SCREAM 2 (1997)
Starring Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox
Wonderful sequel to the classic "Scream," this one picks up around more than a year after the events of the last film.
Sidney (Campbell) is in college, while TV news anchorwoman Gale Weathers (Cox) has released a book about the murders that surrounded her. In fact, a movie about the killings, "Stab," has just been released in theaters, featuring the same ghost-faced killer.
Some of "Scream 2"'s comical highlights include scenes from this fictional film-within-a-film, which feature Heather Graham (who played Rollergirl in the movie "Boogie Nights") in the same role Drew Barrymore played in the original "Scream." Tori Spelling plays Sidney.
Kevin Williamson returned to script this follow-up, but fans and filmmakers alike were shocked when early drafts of his script started popping up on the World Wide Web. The ending of that script was changed in the final version (I actually liked the earlier ending better), but it signaled some of the problems with trying to keep a secret in the information age we live in. Craven even addressed the problem on his own web site.
"Scream 2" isn't, of course, as brilliant as its predecessor, but it delivers. The best scene in the film has Campbell on stage in her drama class, portraying "Macbeth" from the Shakespeare play, when she starts hallucinating and seeing "Ghost Face" all around her.
Campbell was leery about starring in a third film in the franchise, but has signed on to do it. As of this writing, that third and allegedly final film in the series had yet to even begin shooting, but reportedly it's going to have Sidney in Hollywood launching an acting career.