Horror Movie Month: Scream

Scream is a 2006 movie directed by Wes Craven, written by Kevin Williamson, and starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Jamie Kennedy, Drew Barrymore, Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, and Henry Winkler. A year after her mother's murder, high school student Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) must cope with the fact that she is being stalked by a murderer.

I saw Scream on TV a few years after it came out, and I loved it so much that I made a special trip to Kmart the next day to buy Scream and Scream 2 on video (and was traumatized later that afternoon by a Scream 2 death that made me throw my remote at the TV). I bought my first DVD player because The Ultimate Scream Collection was getting ready to come out, and I really needed to see the disc of bonus features. Scream is one of my favorite movies (I like all of the sequels and the MTV series too), and despite the brutal opening scene, the movie is full of humor, which is a major reason I like it so much. Most horror movies don't scare me, but the Scream movies do because they're more realistic than other horror movies...anyone could be under the Ghostface mask, and it just might be someone you know and trust. Another reason I love Scream is because it introduced me to one of my favorite movie characters: Randy Meeks (played by Jamie Kennedy). Randy is the resident horror movie expert who schools his classmates on the rules of horror movies: no sex, drugs, or alcohol, and never say you'll be right back because you definitely won't. Scream is an awesome movie, so if you haven't seen it, go watch it now! ; )

My rating: 10/10

Followed by:

Scream 2
Scream 3
Scream 4

Movie Spotlight: Thir13en Ghosts

Thirt13en Ghosts is a weirdly-spelled 2001 movie starring Tony Shalhoub (love him!), Shannon Elizabeth, Alec Roberts, Embeth Davidtz, Matthew Lillard, Rah Digga, and F. Murray Abraham. The movie begins with paranormal investigator Cyrus Kriticos (F. Murray Abraham) losing his life while trying to catch a spirit known as "The Juggernaut."  Cyrus has left his mansion to Arthur Kriticos (Tony Shalhoub), his nephew, who moves there with his daughter Kathy (Shannon Elizabeth) and son Bobby (Alec Roberts), along with their nanny (Rah Digga).  When the family is checking out their new home, Cyrus' former assistant, psychic Dennis Rafkin (Matthew Lillard) poses as a power inspector to get inside...where he discovers that twelve ghosts are trapped in the house.

I'd been meaning to watch Thir13en Ghosts for awhile since I've been a fan of Tony Shalhoub for a long time (since Wings...and then I became a bigger fan after I discovered Monk), so I'm glad I finally watched it.  The movie wasn't very scary, but all of the actors were great, and the movie kept my interest.

My rating: 6.5/10