Well, You’d ‘Scream’ Too

You can’t blame the makers of last year’s terrific sleeper horror picture “Scream” for trying to cash in on its runaway success. Yet in striving mightily not merely to duplicate its impact but improve upon it, director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson have raised the ante to the degree that contrivance and a horrendous body count combine to yield a morbid effect for discriminating filmgoers, despite a comic tone. Still, there’s enough ingenuity and scariness to please plenty of fans of the first film.

Once past an elaborate and gory pre-credit sequence involving the premiere of a horror movie called “Stab,” we learn that it was adapted from a best-selling book by that indomitable newscaster Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) on the killings that occurred in “Scream.”

Weathers is back on the scene, at an inviting old Midwestern college where a seeming copycat killer--hidden behind a black cloak and an Edvard Munch “Scream” mask--is terrorizing the campus. In jeopardy are other “Scream” survivors Neve Campbell (a drama student), David Arquette (a local cop), Jamie Kennedy (a film buff and now also a college student) and Liev Schreiber (wrongly accused by Campbell of murdering her mother).

As before, the movie is loaded with film references, and Williamson not only raises the old question of the relationship of screen violence and real-life violence but also jokes about the question of whether sequels can ever be as successful as the originals. As clever, witty and adroit as the filmmakers are in covering their bases they cannot dispel the feeling that their sequel is not as good as their original, even though it abounds in confident stylistic and technical flourishes that are the result of Craven’s long experience as a horrormeister.

The cast is large and consistently capable. Campbell is a lovely, skilled actress of much poise and Cox and Arquette excel in the film’s most fully dimensional roles. David Warner turns up most effectively as Campbell’s drama professor, and Jada Pinkett and Omar Epps score as a couple who have the misfortune to choose going to that “Stab” premiere over the latest Sandra Bullock movie. (In one of the movie’s many amusing moments Tori Spelling plays Campbell in “Stab.”)

For a film with so many smarts, “Scream 2” has a curious lapse that undermines its credibility needlessly. Why doesn’t the college close down or why isn’t the state police or National Guard called in when the corpses pile up to the point you lose count?

* MPAA rating: R, for language and strong bloody violence. Times guidelines: much graphic depiction of murders mainly by stabbing.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

‘Scream 2’

Neve Campbell: Sidney Prescott

Courteney Cox: Gale Weathers

David Arquette: Dewey Riley

Jada Pinkett: Maureen

A Dimension Films presentation in association with Craven/Maddalena Films of a Konrad Pictures production. Director Wes Craven. Producers Cathy Konrad and Marianne Maddalena. Executive producers Bob Weinstein & Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Williamson. Screenplay by Williamson. Cinematographer Peter Deming. Editor Patrick Lussier. Costumes Kathleen Detoro. Music Marco Beltrami. Production designer Bob Ziembicki. Art director Ted Berner. Set decorator Bob Kensinger. Running time: 2 hours.

* In general release throughout Southern California.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Also Opening

“BANG”: A terrific low-low-budget picture that touches a scary nerve. F9

“TWISTED”: The late William Hickey stars as a brothel owner in a venturesome film loosely based on “Oliver Twist.” F9

“HUGO POOL”: Robert Downey Jr. stars in a woebegone farce directed by his father. F12

“FOR RICHER OR POORER”: Tim Allen and Kirstie Alley are terrific together as a Donald and Ivana Trump-like couple. F18

“HOME ALONE 3”: No Macaulay Culkin and, for adults at least, no laughs. F22