Scream 2

Scream 2 mainly works on the level of a fiendish, darkly humorous murder mystery. Given that the sequel to the blockbuster shocker Scream was cranked out rapidly (by the same filmmaking team of director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson), premiering in theaters a year after the hugely profitable original, the quality is actually pretty good. Once again, it's a sharp `whodunit' swathed in the clichés of a Hollywood slasher-horror film, with characters who are amusingly aware of how these things normally play out. In this feature the clever banter is broadened to include the alleged racism when black characters are the first to die (you might remember Omar and Jada) and the effects of violence in cinema and TV spilling into real-life mayhem (you might remember Get Rich or Die Tryin'). But those dialogues rarely go deep into the topic or take any definite moral position.

Maybe because the casualties are no longer underaged, or the slashing isn't quite so savage, or maybe even because there's a growing affection between squabbling Gale and Dewey (actors Arquette and Cox became a real-life married couple), the results don't feel quite as grisly. Still, SCREAM 2 is a solid `R' for content, and therefore is not recommended for kids, tweens, and younger teens.