Serpent and the Rainbow

[tachii]

hmmm, never thought about it that way
so you believe scream was the catalyst?
surley someone made something worse

[Nachtmahr]

Oh, yeah, I loved that film! Probably the first zombie movie I ever saw.

[taylorsmommy]

Excellent movie! First movie I ever saw Bill Pullman in.

[jay o2 waster]

Originally posted by Vodstok
I just saw this last week for the first time, and i must say, so far, it is my favorite wes craven movie. I thinkit was cool that he actually went into the details fo making a real zombie. they really did their research for it. And the viallain was fucking freaky. i almost cried when Bill Pullman got hisw scrotum pierced....

AND, i thought BillPullman was great in it. i had no idea he had done it. And after seeing the Grudge this weekend, it was refreshing to see that he was once in a good horror movie.....

It is a very good movie

[The STE]

good idea, but Bill Pullman is the most boring actor around right now, so that kinda hurt it a bit.

I liked the burying alive in The Vanishing better

[knife_fight]

Paxton was also in The Last Supper, which is one of my favorite movies ever

[EXTR3MIST]

so you believe scream was the catalyst?

In terms of dumbing down and cheapening the horror genre to appeal to a new, younger and more cynical audience... yes.

Of course, Scream fans are made to believe they are in on the joke by Craven/Williamson and therefore leave the theatre quite proud of themselves and their ability to understand all these tributes and in-jokes and tongue-in-cheek references to the classics... but are we any further forward in scary movies, or have we simply created a new pointless sub-genre in the hip, "knowing", party horror film? It seems at odds - surely the mystery and uncertainty of being scared is the whole point?

Perhaps we can take it all too seriously, but it is kinda alarming to see kids getting off on Craven's clever manipulation tactics instead of getting down to the far more important movies he is ripping off and poking fun at.

It would be fun to see teenage reactions to a double bill of his fun Scream and savageThe Last House on the Left.

[Vodstok]

Scream itself was fine. i never saw the sequals, and quite frankly, havent been all thatyinterested in them. Youcant blame the movie for inspiring a bunch of undcreative knock-offs, that blame reasts on the shoulders of the mindless fucktards that insist on rehashing popular ideas rather than trying to actually work on making a new one (risky and not nearly as profitable).

Keep in mind, the scream sequals and IKWYDLS (shit, even as an acronym that title is too fucking long.....) were geared toward the "mainstream" audiences. They want little teeny-boppers who like Brittany because she is "so real", and like Jennifer love hewitt because she is "pretty and talented". On the same note, they want these little airheads' brothers to sort wood over Rose mcgowan and JLH when they bounce up and down in tight shirts.

Give the people what they want. Okay, not the people, but the lowest common denominator.

"Hmmm... get rid of the plot. it makes people think, and they want to be entertained. make it revenge, or something, no one will care. Who is popular on tv these days? okay, does he have abs and a cute butt? Cool, cast him. Does she have perky tits? Cute face? cool, cast her too. What, they cant act? Who cares, people will be so busy watching them run around in the rain or it tight clothes they wont notice. Hit them in their hormones."

[tachii]

one may say the 'scary movie' franchise made matters worse
not only did it take the original title from scream but also came in a series of three

[EXTR3MIST]

You can blame Craven for making his oh-so-clever fun horror franchise and pandering to the expectations of his smugly appreciative audience - this means he is a sell-out; this means he is telling us how he is so informed of the horror genre that he can package up all the elements of the classics he can find and flog us his idea that fans of horror have nothing better to do than sit around all day talking film-school shit and "knowing" all about the movies and their "codes".

There are some elements of Scream which really work - the cinematic, tense moments which are detached from the hip and referential nonsense the rest of the film relies on so badly - but the overall effect is bound to rub more than a few folk up the wrong way with its insufferable smugness and new found pomp of a once great horror director (pomp probably first glimpsed when he tried to "save" the Nightmare franchise by being clever...).