Scream 2

Director: Wes Craven
Cast:
Neve Campbell
Courteney Cox
David Arquette
Jamie Kennedy
Liev Schreiber

When director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson jump-started the "smart, sassy Gen X comedy/thriller" movement last year, they sent a shock wave through young Hollywood not seen since John Hughes brought us to his breakfast club. How do you deal with those kind of expectations and hype? Well, cleverly, as "Scream 2" is one of the most profound statements on postmodernism this side of your literary criticism seminar.

In "Scream 2," a killer is back to make the sequel to the original killings, even as the "movie" of the original killings is going on. Based on the book by Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), "Stab" is a wonderful movie-in-a-movie, with freakishly dead-on cameos by Tori Spelling and Heather Graham. Everyone in the actual movie talks about the people playing themselves in the fictitious movie, and the killer—or killers—may or may not be influenced by the movie or original happenstance. Sound totally confusing? It doesn't matter—"Scream 2" folds back on itself so many times (Courteney Cox's character makes fun of the real Jennifer Aniston, Sarah Michelle Gellar gossips about "Party of Five" on the same campus where "Party of Five" star Neve Campbell is playing someone else in a play) that the lines between fact, fiction, fantasy and farce meld into a delightful no-man's-land.

Not really as scary as the original Scream, it's way more interesting, and curiously, more satisfying. A postmodern experience without the research—what more do us Gen Xers want?

With Neve Campbell, Sarah Michelle Gellar, David Arquette, Liev Schrieber and all your regular faves.

—Ian Williams

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