In Revue: No Really, What’s Your Favourite Scary Movie?

By John Semley

Because Toronto’s more movie obsessed than a Quentin Tarantino screenplay (yuk yuk), Torontoist brings you In Revue, a weekly roundup of new releases.

Ghostface gets artful, in a meta way, in Scream 4. Illustration by Chloe Cushman/Torontoist.

If you were born between, let’s say, 1982 and 1987, and remember seeing at least two of Wes Craven’s Scream films in theatres, the big news is the return to Woodsboro with Scream 4. Finally, right? Well, we’re delighted (and kind of surprised) to report that it’s actually not half bad. And even better is Pedro Costa’s gorgeous documentary about cooing French singer Jeanne Balibar. Speaking of documentaries, there’s also one out this week about badass, outlaw, truthsaying comedian Bill Hicks, which we liked about as much as we like Bill Hicks. (We don’t much like Bill Hicks.)

Scream 4 is Wes Craven’s “takedown” of contemporary horror sequels and reboots, which (if our math is right) is also the third sequel in the Scream franchise. There’s nerve in Craven’s presumption that we want or need him to lumber in and revitalize horror cinema, especially considering that he’s pimped off the bastardization rights to scads of his own films (Nightmare on Elm Street, The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, etc.). And it’s this smugness that bogs down Scream 4, from its nesting doll movie-within-a-movie-within-a-movie-within-a-movie opening to its repeated pleas of “these are the new rules!” and misuse of the word “meta.” (That and all the SMS/Facebook/Twitter stuff, which equally recalls the embarrassment of George Romero’s Diary of the Dead and your fading grandfather crowing that he can “use the email.”)
Thing is though, for anyone who remembers seeing the Scream films the first time around, Craven’s return to the franchise proves welcome. He doesn’t refresh or revitalize or otherwise upturn the genre’s applecart or anything, but Scream 4’s blend of sequel and remake (self-consciously following the major beats of the original film) is surprisingly successful as both an effective stalk‘n’chop and a bit of warm-fuzzy nostalgia. Scream 4 plunks perennial final girl Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) back in Woodsboro, site of a string of serial murders in the first Scream. Her homecoming serves as an open invitation for the return of the franchise’s Ghostface killer, who begins eviscerating high school hotties and movie buffs in a pattern recalling the original murders. Cue Sidney teaming up with remaining trilogy survivors—wily reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and nice-guy sheriff Dewey Riley (David Arquette)—as well as next-gen Woodsboroites, including her cousin (Emma Roberts), and a new class of horror geeks savvy to all the modern conventions of the genre.
For all its loopy self-consciousness though, Scream 4 works. Like the first two films in the franchise, Craven and writer Kevin Williamson capably balance their extended roster of would-be corpses, preserving the everyone’s-a-suspect guessing game that distinguished Scream and Scream 2 from the more rote dead teenager films they paid lip service to. If Craven’s tedious commitment to reflexivity—”How much more meta can you get?” asks Cox’s character midway through a film that spends the rest of its runtime answering exactly that question—is in service of anything, it’s the idea that no matter how clever, shrewd, or self-aware you are, there’s terror inherent in a maniacal killer in an Edvard Munsch–inspired mask charging at you with a knife. And that terror is amplified intensely when that killer possesses “real” motivations beyond shambling superhuman unstoppability.
Scream 4 sees Craven shilly-shallying between complacency and haughtiness, with regards to both the franchise and his own certified “Master of Horror” status. But as undeniable as his arrogance is his ability to exploit the potential of a buzzing portable phone, a crowded high-school kegger, or a suburban front door left perilously ajar.
Scream 4 opens Friday, April 15, in wide release. Click here for showtimes.

Like any bio-doc, if you’re really interested in the life of “outlaw” comic Bill Hicks, you’ll probably fall ass-over-teakettle for American. Told through lively photo collages, the film tracks the rise and tumble of Hicks, a Texas-born stand-up comic known for his “poignant” “observations” (air-quotes optional, depending on how you feel about Hicks) on button-down, white picket fence, Father Knows Best America. Hicks used stand-up as a springboard to soapboxing, extolling the virtues of pot and LSD use, offering critiques of religion and consumerism, and generally trying to cut through the swath of banality and self-delusion that he believed defined the American experience.
Harlock and Thomas draw on archival footage of Hicks, recorded bits from his comedy albums (which always sounded more like angry, sub–Henry Rollins spoken word records), and interviews with his family, friends, and fellow comedians to uncritically stoke the image of Hicks as some punkish political philosopher, something more than just a guy who told jokes. Certainly, since Hicks’s untimely passing from pancreatic cancer in 1994, his legend has grown and, to an extent, this “print the legend” approach makes sense. But it’s so boring.
American is so wrapped up in its project of making people aware of Bill Hicks that it never moves out of the blush of adoration. What about the idea that Hicks’s “ideas” had all the depth of a college kid who jimmies a Sex Pistols reference into every political science paper? And what about the idea that Hicks, for all his ranting, wasn’t really that funny? For many, there’s more subversion of social mores in a bit by Patton Oswalt or David Cross, and more funny in one of Mitch Hedberg’s full-baked chuckles. Still, if you need someone to teach you how to think by teaching you how not to think, Bill Hicks and American will effectively git-r-done.
American: The Bill Hicks Story opens Friday, April 15, for a limited engagement at the Royal (608 College Street). for showtimes.

Too rare that a documentary fits filmmaker and subject together as serendipitously as in Ne Change Rien. Acclaimed Portuguese auteur Pedro Costa’s (Colossal Youth, In Vanda’s Room) highly mannered approach to filmmaking wonderfully suits the compositions of Jeanne Balibar, French chanteuse, sometimes actress, and, incidentally, daughter of preeminent French Marxist Étienne Balibar.
Balibar’s music and process (along with her haunting, delicate complexion) constitute the crux of Ne Change Rien. Without voiceover or interview segments, Costa insinuates himself into Balibar’s working life, employing the same suffused lighting and unremitting long takes that have marked his marathons of realist social drama.
Balibar’s grace belies a finicky, fusspot demeanour—in one scene, an off-screen vocal coach critiques damn near every syllable over her vocalizations. In another, she impresses the same finicky demands on her band. “I feel tangled up in this thing,” she tells her visibly exhausted guitarist at one point. “I need to hear 1,2,3,4 for five minutes nonstop.”
That her directive might as well be a thesis statement for Costa’s approach to filmmaking is only the cherry. Ne Change Rien is exquisitely photographed and instantly captivating. Costa’s deeply ascetic style arrests Balibar in a series of monochrome, postcard-perfect vignettes, with extended scenes achieving a mesmerizing rhythm as she harmonizes over her band’s minimalist instrumental loops in a bid to achieve perfection. Really outstanding.
Ne Change Rien screens Thursday, April 21 at 7 p.m. TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King Street West) as part of the Free Screen program. (Which means it’s free.)