Scream 2

The sequel arrives just a year later, and it shows.

Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson reunite Sidney, Randy, and company at an Ohio college where a copycat killer starts carving through the student body. The meta-jokes return—a Freddy Krueger sweater here, a “movie-within-a-movie” where Luke Wilson’s spoof of Skeet Ulrich proves sharper than anything the Scary Movie franchise ever managed. When a class of film students debate how sequels are always inferior, you can hear writer Kevin Williamson’s smirk.

Then the movie proceeds to prove them right.

The first Scream worked because it subverted slasher clichés. This one embraces them. Characters materialize solely to die. Girls run upstairs instead of out doors. Detectives abandon their charge at the worst possible moment. The killer displays superhuman strength—stabbing through bathroom stalls, shattering car windows one-handed, taking out armed cops—after the first film’s refreshingly clumsy antagonist constantly tripped over furniture.

The mystery works until it doesn’t. With so many new faces, anyone could be the killer. Craven stages the mayhem with his usual technical prowess. A car crash sequence thrills. The relentless pacing distracts you from caring that none of these fresh victims matter. It’s craft compensating for substance, and for a while, that’s enough.

Then comes the finale, and the whole house of cards collapses.

Sidney flees to an empty theater instead of the police. Apologists might call it an homage to Argento’s Opera. It didn’t work there either. Then the reveal. We’re supposed to believe dramatic weight loss and plastic surgery made someone so unrecognizable that they were able to infiltrate the college town undetected and land a prominent position, all in under a year? It’s not just a reach, it’s an insult. The film’s self-awareness has curdled into self-parody.

Worse still, the film kills off one of its best characters in a misguided attempt to prove “no one is safe.” For a franchise clearly banking on sequels, it’s a tactical error and—most damning—an unmemorable death.

There’s even a scene where Sidney rehearses for a college production of what appears to be Agamemnon. It exists only to show her fraying nerves and set up the theatrical finale. Comparing this to Greek tragedy? Another bridge too far.

Craven’s craftsmanship keeps things watchable. The supporting cast, packed with future stars, provides distraction. But you sense Craven knew this was a cash grab. The visceral menace of the original is absent. What remains feels rushed—a script that needed several more drafts before cameras rolled.

Scream 2 isn’t terrible. It’s merely premature, exposing its flaws the moment Craven runs out of tricks and most of the cast lies dead. The first film proved slashers could be smart. This one proves they’re still vulnerable to the very sins they mock.