This sequel to the 1996 hit misses the mark by its very own nature as a sequel. While the idea of offering a tongue-in-cheek roast of slasher sequels sounds like fun, the one thing Scream 2 can’t do is validate the existence of sequels. Scream took all the reasons critics of the genre use to explain why horror films are unnecessary but and showed us how entertaining they can be, in effect validating their existence based on the enjoyable nature of their weaknesses.
Exposing the fatal flaws in sequels is done here, but we don’t end up embracing them like we did in the first film. While boldly acknowledging that new characters in sequels are more or less imitations of or stand-ins for characters from the original, Scream 2 still doesn’t warm us up to this fact. It also doesn’t help that through the “established rules of sequels” we lose one of the series most endearing characters- Randy to movie geek. Another problem is that we don’t pick up any new characters that might come back in future installments, which some better sequels do.
Essentially, Wes Craven and his team had to create a mediocre sequel in order to poke fun at mediocre sequels. This time though, the joke is on them.
This sequel to the 1996 hit misses the mark by its very own nature as a sequel. While the idea of offering a tongue-in-cheek roast of slasher sequels sounds like fun, the one thing Scream 2 can’t do is validate the existence of sequels. Scream took all the reasons critics of the genre use to explain why horror films are unnecessary but and showed us how entertaining they can be, in effect validating their existence based on the enjoyable nature of their weaknesses.
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