Movie Review: Scream (1996)

A slasher horror comedy, Scream is a self-aware gore-fest exploiting its own genre for scares and laughs.

In the small community of Woodsboro, teenager Casey (Drew Barrymore) is harassed by a menacing phone caller with a love of horror movie trivia, and is then brutally killed along with her boyfriend Steve by an assailant wearing a ghostface mask.

Fellow high school student Sidney (Neve Campbell) is still recovering from the rape and murder of her mother a year ago and is now fending off the sexual advances of her boyfriend Billy (Skeet Ulrich). With the school community still reeling from the murder of Casey and Steve, Sidney starts to receive threatening phone calls. Billy is initially arrested as a suspect before being cleared.

Sidney is supported by her best friend Tatum (Rose McGowan), whose brother Dewey (David Arquette) is the Deputy Sheriff. Meanwhile ambitious television reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) has her own theories about the murder of Sidney's mother, and starts hounding Sidney and her schoolmates. When the school is closed due to the proliferation of ghostface costumes, Tatum's boyfriend Stu (Matthew Lillard) throws a huge party, where the killer will again cause bloody chaos.

Mixing genuine slasher scares with sharp humour may seem an impossible task, but director Wes Craven goes back to his roots and conjures up an effective combo package. With the ghostface mask perfectly capturing a spirit of goofy evil, Scream is rarely only scary or just funny; it is often both, Craven creating a pretzel of laughs and gore. The Kevin Williamson script sets out to craft effective shocks while poking away at genre conventions (many invented by Craven), and the film crackles with the energy of twisted murders occurring in a meta milieu where the characters are active participants in celebrating quintessential horror movies.

Scream features dozens of knowing references to other slasher movies. The skillful opening scene sets the stage, the mystery caller emotionally toying with Casey but most tellingly challenging her to a horror movie trivia quiz with the prize of staying alive if she gets the answers right. Later, students supposedly traumatized by the killings converge at the horror movie section of the video store, while potential victims and suspects debate the genre rules and celebrate Jamie Lee Curtis as their scream queen heroine.

Williamson and Craven push ahead with a wild juxtaposition of horror inspired by art creating new prototypes. The teenagers watch Halloween at the climactic house party, as they themselves are being surreptitiously watched by a hidden camera planted by reporter Weathers. The kids who have sex are of course most at risk of dying, but once Sidney decides to take charge of her own narrative she starts to outthink the assailant, providing Scream with a welcome empowerment boost.

The film is packed with the madcap energy of secondary characters and side quests swirling around Sidney and her family. Her mom's death is the subject of Weathers' opportunistic upcoming book, while her dad incongruously becomes a prime suspect in the latest string of killings. Meanwhile Sidney is debating whether to have sex with Billy, a decision that suddenly carries existential consequences given that everyone knows the final girl is always virginal.

The game cast is led by the lively Neve Campbell and Rose McGowan, who both buy into the vibe and cruise through the butchery with bucketfuls of sass. David Arquette nails the insecure man unable to command respect despite his well-pressed uniform, while Skeet Ulrich adds a restless performance gripping the edge of instability. Henry Winkler is uncredited but appears in a significant role as the school principal, while Drew Barrymore finds an unlikely career highlight in her ten minutes of screen time.

The ending is over the top, the material almost running away from Craven. But by both celebrating and skewering well-loved franchises, Scream rises above the commotion.

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Movie Review: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)

An exercise in abject silliness that actually works, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective unleashed Jim Carrey and his brand of over-the-top physical comedy on an unsuspecting world.

In Miami, Ace Ventura (Carrey) is a really weird and quite broke pet detective, hired to find and recover missing pets of all sorts. When Snowflake, the dolphin mascot of the Miami Dolphins NFL team, is abducted on the eve of the Super Bowl, the team's publicist Melissa Robinson (Courteney Cox) turns to Ace for help. But with the case attracting high public scrutiny, he quickly runs afoul of police lieutenant Lois Einhorn (Sean Young).

Ace's investigation leads him to believe that a member of Miami's 1984 AFC Championship winning team was responsible for Snowflakes' disappearance, and gradually a plot is uncovered involving a disgruntled former employee out to sabotage Miami's chances in the upcoming Super Bowl. A murder soon complicates the case, and star quarterback Dan Marino finds himself in a lot of trouble as the big game approaches.

1994 was Jim Carrey's spectacular break-out year, with The Mask and Dumb And Dumber joining Ace Ventura in catapulting the Canadian from obscurity to a comic superstar. Ace Ventura was the first to be released, a surprise hit that established Carrey's persona as a real life cartoon character, ridiculously expressive, living life according to a manic code of conduct that applies only to him, and extroverted to an extreme. Carrey has the uninhibited acting skills and dead-on timing essential to transform stupid behaviour to laugh-out-loud goofiness, and Ace Ventura showcases his skills to perfection.

There is really no other reason to watch this film. The plot is beyond inane, and the supporting cast is so thin as to be non-existent. Sean Young and Courteney Cox are meek foils to Carrey, and both are blown away into irrelevance. That rapper Tone Loc and quarterback Dan Marino are high up in the list of cast members says it all about the other talent on display. Director Tom Shadyac, making his debut, wisely ignores everything else and just trains his cameras on Carrey, who carries the film.

And riding on Carrey's energy, Ace Ventura is non-stop laugh fest. As a character Ace is indomitable, fuelled by misplaced self confidence and an inability to be rattled, whether facing a madman with baseball bat, wild gunmen, an incompetent police force, or a broken windshield. Whenever he appears to reach any limit his pushes for more comedy, catching bullets with his teeth, swimming with a shark, or exposing the evil mastermind against all logic. It's all ridiculous, and it mostly works as pure escapism.

Unapologetically ludicrous, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective crack the case of preposterous slapstick.

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Movie Review: 3000 Miles To Graceland (2001)

A vivid, over-blown, way over-the-top heist drama, 3000 Miles To Graceland is a stylish rough diamond, waiting to be rediscovered as a cult classic.


It's Elvis impersonator week in Las Vegas, with countless versions of the King livening up the Strip. Michael (Kurt Russell) has just been released from prison and at a small desert town outside Vegas, he meets and falls into bed with Cybil (Couteney Cox), who has a brat of a young son Jesse. Michael then joins a gang headed by Murphy (Kevin Costner), a vicious criminal with an unhealthy Elvis obsession. Michael, Murphy, and three heavily-armed members of Murphy's group all dress up as Elvis impersonators, and in a fiasco of a robbery, they hit a Las Vegas casino all bullets flying. They cause mayhem but escape with casualties and a lot of stolen money.

Murphy quickly turns on all his fellow gang members, killing them all except Michael who is saved by a bullet proof vest. Murphy's plan is temporarily derailed when he crashes his car in the desert, allowing Michael to grab all the loot and escape with Cybil and Jesse. With Murphy in pursuit, and federal agents picking up Murphy's trail, Michael makes his way to a prearranged meeting with money launderer Peterson (Jon Lovitz) in Idaho. Meanwhile, Cybil has her own intentions to grab all the money, complicating Michael's life. With SWAT teams closing in, Michael needs to save Jesse, while Murphy makes an epic stand to seal his destiny.

Director and co-writer Demian Lichtenstein has just one thing in mind: a massive sensory over-load experience. 3000 Miles To Graceland is all about colours that are too sharp, bullets that are too numerous, characters that are too desperate to care, and an Elvis story that is too incredible. Lichtenstein makes it work, injecting boundless energy and never even locating the pause button as the film hurtles towards a manic conclusion. The cinematography and editing are all geared towards achieving maximum style points, and capture Vegas, the desert, and the carnage in glorious constant motion.

3000 Miles To Graceland benefits from three performances with enough power to light up the Vegas strip. Kevin Costner is chilling as a man handed a really bum deal in life, and determined to make the worst of it. Kurt Russell anchors the film while chaos reigns around him, and Courteney Cox delivers a spunky performance in one of her few memorable movie roles. Lovitz as the money launderer Peterson cranks up the doomed smarminess in his short on-screen time.

If the life of Elvis was all about excess, 3000 Miles To Graceland may be the perfect metaphorical homage to the King.

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