Screenhead

Okay, on the off chance that you’re looking forward to the re-emergence of the Scream series in the form of Scream 4, then you’re not going to want to read what you’re about to read.

It’s a HUGE spoiler alert.  Huge.

Apparently, there’s at least some chance–and this comes from writer Kevin Williamson–that Sydney may not live past the end credits.  Quoth Williamson:

“The thing about ‘Scream 4′ is that there are a lot of twists and turns, so I can’t promise anything,” he told PopWrap about Sidney’s role in the fourth film now that Neve will return. “There are a lot of moving pieces, so we’ll see — but if you’re a ‘Scream’ fan, I think you’re really going to like it.”

Now, the most disconcerting part about this is that it’s so very feasible.  See, Neve Campbell was essentially the weak link in this particular chain, and for a while it was unsure that she’d even come back at all.  It’s entirely possible that, at this point, Neve agreed to come back…one more time.

And that means they’d need to get rid of her.  What better way than to write her out?  It’ll be a good long while before we find out either way, but you know we’ll fill you in when we know!

It is now very, very unlikely that we’ll be getting another installment of the celebrated Pixar classic Monsters Inc any time soon, and frankly, that’s probably for the best.

Seriously, the way they ended the last one was going to make for some serious problems if a sequel were to come up.  The whole idea that children’s laughter was several orders of magnitude stronger than their fear, and that solved the monster energy crisis, was pretty much as final as it got.  Who would go back to scaring children?  There’s no percentage in it any more.

But former Monsters staffer Pete Docter is apparently neck deep in something else, and Pixar’s newest project is about a few weeks in, if the advance word is to be believed.

Of course, we’ve all been  wrong before on this sort of thing, but I have to admit that the smart money right now says no more corporate monsters any time soon.

Look, it’s no secret that I hate Twilight the way Nancy Pelosi hates the free market system, just more often, but even I’m baffled by the emergence of a new teaser poster for the third installment of the Twilight saga, Eclipse.

The teaser comes by way of Bloody Disgusting, and it’s really rather nondescript if suitably ominous.  I’m actually somewhat pleased with this; it shows that even complete wastes of plastic like Twilight can learn.

So what’s got me confused about it?  Well, check the release date on that poster.

Oh, you saw it too?

Yeah…that release date.  JUNE.  Like as in about seven months away June.

What were they doing, filming these two concurrently? I thought the Saw release schedule was an impossible juggernaut in the making but Twilight’s making them look like, well, like the Evil Dead series.  Even I’m impressed, but still, I’m baffled.  What kind of quality can they be putting into this?

And then I slap my forehead and remember, oh yeah…it’s TWILIGHT.

I’m aware that, chances are, after you read that headline above, you’re probably going to have a minor embolism.

Rest assured that you DID read that correctly, and by all accounts, someone, somewhere,  at Disney has greenlit a sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

You may not, however, be aware that Who Framed Roger Rabbit was actually based on an old conspiracy theory proven terrifyingly accurate about how a coterie of companies came together to take down the Los Angeles streetcar system and replace it with a freeway, which is pretty much what happened in the original.

There are some rumors that say that we’ll have much the same thing in this one, with another conspiracy theory being targeted and analogized to fit into a ninety minute cartoon / live action hybrid film.  Naturally there’s no proof of this as the script hasn’t even been started on yet, but the concept remains, and in all honesty, I’m looking forward to it!

I loved that film when I was a kid, and have fond memories of going along with a group of childhood buddies to catch it.  It was downright amazing.  And I can only hope that a whole new generation of kids will have the same opportunity to laugh at a moron bunny that I did.

For those of you hoping that there would be a Monsters Vs. Aliens sequel, bad news for you today.  It’s just not going to happen.  Sorry, that’s it, game over, at least for now.

Apparently despite the fact that this essentially decent cartoon cleared nearly two hundred million at the box office worldwide, and picked up who knows how much cash on DVD, that wasn’t enough for Dreamworks, who went on record with this:

“I’d like to tell you there’s a perfectly rational, clear and easy answer as to why not, but there isn’t,” studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg told a group of industry analysts on Tuesday. “There was enough of a consensus from our distribution and marketing folks in certain parts of the world that we would be pushing a boulder up a hill.”

They make some sense, actually–what were they going to do, have more monsters?  Bring back the rest of the aliens?  No, they probably pretty much did all they could here, and so they called it quits while they were very, very much ahead.  A prudent move for Katzenberg et al.

So here’s a chunk of news that feels like nothing so much as concentrated happy sauce–Hatchet 2 is looking to get started.

The big problem, of course, is scheduling.  Adam Green is a tough guy to catch these days, and Tony Todd, always a genre favorite, isn’t much better.

The teaser poster, which you can see at right, has been vetted and declared legit by no less a presence than Green himself, but it’s just a teaser poster.  Chances are we’ll be getting a whole new poster before things go too much farther.

The hope is that shooting will begin before the end of the year, but considering that the end of the year isn’t that much farther off  (seriously, folks, November is just a few days away), so hopefully we’ll get to see another installment of Hatchet–that sweet Old School American Horror–someime next year, possibly even summer if things go as planned.

There’s a scene in Dumb and Dumber that explains my entire outlook on Saw V.  I’ve included it below.

Basically, it’s Lloyd pulling up to Harry on a scooter that he explains he traded, straight up, for their old van.  Harry looks at Lloyd and says, “Just when I think you couldn’t be any dumber, you go and do something like this… AND TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!”

That’s exactly how I feel about Saw V.  Just when I thought they couldn’t make a movie any dumber, they went and did something like this, and totally redeemed themselves.

Saw V puts is back in that grand old world where Jigsaw is dead but his copycats continue.  With Detective Hoffman now clearly in charge and pretty much the only possible successor to Jigsaw’s twisted legacy, the games continue as Agent Strahm tries to get to the bottom of the whole mess.  And the mess carries on as a kind of super-game takes place for five interconnected people who all have something in common…and a whole lot to lose.

Yes, Saw V is so laden with flashbacks it almost makes no sense.  Trying to figure out how Detective Hoffman got the necessary amateur engineering skills to build his own Jigsaw traps is a little outlandish at best–skills like that don’t just show up overnight; they’re the result of years of study and practice.  But still, it’s downright entertaining to watch Hoffman’s evolution from detective to Jigsaw-lite.

The concept of the super-game is another winner–never before has Saw been so devoted to one single game.  Saw IV came close, but even that was a series of games within one game involving different people each time, not the same set of people.  And the twist ending is still well in evidence and came literally out of nowhere, but only in retrospect is it made clear.

The Screenhead Ten Scale hands the best film in the series an eight out of ten, and hopes that future versions will be anywhere near as good.

A lot of people have said a lot of things about the Saw franchise over the last six years of its existence, marked by a new installment every year, which is considered a breakneck pace for a system that might release a new franchise title every two years or more.

But I’m one of those folks who figures that, despite the fact that Saw was great fun in its way, it probably should’ve stopped with three titles.  And today we’re talking about where it should have ended, Saw III.

Saw III represents something of a departure from the original formula, and instead of following around several people in either a large game or their own games, introduces the new aspect of a kind of “innocent bystander” who doesn’t really have much skin in the game, compared to the other people involved.  And this time, Jigsaw’s on his last legs, so he’s dispatched shrill drone Amanda to kidnap a doctor for him.  They rig the doctor with an explosive collar and one instruction: keep Jigsaw alive until the end of this, his last game, and the doctor goes free.  Fail, and the doctor’s head will be reintroduced to the surrounding landscape.

It’s actually kind of interesting watching this progress, and I was fairly satisfied with how it all turned out.  Sure, it wasn’t the best in the series–I still say that title belongs to either two or five–but it was a fair and reasonable ending.

Sadly, it was not to be an ending at all, but carry on.  Part four, we talk about tomorrow.

But the Screenhead Ten Scale has work to do right here, and gives Saw III a six out of ten for being just a little less quality than the previous two installments, but still plenty passable in its own right.

Remember when I was telling you all about the Phantasm webseries that might possibly have been in the works?  Well, this next bit isn’t about confirming or denying same, but what we’ve got here is a bit of news on a possible remake.  Or even possible sequel.

Director Don Coscarelli, an affirmed Master of Horror based on the short-lived Showtime series of the same name, had this to say:

“It’s something we’ve talked about through the years but the timing hasn’t worked out or getting the finances exactly right. I’ve been cooking up a couple of incarnations of things that I can’t talk about now but hopefully in the near future we could get something in the “Phantasm” world happening.”

Frankly, they could use it.  The fourth installation was a joke that was made up of mostly clips from the earlier titles.  We’re all dying to see The Tall Man get his in the end because he’s had THREE MOVIES to run amok and turn America into a gigantic cenotaph.  I’m eagerly awaiting this one, and hope they can find some financing even in these slim times.

Okay, I just got done writing up the review of Trick R Treat, and what do I hear?  They’re planning the sequel already!

Frankly, this isn’t a surprise for a whole lot of reasons.  One, Trick R Treat kicked a whole lot of ass and it was downright awesome, except for some problems I had with about the last three minutes.  Two, it’s currently one of the biggest sellers on Amazon.  And three, it’s getting great reviews.  For crying out loud, it got a nine out of ten here, and you KNOW how hard it is to get anything over a seven out here.

Now, of course, no one’s actually said anything about what will be in this one, but chances are there’ll be plenty of blood and guts and assorted splatter for literally an hour and a half on end.  But if it’s as good as the first, we’re going to be in for a whole lot of fun when next Halloween comes around if it stays on the same schedule.