. Fincher grew up in Marin County just outside San Francisco and rode a school bus for weeks with a police escort after the Zodiac threatened to flatten the tires of a school bus and kill all the children inside. This memory amongst others of that hyper-paranoid time in San Francisco were the impetus for Fincher's involvement in the movie Zodiac starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo.

Though some will connect this serial killer film with Fincher's masterpiece of the macabre Seven, Zodiac is a very different animal. A meditative character piece, Zodiac is a masterpiece of observation and dialogue. Working without the shock factors of Seven or his other masterpiece Fight Club, Fincher cultivates an absorbing tale of procedure.

He also crafts his third masterpiece.

In 1968 two teenagers by a lake in northern California were shot to death with seemingly no motive. Then, less than a year later, two more teenagers, this time on a lover's lane, are shot and one dies. After this murder a letter arrives at newspapers across the bay area and a man who would soon come to be called The Zodiac, claimed credit for the murders. Another murder in early 1970, another couple, in which a woman is killed and her male companion survives is claimed by The Zodiac.

This was only the beginning of the case of the Zodiac, a case that would come to grip the San Francisco police department, amongst other northern California law enforcement offices, for more than a decade. Another murder in 1970, the death of a cab driver on the streets of San Francisco, kept the case open in several different counties in northern California.

Based on the prose of cartoonist turned amateur sleuth Robert Graysmith, the movie Zodiac is a studious recreation of the period of the Zodiac killings and the facts as gathered by Graysmith, the police and the reporters who gave their lives to solving the Zodiac case and failed.

The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Graysmith who in the late 60's was the political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle. His path to becoming obsessed with the Zodiac case began with the killers first letter which included a cypher that captured his attention. As a boy scout Graysmith was taught code breaking. He didn't crack the first cypher but future codes he did break on behalf of the Chronicle's top crime reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr) who made Graysmith part of the case.

On the other side of the Zodiac case were the cops, especially San Francisco detective Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and his partner Bill Armstrong (Anthony Edwards). Though they were late to the Zodiac case, they caught what is allegedly the last of the Zodiac's murders, it was Toschi who the Zodiac singled out as a worthy opponent and though the film doesn't speculate, Toschi may have been the reason Zodiac came to San Francisco and changeded his M.O from killing couples to the thrill kill of a cab driver.

The evidence uncovered by Toschi and Armstrong is what leads the police to the prime suspect who, in a scene of chilling resonance, is revealed to be far more average than one might expect from a killer who has managed to toy with police and avoid capture for so long. This is just one of many exceptional scenes in Zodiac that add up to an ending some may find unsatisfying but I found liberating and illuminating.

Why did Robert Graysmith become obsessed with the Zodiac? That is a question that only Graysmith could answer and is not something that Jake Gyllenhaal's oddly compelling performance has time to ponder. Gyllenhaal crafts Graysmith as a nervous oddball character whose compulsive personality finds outlet in the investigation of the Zodiac.

First it's the cyphers which intrigue him. Then an odd sense of what he feels is justice takes him over. Though he doesn't question the police commitment to finding the Zodiac, he is convinced that he can help the investigation and thus begins a strange journey into the midst of the case. A series of red herrings and strong suspects distract him for a time but might have been the ramblings of a conspiracy nut soon become the key to revealing who the Zodiac really was.

Robert Downey Jr. nails every moment of his worn down, drugged out reporter in Zodiac. Robert Avery was the Chronicle crime reporter on the Zodiac case and he too was consumed by it, though in a far more self destructive way. Avery, at first, reveled in taunting the killer in his coverage, even calling him a latent homosexual in one controversial column. Soon he is turning up leads and working around the cops to break the case. Unfortunately, it was the case that broke Avery.

Mark Ruffalo has always been a solid actor but he is invigorated working with David Fincher. Ruffalo's is a lively engaged performance. Energetic, smart and even humorous, his Dave Toschi is such a compelling figure that it is no surprise that he was the template for both Steve McQueen's cop in Bullitt and Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry.

Zodiac is a hypnotic journey. An absorbing police procedural about obsessive characters and the lengths they go in pursuit of their obsession. Even at nearly three hours Zodiac holds you in rapt attention as it unfolds this horrifying tale of a murderer who escapes capture and the men who gave their lives for some semblance closure, even if that closure brought them nowhere close to justice.

Guaranteed to be one of the best films of 2007, Zodiac is the first can't miss movie of the year.

Movie Review: Basic

Basic (2003)

Directed by John McTiernan 

Written by James Vanderbilt 

Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Connie Nielsen, Taye Diggs, Giovanni Ribisi, Tim Daly 

Release Date March 28th, 2003 

Published March 27th, 2003 

Just over a year ago, director John McTiernan hit a career low point that made The Last Action Hero look like an Oscar winner. The 2002 remake of Rollerball was a painful cinematic experience for the audience and probably the filmmaker as well. McTiernan soldiers on, literally in fact, with his new military thriller Basic. Re-teaming Pulp Fiction partners John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, McTiernan has improved on his last effort; then again, how could he not?

Travolta, back in military mode for the first time since 1999 trash thriller The General's Daughter, here plays another troubled outsider called into the military fold to investigate a murder. Sergeant Nathan West(Jackson) and a group of six recruits went into the jungle training grounds of Panama and only two people came back. Both men, Lieutenant Kendell(Giovanni Ribisi) and Lieutenant Dunbar (Brian Van Holt) say Sergeant West was killed, but that is where the similarities in their stories end. While Travolta's Tom Hardy--who is paired with a military investigator, Lieutenant Osborne (Connie Nielsen)--interrogates each man, two very different stories evolve as time ticks away before the FBI and military police step in and take the case over.

The camp commander, Colonel Styles (Tim Daly), needs the case cracked before the Feds get there or the camp will be shut down. Of course, his motives come into question, as do the motives of everyone in the film, as the plot begins to spin out of control with flashback on top of flashback. The film's plot is based on so many lucky guesses and well-timed confessions, that by the time it arrives at its final twist, you're too exhausted to care. Whether it was too much editing and settling for shorthand clues that the audience never sees or simply a poorly-constructed plot one is left to wonder.

If you are looking for a Pulp Fiction reunion, there isn't much to get excited about Travolta and Jackson share very little screen time. However, Travolta is well teamed with Nielsen. The two spark with flirty dialogue even while at each other's throat over who is in charge. Travolta is in full-on cool mode, much like his performance in Broken Arrow--all swagger, bravado, and charisma. Jackson, on the other hand, though he is played up as a star, really only has a cameo in the film. He's barely there. In typical Sam Jackson manner, he still manages to make an impression.

Of course, if one is to compare Basic to any of Travolta's past films, the obvious one is The General's Daughter. In both films, Travolta plays a cop on the outskirts of the military called into an investigation that could lead to a scandal. Both are murder investigations with mysterious circumstances and witnesses with conflicting accounts and there is even a soldier with a powerful general for a father who wants things to keep quiet. Thankfully, the general remains off screen. The difference between Basic and The General's Daughter is entertainment value. 

Where Basic tires you with twist after twist, The General's Daughter has the advantage of salacious subject matter and trashy novelizations to titillate the audience and distract from the formula thriller twists. Basic doesn't have that to fall back on and thus, outside of Travolta, it's just no fun. The further I get from the film, the more the cracks in the plot become big gaping holes. Unlike many critics though, I cannot lay all the blame with screenwriter James Vanderbilt because some of these ideas, especially the ending, seem to have been made up as they went along.

Basic is an improvement for John McTiernan over Rollerball. (Then again, repertory theater versions of Rollerball would improve over that film.) McTiernan is in a slump and rumors of a Die Hard sequel are out there. Maybe a return to such familiar ground is what the man needs. That or maybe just a nice long vacation.

Movie Review: Darkness Falls

Darkness Falls (2003) 

Directed by Jonathan Liebesman

Written by Joe Harris, James Vanderbilt, John Fasano

Starring Cheney Kley, Emma Caulfield, Sullivan Stapleton, Emily Browning

Release Date January 24th, 2003 

Published January 23rd 2003 

Horror films are allowed to set there own rules. Oftentimes a horror film will make up those rules as they go. However once those rules are in place violating those rules becomes one of the most disappointing aspects of that film. The latest addition to the horror genre, Darkenss Falls, sets it's own rules in the first five minutes of the film. It then sets about breaking those rules over and over again making for a maddening film-going experience.

The film begins with a prologue about an old woman named Matilda Dixon who lived in the seaside town of Darkness Falls, Maine. Matilda is beloved by the town's children because when they lost their teeth they could take them to Matilda and exchange then for a gold coin. After a fire severely burned Matilda's face she was unable to leave her home during daylight hours and when she did leave she wore a frightening porcelain mask. When two of the town's children go missing one night, Matilda is blamed and hanged but not before placing a curse on the town. The two kids were found the next day having ran away on their own.

We jump forward in time to a 12-year-old boy who has just lost his last baby tooth. The boy's name is Kyle Walsh. One night Kyle makes the mistake of looking into the eyes of the legend known as the Tooth Fairy. Now, one of the rules established early in the film is that if you looked in the eyes of Matilda's ghost she would hunt you until she killed you. Kyle's only savior is the a flashlight at his bedside. The tooth fairy is sensitive to light and when exposed is badly injured. Kyle's mother, not believing the legend, goes to his room to show Kyle there is nothing to be afraid of , and the tooth fairy slits her throat. Kyle is blamed for the murder and spends the next 12 years in a mental institute.

Cut to the present, Kyle is out of the institute but still afraid of the dark. Now living in Vegas, Kyle is on every medication known to man to deal with what he witnessed. Back in Darkness Falls, a young boy is experiencing the same behavior as Kyle. The young boy is Michael Greene and he is the brother of Kaitlin, who happens to have been Kyle's girlfriend, before his supposed psychotic episode. Kaitlin tracks down Kyle and asks for his help in treating Michael which brings Kyle back to Darkness Falls to face his fear.

Darkness Falls is a slowly paced, light-and-shadow thriller that has a few very effective moments. One that stands out is the opening ten minutes with a very well shot sequence of Kyle's mother being killed. However, after that the film comes apart, setting it's rules and then setting about breaking them, creating many a logical flaw that takes away from the film and really irks any intelligent filmgoer who is paying attention.

First, does the Tooth Fairy only kill you if you live in Darkness Falls or can you just leave and she stays there? If the Tooth Fairy can't go into the light then how is she with moonlight? If the Tooth Fairy is after Kyle, why does she kill a random drunk who was fighting with Kyle instead of going after Kyle?

Not that logic has it's place in most horror films but when rules are established in a horror film, violating those rules can be a film's biggest crime.

The film's premise is a hodgepodge of horror cliches lifted from such varied sources as Nightmare On Elm Street to the recently released They. The films biggest influence, the one it truly aspires to meet but fails to, is the moody atmospherics of a Stephen King novel. But what King is able to do with words, Darkness Falls is unable to do with images.

First time actor Chaney Kley plays Kyle and makes it look like Clonaid succeeded in cloning Mark Wahlberg. Though it's kind of like Michael Keaton in Multiplicity, Kley only got some of Wahlberg's talent and not the best of it. Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Emma Caulfield is a sexy, smart choice for a lead actress but saddled with a frightened victim role. In service of Kley she isn't given much to work with.

First-time director Jonathan Liebesman gives a good account of himself technically with an occasional scary setup but unfortunately his special effects and story are subpar. The Tooth Fairy character as created by Stan Winston's effects company is a dull recreation of horror characters past and the more screentime the monster logs, the more unscary it becomes. In interviews, the director said that the monster wasn't onscreen until the closing act but that the studio was so impressed they rolled out some cash for reshoots that bumped the films release date from mid-September to January and made the monster more prominent, which exposed it's flaws.

Whether the film was the victim of studio overkill or an inexperienced director, Darkness Falls is yet another unsuccessful horror film that strives for scares but can illicit only indifference.

Movie Review: The Rundown

The Rundown (2003) 

Directed by Peter Berg 

Written by R.J Stewart, James Vanderbilt 

Starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Seann William Scott, Christopher Walken, Rosario Dawson

Release Date September 26th, 2003 

Published September 25th, 2003 

After The Scorpion King made Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson a viable action superstar, many were quick to anoint him as the heir apparent to the Schwarzenegger-Stallone action star crown. The Rock need only prove himself in a film that wasn't connected to a previously successful vehicle (Scorpion King being a continuation of a character from The Mummy franchise).That proof of The Rock's star-power comes with his star turn in The Rundown, an action comedy that pairs the Rock's muscles with the motor mouth comedy of Seann William Scott for a fun action spectacle.

In The Rundown The Rock takes on the role of Beck, a henchman for some kind of mob figure. After failing to retrieve a debt for his boss, Beck is given the option of one more job. This job that will get Beck the money he needs to get out of the thug business and into his dream gig, owning a restaurant. However, this not your everyday gig for a thug. Instead, this job involves going into the dangerous jungles of Brazil to capture the mobster’s erstwhile son and return him to Los Angeles. 

On the surface, that might sounds simple enough but when Beck gets to the city of El Dorado, or as the locals have dubbed it, Helldorado, it's hot, it's dangerous and it's run by a whacked-out nut job played by Christopher Walken. Beck is quick to find the kid, Travis (Seann William Scott), but Walken's weirdo dictator and his wacky henchmen have plans of their own for Travis. Seems the kid has happened upon the whereabouts of a valuable artifact that could be worth millions.

Walken isn't the only one with designs on Travis either. Jungle rebels lead by the lovely Marianna (Rosario Dawson) also want to get their hands on the artifact so that they can get their people out from under Walken's tyrannous reign. This leaves Beck stuck in the middle of all of the fighting between Walken's thugs, the rebel’s, and in one scene some various amorous monkeys. And Beck is also fighting with Travis who's motor mouth is far more brutal than his fighting.

The Rundown is predictable, certainly not high minded or idealistic. What the movie does have going for it however, is some fun action scenes, some truly brutal looking stunt work, and a strong enough amount of wit provided by The Rock's put upon performance. Johnson's incredulous reactions to the numerous indignities visited upon his character is the film’s strongest source of comedy. That and it's physical humor which has the Rock hanging upside down, fighting monkeys and getting beat up by a group of Brazilian Little People. 

The films stunt work does press the boundaries of believability, such as an early scene where Rock and Scott roll down a hill and take a brutal amount of punishment. It's nothing a little suspension of disbelief can't get you past but it does feel a bit excessive. As directed by Peter Berg, The Rundown combines the kind of 80's style action movie where no one runs out of bullets with the 90's style action movie where you shoot and pause for an ironic aside before shooting again. It's clichéd but the actors make it tolerable with fun, witty, and knowing performances.

And then, Christopher Walken delivers yet another of his iconic weirdo performances. Be sure to watch out for a particularly peculiar rant from Walken's would be dictator about the tooth fairy. It's a bizarrely long monologue that is delivered in a way that only Christopher Walken could deliver it. Walken gives this monologue with his entire being, his fully physicality embodies this moment. It's completely outside of the movie and stops the whole story dead in its tracks but, it's worth it because Walken is incredibly entertaining. 

Even with a show stealer like Christopher Walken however, The Rundown belongs to The Rock, who I realize wants to be known as Dwayne Johnson but as a wrestling fan he will always be The Rock to me. Top lining his first stand-alone action vehicle, The Rock oozes the kind of star quality that you just can't teach. It's a great star making performance in a film that I hope will make him a star for good. The action genre needs The Rock's cool and charisma to carry it over clichéd plots and endless violence of stock action movies like The Ruindown.