scream 4

It ironic how much effort Scream 4 puts into critiquing the irrelevancy of all the remakes, re-imaginings and rip-offs of horror classics in recent years, when the franchise itself has been irrelevant for more than a decade. The Wes Craven / Kevin Williamson creation was never as smart as it thought it was to begin with. It’s a lot tougher to make something scary than it is to mock something that’s not. And yet there’s something oddly reassuring about this fourth chapter, which attempts to comment on Facebook (“I don’t want friends, I want fans,” confesses the killer when finally revealed), Twitter, and an entire generation so out of touch with reality that a live streaming feed is the closest they get to a personal interaction. There’s plenty of material to work with, but the film’s formula remains predictably routine: clever intro, smart-ass teenagers, prank calls, several red herrings and that corny Ghostface mask. But it’s great to see time spent on Courtney Cox and David Arquette’s characters, now married but still butting heads about their respective careers. And even though her acting style is on par with Kristen Stewart (mope, frown, furrow brow, repeat), Neve Campbell’s reappearance as an aging scream queen is a welcome one. There was no compelling reason to make Scream 4 – the original’s expiration date still has a few years left by pop culture standards. But now that it’s here, we can at least be thankful that, as cash grabs go, Craven and company showed some guts along with the expected gore. The Blu-ray includes a commentary, alternate opening, extended ending, gag reel and Making Of.

Take the comically brutal, quick cut, slang-filled criminal underworld of Guy Ritchie’s Snatch. Now throw in vampires. Yeah, it’s that awkward. Dead Cert runs at least 40 minutes before anything overtly undead hits the screen. Up until then, the film recycles characters and situations from new wave British gangster films – minus the humor and style – with a budget that looks lower than a classic Doctor Who episode. Club owner and all-around tough guy Freddie Frankham loses a bet with an ambitious Romanian gang from across town. When he returns to recover his losses, all the ammunition in London won’t help put down these bloodsucking thugs. The faces are familiar, the accents nearly indecipherable, there’s even a round or two of bare-knuckle boxing; but that’s where the similarities to Ritchie’s work ends. Dead Cert’s script is DOA. There’s some promise in the premise, but not even a glimmer works its way to the surface. Someone needs to bury this six feet under. Blu-ray includes a commentary, Making Of and trailer.

If Ed Wood stopped at the meat market on his way to the set, he very well might have ended up with a film like Blood Feast. As inept in every respect as Plan Nine from Outer Space, but without the naïve charm, the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis only survive today by virtue of their shock value. Produced in 1963 outside of the studio system, Lewis introduced “gore” to lexicon of cinema, delivering this trio of shoddily made pictures to drive-ins across the country and cashing in on the blood and guts Hollywood wasn’t allowed to show. Amateurishly directed and atrociously performed by a variety of unprofessional “actors,” serious film fans wouldn’t make it five minutes past the credits. But as the 20 year mail-order success of Something Weird Video proves (this being their first Blu-ray release), there are plenty of folks who find cow tongues, chicken liver and pig guts the height of artistic achievement…or at least good fun for a Saturday night. Two Thousand Maniacs is probably Lewis’ most tolerable film, with its Twilight Zone staging of a Southern small town luring Yankees in for their centennial celebration…then sacrificing them in revenge for a Civil War massacre. The gross effects themselves are incompetent by today’s standards, but Lewis’ parade of community theater players is always good for a laugh. The Blood Trilogy looks shockingly good in hi-def and includes outtakes, commentaries by Lewis himself and rare shorts. Available separately is The Godfather of Gore, a documentary of Lewis’ career which is actually more interesting them the films themselves.