Scream (1981) — Triskaidekafiles

SCREAM

WRITER: Byron Quisenberry

DIRECTOR: Byron Quisenberry

STARRING: Pepper Martin as Bob

Hank Worden as John

Alvy Moore as Allen

Bobby Diamond as Rod

Ethan Wayne as Stan

Joseph Alvarado as Rudy

Julie Marine as Laura

Ann Bronston as Marion

Nancy St. Marie as Adriana

Bella Bruck as Maggie

Gregg Palmer as Ross

Woody Strode as Charlie Winters

QUICK CUT: A group of campers spend the night in an old abandoned mining town, and meet some new friends along the way.

THE MORGUE

Yet another movie packed with too many characters and not enough time to really get a handle on many of them.

Welcome back, Triskelions! This week, in honour of the release of the new Scream movie, I am taking a look at the original Scream, AND since it premiered in January of 1981, we are also celebrating it's 40th anni...wait. Wait that's not right. That math doesn't work out...what? What's that? This is a completely unrelated slasher from the early 80s and not the genre redefining Wes Craven movie??

...Fuck, this is gonna hurt, isn't it?

The movie begins with a slow panning shot across a wall, showcasing a painting of a boat in stormy seas, and then a trio of figurines as a clock strikes noon. When the camera pans back to the figures, the baker and candlestick maker have both lost their heads, while the butcher remains unharmed.

This will have nothing at all to do with the plot. This is an artifact of when the movie was called, you guessed it, Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker. But once the title was changed, they kept this as a complete non sequitor. And the pacing ALREADY has me seriously questioning my life decisions.

After that, the credits roll while our main characters raft their way down a river. They reach their stop for the night, and make their way to an abandoned western town in the middle of nowhere. The languid pace continues as we watch the entire 10 or so group of people slog their way up the mountainside to the town.

Fuck me, this is "Rock Climbing: The Movie".

We are 'treateed' to many long, long static shots of the town, and scenery, like they figured "we don't have much plot, just shoot the shit out of that wall, we'll pad this out for DAYS!"

After panning around the town during the day, we cut to a slow pan through the town AT NIGHT. See, it's different!

On top of that, when people are talking, they're like, way over THERE, and it sounds like it was recorded weird. When the movie holds its audience off at a distance like this, in almost every way imaginable, it does not make for a fun experience.

This movie is even putting its CAST to sleep.

All right. Look. I have already established the ridiculously slow pace of this, and I am gonna TRY and breeze through this to what passes for 'high' points in this movie. But that's kinda like pointing out the high points in a Nebraska corn field.

Finally, after a lengthy 20 minutes, one of the campers disappears, and is dropped down on another unsuspecting woman, hung and bleeding.

They collect the body and...sit around and stare at each other, making sure to include long, pained shots of each character just staring. Get to the point already!!

Finally, the requisite asshole in the group asks, "Isn't someone going to say something??" MAN HAS A POINT

Accusations shoot around the group, and one of them says "I don't have to show you how I feel!" And I'm sorry, but ANY emotion at this point would indeed be welcome.

But just as that is threatening to get interesting, ha ha, we are subjected to more panning shots around the town, including a wall of tools that will come into play later.

Discount Ron Swanson needs a beer and goes in search of the cooler. He says he'll be all right, and spoiler; he would not be all right.

We don't even get treated to these deaths, they just keep happening off screen. Even the cast can barely be bothered to care. We have moved beyond "dull surprise" and are back into the realm of "passionate disinterest" here.

Once they all shrug over the new dead body, we get MORE wandering around, until whomever is picking off the Ten Little Idiots uses the cleaver on another victim.

After even more sitting around, one of the campers decides he needs to go take a leak, leading to more wandering and more panning around the town.

Finally the morning comes and they discover their rafts have all ben slashed, leaving them stranded unless they want to take a thirty mile hike. Their only option is to wait for the people at the end of the trail to notice they're missing, and start backtracking.

While the rest stand around and do nothing, the large, lazy, slobbish guy they all make fun of, Lou, goes to peak at all the dead bodies they're collecting in the storage shed.

The door closes though, and one of the bodies starts to move, freaking him out...and before that can get interesting, the door opens and Lou runs off.

Finally, there comes a noise from the distance, a loud buzzing, and OH NO they're about to get attacked by killer bees! ...No wait, it's just a pair of motorbikers passing through. There is a brief moment of tension as the bikers rev their engines to establish dominance, and one of the campers says, "Come on, do something!!” echoing my sentiments for the last 35 minutes.

But it turns out they're just some bikers who have gotten lost, and ask the campers if they can show them the way to go home.

They at least do the smart thing and have one of them take one of the bikes to go with the other, to more quickly get help.

After they all grab something to eat, Lou wanders off again to do more nothing, because we haven't seen enough of that yet.

They've at least got a radio going, but at some point even that gives up and stops because it's so bored.

Lou wakes up and does EVEN MORE WANDERING, and everyone seems to have disappeared. He eventually calls out asking if this is some kind of joke, echoing my sentiments for the last 42 minutes.

After tripping over a rock and making friends with a tarantula, he finally runs into the rest, and they make fun of him for making no sense.

I guess you could say these people have No Way Home

We stand around FOR EVEN LONGER until the biker that stayed behind decides to get some coffee. Scream! The movie that dares to ask the question, how do you like your coffee??

Once he's alone in the saloon, he sees his reflection in a broken mirror, and his face is all bloody. And when next wee see him, he is being flung through a door.

The group hears something shatter and are weirdly shocked to find the mirror broken even further. Yeah, it's weird, but something about their level of shock comes off as forced.

So we pan around town EVEN MORE, while everyone debates what to do, in muffled, distant voices, in that building over there. Would you like to share with the rest of us, movie??

I guess they were all together when the guy took his dive through the wall, they decide they're safe if they all stay together indoors, and rig up a bunch of cans around the saloon in hopes of getting a warning if anyone approaches.

Following all that, everyone hunkers down for the night, and we watch them sleep and FOR THE LOVE OF CRAVEN DO SOMETHING.

Oh no! However can I avoid such an obvious trap?

As if my unspoken thoughts are heard, their unseen attacker grabs the axe off Chekov's Wall, and chases one of the women.

She panics and runs and trips the can alarm, going so far as to knock herself out. The group gathers her up, and...sits around and talks about it.

This movie is giving me monumental flashbacks to Mutilations, where they would retreat from one room to the next, and sit and talk until the next plot point happens.

As the clock strikes noon, they hear something clanging off in the distance, and out of the sudden fog rides a man on horseback, pulling a carriage, containing the body of their dead friend that had gone off with the biker.

Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me.

Now. The sensible conclusion here would be, hey! This weird ass dude in the weird cloak is the one killing all of us! The not sensible idea would be to invite him in to rest a spell and have a drink.

Guess which option these chucklefucks go with?

They gather in the saloon and one of the girls asks if the stranger saw the other biker, and he just sits there and stares. BECAUSE HEAVEN FORBID ANYTHING IN THIS MOVIE GET EXPLAINED.

And when he finally DOES speak, it is an absolutely bonkers nonsequitor where he tells them he was a sailor for forty years!!

He rambles on for a bit like he's Grampa Simpson, about his ship captain, a hard man, and then his compass starts to spin wildly. There is a bunch of intense staring, and then the man in black ups and leaves.

WHAT WAS EVEN THE POINT. All he did was tell us a tale about the Boremuda Triangdull, and then fucked off!

So having learned nothing and gained nothing, the dejected campers go back to sitting around and doing nothing, because that's all this movie's got.

Fortunately someone sees a glowing light and they all go to investigate the will o' the wisp, and hopefully do ANYthing, since there's only about 15 minutes left.

But since this has been one long movie of walking around and doing nothing, that also seems an appropriate way to end it.

Shockingly, they find a whole lot of nothing. You know what would be scarier than nothing? ANYTHING!!

Their surviving guide heads back to the saloon to get the coffee pot and a lantern, so they can hole up in the other building, because it has fewer ways in and out to keep track of. He grabs a flimsy board and sticks it against the door saying that should hold it.

And since we are all contained in a small room with only one way in or out...time for more sitting and waiting! Asdfghjkl

Suddenly, there comes a rapping, as of someone gently tapping, and if only I hadn't already referenced the Simpsons version of The Raven.

They yank open the door to reveal, something that is so very not shocking in this movie, a whole lotta nothing.

But their friend Stan, who wasn't quite as dead as they thought when the Man in Black dropped him off, stumbles in all pale and weak.

One of them heads back to the saloon to grab some stuff to help their friend, and starts to get tossed around by an unseen force. It is unclear if this is someone they're editing around to not show the killer, or GENUINELY a supernatural Unseen Force.

It arguably becomes clear as the guy backs up the stairs gasping for breath and clutching at his throat like Darth Vader is displeased with his performance review, but I argue it could just as easily be a normal killer in the position of the camera, and he's backing away in fear.

So Andy gets pushed/dragged/scared up the stairs, thrown off the second story balcony, and lands on the saloon floor be...HOLY FUCK AXE TO THE FACE OUTTA NOWHERE.

I will say this, if the pay off to 73 minutes of wandering around and panning over vistas is an axe to the face outta nowhere...still not worth it, but nicely done all the same.

The unseen killer continues his final act carnage, which is appreciated even if it is too little too late, by using Chekov's scythe to slice off Bob the Asshole's head.

His wife wants to get to him, but everyone tries to hold the door shut. In the struggle between the killer pushing in and everyone pushing out, Lou somehow gets dragged outside, and is about to meet his own untimely end when a shot rings out and the scythe falls from invisible hands.

I GUESS???

You have forgotten the face of your father, Gunslinger.

The Man in Black rides into town with a gun, so I guess he shot the killer...the ghost? The spirit? The psychic manifestation? The fucking Invisible Man??

Anyways, a car pulls up with two previously unseen characters to take the survivors to safety, presumably from the end of the trail backtracking.

The movie lumbers to a close with another panning shot across the wall from the start of the movie, now revealing ALL the figurines are headless, and continuing to pan to reveal a painting of a ship's captain. Presumably the same one the Man in Black spoke of? Somehow his ghost living on, hunted by the Man in Black, who HAS a name, but I will be damned if it gets said in this movie, so fuck it. This is a remarkably obtuse movie that puts forth many questions, and provides precious few answers.

If this is the only shot you have of your killer, I think you’ve failed as a film.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It’s far from bad, although the dark is a bit TOO dark at times.

Audio: Perfectly fine.

Sound Bite: "Rush? There ain't been no rush here since they discovered gold!!" Okay, that was a good line

Body Count: The movie may not have much going on, but it does have a decent body count.

1 - 19 minutes in, and we finally find a dead body.

2 - Trucker hat guy gets clobbered

3 - Other hat guy cleavered

4 - Biker dude chucked through a wall

5 - Stan is brought back by wannabe Charon

6 - Andy gets chucked off the balcony and axed in the face

7 -Bob gets a scythe to the face.

8 - Lou may or may not be scythed?

9 - Killer gets shot?

Best Corpse: Award has to go for Andy’s axing to the face. A nice little surprise.

Blood Type - F: A few dribbles here and there, and that’s about it.

Drink Up! Every time there is a long panning shot for no good reason.

Movie Review: Okay okay, I bag on this movie pretty hard. But setting aside the story, or lack thereof, there is some decent craft here. It’s put together well enough. The acting is average. And the basic idea is genuinely a good one. It just does a whole lot of nothing. That’s something that can work for some people, it has an almost dreamline quality, but that’s looking at it from an extremely gracious point of view. Two out of five scythes.

Entertainment Value: There is so little going on, it barely even has any entertainment value, aside from staring agape at how little is going on, and waiting for the next moment of ANYthing. There’s fun to be had here, but you gotta make your own. The single best thing about this movie is Woody Strode’s ghost Charon wannabe person thing. He brings instant presence, they just don’t DO anything with him. Two out of five motorbikes.

Have I seen worse movies? Yes.

Have I seen worse put together movies? Yes again.

Have I seen movies with worse acting? Also yes!

Have I see less coherent movies? Hooboy yes.

And yet, somehow, this movie is just a clustering of so much bad coming together that it is gonna stick with me.