Horror-tober 8: Scream

Another pick honoring the memory of the legend, Wes Craven, and one of my favorites. I have a feeling there will more than a few of his featured this year.

I feel like this one doesn't really need a synopsis because I assume most people have seen it, at least from my generation. Even those that aren't that into horror movies have, or at least have an idea of what it is about from the Scary Movie spoof franchise.

This one makes my top 10 horror list (I actually have never made one before, but I know that this one would be on it if I did along with Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street) because it is in itself an homage to the horror genre. It has some obvious references, like the killer tormenting his victims by asking them trivia questions about horror movies, the opening scene closely resembling When a Stranger Calls, and the "rules" of a scary movie. But it has other smaller references including cameos by some of the horror genre's well known faces (i.e. Linda Blair), a reference to directors Wes Craven and John Carpenter when Tatum (Rose McGowan) says the situation is like a Wes Carpenter film, and the janitor is wearing a sweater and hat like those worn by Freddy Kreuger in A Nightmare on Elm Street and is actually played by Wes himself. There are also many references to Halloween.

Scream has some great moments, and intelligent writing and directing. It is also funny and satirizes the horror genre cliches; example, as Randy (Jamie Kennedy) is watching Halloween and screaming, "Turn around Jamie!" at Jamie Lee Curtis all while the killer is creeping behind him, and Sydney (Neve Campbell) and the camera guy are watching it in the news van and screaming at him to turn around. So good. I recently also discovered a lot of Jamie Kennedy's and Matthew Lillard's (Stu) lines were ad-libbed. Even after watching after some 10 plus years, I still really like this one.

My rating:

Joey's rating:

Horror-tober 2: Cursed

I'm kind of breaking my rules this year, just to make it a bit easier on myself when I have busier days than others. That said, I watched Cursed for Creature-Feature Friday even though I have seen it before. I also feel that this year I want to pay homage to the late Wes Craven, mostly because that man made some great movies, some of my favorite horror films of all time, most of which really helped to form my interest and love for the genre.

A brother and sister living in Hollywood, find themselves changed after an encounter with some mysterious creature on Mulholand Drive. Not Wes Craven's best by any means, but it is still pretty good and fun. I like this one because it has some decent effects and good scares, albeit most fairly predicatable. Werewolves seem hard to make well while avoiding being too hokey or unrealistic. But this one does a pretty good job of creating a menacing and pretty believable werewolf character. It also has some good humor. All in all, a decent little film that gets some slack probably because the overall plot is pretty silly, but I don't mind it. 

That's all I really have to say about this one. Again, I make the rules about how I do this so deal with it.

I couldn't resist this gif.

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