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| My favorite scary movie is the one where the petulant manbaby asshole is the killer, did you ever see that one? |
The opening wastes no time, and that first 10 or 15 minutes with Drew Barrymore could be its own short horror film. It's a perfect use of escalating tension and showing the Red Water... but there's that other thing now. Drew and the killer on the phone discuss horror movies, and eventually he demands to quiz her on them. Our killer, you see, is a Big Fan. He trips her up, of course. Iconography (and extreme panic) beat the true history, and Drew says Jason was the killer in Friday the 13th. AH AH AH ACTUALLY IT WAS BETSY PALMER AS MRS. VOORHEES. She dies for this. Our killer has fucking Fake Slasher Fan Girled Drew Barrymore for this. You can just imagine him seething internally. HOW CAN ANYONE BE SO FUCKING STUPID AS TO NOT KNOW THAT, IF I HAD AN AXE I'D BURY IT IN HER HEAD LIKE THE GIRL IN THE BATHROOM GOT IT, I CAN'T FUCKING BELIEVE THIS. The meta continues, of course. Our killer seems to think the walls are porous as well, making all these references to horror films... even if our characters don't. Our poor main girl, Sydney, is making wisecracks about horror movie victims who run up the stairs instead of out the door. Then, when the killer attacks... up the stairs she goes! Whoops! Wes is pulling his same tricks again, and Sydney is just as competent at surviving as Nancy before her was. Speaking of the killer, and we will speak of him in great length once he's unmasked... wow. Ghostface really did become a horror icon of his own, huh? It's the simplest costume and yet it's instantly recognizable. I remember seeing those costumes in the 90's. I didn't know the name Ghostface, so I just called them "the Scream guy". Like fuck I'd watch this in 1996. I hadn't even seen Alien yet. I do recall that cousin who would lend me Alien watching Scream with surround sound in his home, at night. Yikes. That woulda been freaky.
Of course, one of the keys to all of this is Jamie Kennedy. He works at the video store, he's seen this horror shit. He knows the tropes, he knows the rules. He's looked through the porous portal of the fourth wall and seen us. Better not have sex! Or do drugs! Or say you'll be right back! You're asking for karmic justice and untimely death, because these are the Holy Tropes! Still, that's all made-up bullshit. Some clever writer came up with it, and when you think about it those aren't sins worthy of death. They have sex in the movies to show a bit of skin to the audience, to arouse. They're drinking and doing pot because getting drunk and drug use is what sexy teens do when it's just them! These are normal parts of life, not some fucking stain upon their souls that condemns them to, oh I don't know, get fucked up by a garage door while trying to escape a ghostfaced killer. As a random example. Jamie Kennedy's just drunk, he doesn't know that shit. What are the excuses of our killers? Yes, killers. Two teens working in tandem to slice and dice, and for what? Petty revenge and... shits and giggles. It is scarier when there's no motive, but that's only true for the giggly asshole who agreed to let his friend kill his girlfriend. No, the other one, Billy Loomis? He's got a motive, alright. Something about his dad cheating with Sydney's mom and him killing the mom in revenge and wanting to get elaborate revenge a year later. Okay. Wes knew that the last time he made a slasher villain, he became a popular character and got used to death. This time, I think Wes set out to make sure that wouldn't happen again. Oh, Ghostface comes back. It's just a costume, and anyone with bloodlust can put it on and cut up some folks.
Billy and Stu don't come back. Nobody would want them to. They are perhaps the most unlikable, irredeemable slasher movie villains I have seen in a while. Watching the movie while knowing Billy actually IS a serial killer plotting to dramatically stab Sydney to death paints him as a gigantic asshole. Obvious, I know, but fire it up and watch him. He is a perfect picture of what Sydney herself is manipulated into confessing; selfish and self-absorbed. HIS dad couldn't be at fault. NO IT WAS THAT FUCKING WOMAN WHO SEDUCED HIM. I'LL STAB HER TO DEATH FOR IT! How DARE Sydney not want to have sex with me after a year! I just want to have sex with her so she breaks the FORBIDDEN HORROR MOVIE RULE OF HAVING SEX! IF SHE HAS SEX THEN IT'S OKAY FOR ME TO STAB HER AND WATCH HER FUCKING DIE! AND LAUGH! LAUGH AND THEN FRAME HER AND LIVE MY LIFE TOTALLY SATISFIED! I do this a lot in movies, especially ones where people are in on a conspiracy of some kind like this. Mockingly getting into their fucking heads and making myself mad at what selfish entitled shitlords they are. And yet, I share some of that pettiness myself. See, I'm a horror movie audience member. These two get killed at the end before they can pull off the final act of their scheme. That's too good an ending for them, if the implicit intent is to condemn them for taking bullshit horror movie tropes too literally. Add 10 minutes to the movie. Have them arrested. Show them on trial, show them getting grilled on the witness stand. Show the judge handing down his verdict. What's the problem? I'm watching a movie in which I watch people die already. Show me the death of hope. Zoom in on their fucking eyes as they get sent to prison for life. If we're going to condemn them, let's really condemn them. Of course, the true beautiful reveal of how petulant they are comes when Sydney calls them on the phone and taunts them. Billy is swearing up a storm, vowing he'll kill that bitch, he'll kill her, how dare she steal my trick, that's my trick I'm the killer she's just some bitch she's not allowed to do that. Et cetera.
And here I thought I wouldn't have a lot to say about this one. I was wrong. It's pretty good! Of course, the Mistress of Meta's power has only grown from these waltzes. She'll dance her endless dance, and others will dance with her. That porous hole in the fourth wall is only going to get bigger. Let's take a few steps ourselves. We need to wisen ourselves, broaden our horizons. We've been looking at things all wrong, wanting condemnation and life sentences for fucking movie slasher villains. So, Mistress of Meta. Let's dance for a while... and, while we do, I'd like to make a request. I wish for you to show me something. It won't be hard for one such as you, I promise.
Show me a horror slasher film... but from the other side.
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