Tag: Jenna Ortega

Review: ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow,’ starring Abel Tesfaye, Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan

May 16, 2025

by Carla Hay

Barry Keoghan and Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye in “Hurry Up Tomorrow” (Photo by Andrew Cooper/Lionsgate)

“Hurry Up Tomorrow”

Directed by Trey Edward Shults

Culture Representation: Taking place in California and briefly in Montana, the dramatic film “Hurry Up Tomorrow” features a racially diverse cast of characters (black, white and Latin) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A troubled pop star is haunted by personal problems and gets entangled with an obsessive fan while he’s on tour. 

Culture Audience: “Hurry Up Tomorrow” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and pretentious “stream of consciousness” movies that don’t have much to say.

Jenna Ortega in “Hurry Up Tomorrow” (Photo by Andrew Cooper/Lionsgate)

“Hurry Up Tomorrow” is supposed to be the companion movie to Canadian pop singer The Weeknd’s 2025 album of the same name. It’s a very misguided and confused film that will have an unintended effect of turning off potential fans of The Weeknd. This incoherent vanity cesspool (about egos, fame and trauma) proves that the movie’s production money would’ve been better spent on more therapy for Abel Tesfaye, also known as The Weeknd. Ripping off ideas from the Oscar-winning “Misery” doesn’t help.

Directed by Trey Edward Shults, “Hurry Up Tomorrow” was written by Shults, Tesfaye and Reza Fahim. Tesfaye and Fahim are two of the producers of the movie. Shults is the movie’s film editor. “Hurry Up Tomorrow” was filmed in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Bozeman, Montana. In “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” Tesfaye plays a version of himself, with the same birth name and same stage name. For the purposes of this review, the real Tesfaye will be referred to by his last name. The Abel character in the movie will be referred to by his first name.

“Hurry Up Tomorrow” wants to be a psychological drama/thriller, with large chunks of horror thrown into this messy cinematic stew. But there are almost no thrills to be had in this disjointed story, and the horror elements fail at being scary. Instead, what’s offered is a rambling narrative of a moody and self-absorbed pop star dealing with a recent breakup from a girlfriend, a temporary loss of his singing voice due to stress, “mother issues,” and an obsessive fan who stalks him and does much worse.

“Hurry Up Tomorrow” begins by playing the ranting voice message from an unnamed woman (voiced by Riley Keough) who has recently broken up with Abel. In the message, she unleashes a torrent of rage and hurt of someone who has broken free from an abusive relationship. Abel plays this message over and over so he can feel like a victim.

This ex-girlfriend says things in the message such as: “I’m leaving you. I used to think you were a good person … You broke me and made me feel so small. Your mom would be so ashamed if she knew how you treated me. You’re pathetic. And that’s why you deserve to end up …”

The message abruptly cuts off. Later, because this message is played multiple times throughout the movie, the last thing she said in the message is revealed: “And that’s why you deserve to end up alone.”

Don’t expect Abel to reflect on how this relationship ended so badly and take any responsibility he had in it. Don’t expect to get any insight on who this woman is, how long she and Abel were a couple, and why she’s been emotionally damaged from being in a relationship with him. That’s because this movie about a narcissistic pop star has the pop star make the breakup all about how it’s hurting him.

Tears flow down his face, and he seems upset by the breakup at various time in the movie, but you get the impression it’s because his ego is bruised that she broke up with him. Based on how emotionally disconnected Abel is from the people who are closest to him, when it comes to relationship breakups, he’s probably the type of person who’s accustomed to do the dumping and discarding of people in his life. Throughout the movie, there’s a tiresome tone of “Poor me, I’m a misunderstood jerk who can’t understand why people won’t let me mistreat them,” which is very off-putting, to say the least.

As Abel is wallowing in self-pity while he’s on tour, a young woman named Anima, also known as Ani (played by Jenna Ortega), is in Montana. She’s in a cluttered house and pours gasoline in every room of the house when no one else is there. And then, she sets the house on fire, gets in a truck, and drives away.

Don’t expect the movie to explain who lives in this house and why Anima committed this arson. The only hint of Anima’s personal life is shown in a later scene when she gets a phone call from her mother (also voiced by Keough), who has to leave a message because Anima won’t take the call. In the message, Anima’s mother is very upset with her over something she did, but the message is too vague to know for sure if it’s about the arson.

“Hurry Up Tomorrow” eventually reveals something that was already shown in the movie’s trailers: Anima is an obsessed fan of Abel. She eventually ends up in the audience at one of his concerts in California, and she meets him after the show. Until this meeting, the scenes featuring Anima are dull vignettes of her going on a road trip to this concert.

Abel has an entourage, but the person he is closest to is his manager, enabler, and drug supplier: an Irishman named Lee (played by Barry Keoghan), who has been Abel’s manager from the beginning of Abel’s music career. Lee gives a monologue at one point in the movie that barely explains the extent of their relationship. Apparently, Lee gave up everything in Ireland to be Abel’s manager when they were both broke and struggling.

How did Abel and Lee meet? Don’t expect answers to that question. What’s clear is that whatever genuine friendship that Lee and Abel might have had is now questionable because Abel is now Lee’s “meal ticket” that Lee doesn’t want to give up, at any cost. Their relationship seems transactional and not based on brotherly love, even though Lee often calls Abel “brother.”

Their hypocrisy is so ingrained in their lifestyles, they seem to have no self-awareness of it. Abel is seen working out with dumbbell weights backstage. Lee escorts him to the stage as if Abel is a champion boxer, with Abel wearing a boxer’s robe as part of his usual backstage clothing. Abel is no athlete who responsibly cares about his health. He’s really a cocaine-snorting, hard-drinking, self-destructive adult brat.

When Abel loses his singing voice during a concert and finds out from a doctor (played by Ash T) that the voice loss is mostly from psychological stress, Lee lectures Abel about taking some healing syrup. And yet, Lee (who has an obvious cocaine addiction) is the one who also urges Abel to do cocaine, which is one of the worst drugs a singer can consume because cocaine does damage to nasal passages and the throat, which are vital body parts for singing. The loss of a singing voice happened to Tesfaye in real life at a Los Angeles concert in 2022. In real life, he abruptly ended the concert when he lost his voice. This type of concert cancellation is depicted in the movie.

There’s an underlying tone of misogyny throughout “Hurry Up Tomorrow” because the only women heard speaking at length in this pile-on of annoying self-adulation are women who are portrayed as toxic harpies who intentionally hurt Abel. There are hints that Abel’s dysfunction stems from unresolved anger that Abel has against his mother, whom he blames for his horrible childhood. The movie doesn’t show or tell enough about his background to give much meaningful insight.

Ortega makes a good effort to deliver the lines that she’s been given. However, Anima remains a big mystery throughout the movie, which doesn’t care to explain who she is and is more concerned about showing what she does to make Abel uncomfortable. Keoghan gives a believable performance as an enabling manager, but the Lee character is ultimately hollow and vague too.

Tesfaye is the least talented actor of these three principal cast members because sometimes he over-acts, while other times he’s too stiff. And it’s truly ironic that he gives the movie’s worst performance because he’s the only cast member who’s portraying himself in the movie. Ostensibly, Tesfaye should have the easiest acting performance because he’s just depicting a version of himself.

There are lots of whirling camera angles, close-ups of people’s angst-ridden faces, and neon lighting, in attempts to make “Hurry Up Tomorrow” look more artistic than it really is. Tesfaye and Daniel Lopatin co-wrote the movie’s music score, which is one of the few things that this junkpile movie gets right. And the movie has the expected soundtrack of The Weeknd songs, including “Wake Me Up,” “Red Terror,” “Cry for Me,” “São Paulo,” “Timeless,” “Open Hearts,” “Drive,” “Blinding Lights,” “Gasoline,” “Hurry Up Tomorrow” and “Without a Warning.”

Two things that people might expect this movie to be but the movie is not: First, it’s not a concert film. Abel is seen performing in only three separate concert scenes, with one song in each of these scenes. Second, “Hurry Up Tomorrow” is not sexually explicit, like Tesfaye’s critically panned HBO series flop “The Idol,” a drama that was supposed to be erotic but many people thought was very unsexy for how women were degraded in the show. The only sex in “Hurry Up Tomorrow” is hinted at, when Abel spends the night with someone and wakes up the next morning with her in a hotel room.

“Hurry Up Tomorrow” isn’t even that edgy or unique. The movie’s cursing and depictions of drug use are very cliché. And when “Hurry Up Tomorrow” takes a sudden turn into being a horror movie, that’s when things really go off the rails, and there’s no coming back from the wreckage.

Egomania is on full display here. It’s not just with Abel but it’s also with Anima, who goes from being an arsonist to being much worse when she experiences rejection. There’s plenty to show that these self-centered characters desperately want people to admire them, but it’s hard to admire anyone who doesn’t give enough reasons for you to care in the first place.

Lionsgate released “Hurry Up Tomorrow” in U.S. cinemas on May 16, 2025.

Review: ‘Death of a Unicorn’ (2025), starring Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter, Téa Leoni and Richard E. Grant

March 26, 2024

by Carla Hay

Jessica Hynes, Téa Leoni, Will Poulter, Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega and Anthony Carrigan in “Death of a Unicorn” (Photo by Murray Close/A24)

“Death of a Unicorn” (2025)

Directed by Alex Scharfman

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the fantasy/horror/comedy film “Death of a Unicorn” features a predominantly white group of people (with one Latina and two Asian people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An attorney and his college-age daughter go on a weekend business retreat at the mansion of the rich family who employs the attorney, and they all fight for their lives when unicorns appear and go on a killing spree.

Culture Audience: “Death of a Unicorn” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and people who don’t mind watching empty and repetitive horror movies.

Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega in “Death of a Unicorn” (Photo by Balazs Goldi/A24)

“Death of a Unicorn” isn’t as scary or funny as this horror comedy thinks it is. The cast members give capable performances, but the movie sinks due to a weak script that doesn’t go beyond unicorns on a deadly rampage and tired clichés of wealthy villains. The unicorns are simply a gimmick to an over-used concept about rich and greedy people getting their come-uppance in a slasher flick.

Written and directed by Alex Scharfman, “Death of a Unicorn” is his feature-film directorial debut. Scharfman has previously been a producer of several other movies, including the horror films “Resurrection” (2022) and “House of Spoils” (2024). “Death of a Unicorn” had its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival.

Although “Death of a Unicorn” has a very talented cast, the movie is a collection and checklist of horror movie stereotypes. The story takes place in a remote wooded area in a unnamed U.S. city. (“Death of a Unicorn” was actually filmed in Hungary.) And every single character in the movie becomes a hollow parody at some point. It should come as no surprise how the movie uses the Final Girl horror stereotype.

The beginning of “Death of a Unicorn” shows widowed attorney Elliot (played by Paul Rudd) driving himself and his sullen college-student daughter Ridley (played by Jenna Ortega, in yet another role as a pouty young adult) on a road trip to this remote area for a weekend retreat at the mansion of the snooty and greedy Leopold family. Elliot works as a business attorney for the Leopolds, who made their fortune in a pharmaceutical business called Leopold Laboratories.

The mansion is located on the Leopold Wilderness Reserve in an expansive wooded area. Elliot tells Ridley what his agenda is for this trip: ingratiate himself into Leopolds’ inner circle so that he can be named to the Leopold corporation’s board of directors and earn enough money for Elliot and Ridley to be comfortable for the rest of their lives.

On the way to this mansion, Elliot and Ridley do some boring father/daughter squabbling, where Ridley tries to prove she’s anti-establishment by saying things such as, “Philanthropy is just reputation laundering for the oligarchy.” That’s about as “edgy” as the dialogue gets in this movie. Elliot and Ridley are both grieving over the death of Elliot’s wife/Ridley’s mother (played by Denise Delgado), but Elliot thinks Ridley should at some point not use this death as an excuse to be perpetually mopey and negative.

Elliot suddenly sneezes while driving, which causes him to temporarily take his eyes off of the road. He ends up hitting what he thinks is a deer because it’s about the size of a young deer. But when Elliot and Ridley get out of the car for a closer inspection of the injured animal on the road, they’re shocked to see that it’s not a deer. It’s a unicorn. And the unicorn’s blood is purple.

Aside from this initial shock, there’s no lengthy discussion between Elliot and Ridley about why unicorns exist. They act like it’s rare to see a unicorn but not completely bizarre. The movie apparently takes place in an alternate universe where seeing a unicorn isn’t enough to question one’s sanity.

The unicorn is injured severely enough that it looks unlikely to survive. Ridley touches the unicorn’s glowing horn and suddenly has a psychedelic-like experience where she’s in a pulsating, kaleidoscope-looking world that seems to have no time or space. Ridley gets snapped out of this trance when she sees Elliot take a tire iron and beat the unicorn for a “mercy killing” to put the animal out of its misery.

Ridley and Elliot do not leave the unicorn outside, which is what most people with common sense would do, especially since no one else saw the car accident or Elliot beating the dying animal. Instead, Ridley and Elliot put the unicorn in the back of the car and leave the animal uncovered. The movie doesn’t really show why they made this decision, but it’s implied that it was probably Elliot’s idea so he could figure out a way to cash in on the rarity of this unicorn.

There are three Leopold family members at this mansion: demanding patriarch Odell Leopold (played by Richard E. Grant), who has a terminal illness; shallow matriarch Belinda Leopold (played by Téa Leoni); and their spoiled bachelor son Shepard “Shep” Leopold (played by Will Poulter), who are all as pretentious and entitled as you think they will be in a movie that makes everyone a two-dimensional caricature. Belinda explains to Elliot and Ridley that there are very few staffers in the mansion because the Leopold family wants to keep Odell’s illness as private as possible.

The Leopold family’s sycophantic employees who are part of the story include a stern personal assistant named Shaw (played by Jessica Hynes) and a haughty British butler named Griff (played by Anthony Garrison), who has some of the best lines in a movie that doesn’t have a lot of great dialogue. Two scientists named Dr. Bhatia (played by Sunita Mani) and Dr. Song (played by Steve Park) become part of the story when they are recruited to figure out the mystery of the unicorn’s magical powers.

The unicorn’s magical powers are first discovered by Ridley in an awkwardly staged sequence. “Death of a Unicorn” is so sloppily written, Elliot tries to pretend to the Leopold family that nothing unusual happened to cause Elliot and Ridley to be tardy when they arrived at the mansion. And yet, there’s a unicorn in plain view in the back of Elliot’s car that’s parked in the driveway. The front of Eliot’s car is also noticeably damaged.

When Ridley and Elliot arrive at the mansion, Ridley has some of the unicorn’s purple blood on her face. Shepard points out to Ridley that she has something on her face. (There’s no explanation for why Elliot didn’t notice this blood first.) Ridley excuses herself to go to a bathroom to wipe off the blood. Shaw and Griff notice Ridley nervously looking out a window at the car, as Ridley as walking to the bathroom. And that’s when these two employees see what looks like a dead animal in the back of the car.

Inside the bathroom, Ridley wipes her face with a towel and notices that her acne has disappeared as soon as she touched her face with the parts of the towel that had the unicorn’s blood. That’s how she discovers that the unicorn’s blood has self-healing powers. She also deduces that when she touched the unicorn’s horn, some type of bond or connection was formed with the unicorn.

These healing powers won’t be a secret for very long. Elliot tells Ridley that he got some of the unicorn’s blood in his eyes when he bludgeoned it. Elliot soon discovers that he now has perfect vision and no longer needs to wear the eyeglasses that he was wearing when he arrived at the mansion. When he wears the eyeglasses, his vision becomes blurry. Elliot also had allergies that have now disappeared.

All the people at the mansion soon find out that the unicorn in the back of Elliot’s car is not really dead. The unicorn bursts out of the car, and all hell breaks loose. As already revealed in the synopsis for “Death of a Unicorn,” the unicorn is an infant. And its parents eventually come looking for it.

The rest of “Death of a Unicorn” clumsily tries to balance a storyline of the corrupt Leopolds trying to figure out how they can make huge amounts of money from this magical unicorn with a rushed-in storyline of the unicorn parents going on a rampage. The Leopolds become more ruthless and unhinged (including recovering drug addict Shepard going on a binge of snorting unicorn dust, like it’s cocaine) in trying to capture these unicorns, while everyone else does some version of trying to stay alive.

After a while, “Death of a Unicorn” just becomes another horror film with an unsurprising body count. The movie tries to shoehorn in a redemption arc for Elliot that just doesn’t ring true, considering Elliot aspired to be just as unscrupulous and elitist as the Leopolds. Ridley also goes through a sudden personality transformation that is not convincing, just so the movie can pander to horror stereotype that a Final Girl has to be likable and sympathetic. Even with the novelty of unicorns killing people in a horror movie, “Death of a Unicorn” doesn’t quite live up to its potential.

A24 will release “Death of a Unicorn” in U.S. cinemas on March 28, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on March 24, 2025.

Review: ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,’ starring Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Ortega and Willem Dafoe

September 5, 2024

by Carla Hay

Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

“Beetlejuce Beetlejuice”

Directed by Tim Burton

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Winter River, Connecticut, the fantasy film “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (a sequel to the 1988 movie “Beetlejuice”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latinos and some African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Troublemaking and wisecracking demon Beetlejuice returns from captivity to stop the wedding of his would-be bride Lydia Deetz, a psychic who can see ghosts, while Lydia tries to repair her strained relationship with her daughter, and Beetlejuice is being hunted by his vengeful former bride. 

Culture Audience: “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the the first “Beetlejuice” movie, the movie’s headliners, director Tim Burton, and anyone who likes watching high-energy movies that are comedic supernatural stories.

Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega, Winona Ryder and Justin Theroux in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (Photo by Parisa Taghizadeh/Warner Bros. Pictures)

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” comes very close to being overstuffed with subplots, but they all tie together in the end. This flawed but energetic sequel to 1988’s “Beetlejuice” has enough supernatural fun to charm new fans and existing fans. Do viewers need to see the first “Beetlejuice” movie to understand “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”? No, but it certainly helps, especially in noticing many of the references to the first “Beetlejuice” movie that are in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” These references (also known as Easter eggs) can be considered shameless fan servicing, but most sequels of hit movies are guilty of pandering to die-hard fans.

Directed by Tim Burton, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” was written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who are both collaborators with Burton on Netflix’s “Addams Family” spinoff series “Wednesday.” Michael McDowell and Warren Skaaren wrote the first “Beetlejuice” movie, which was directed by Burton. Neither movie is perfect, but both movies have appeal to people who like movies that combine Gothic sensibilities with goofy comedy. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has many more characters (almost too many) compared to the first “Beetlejuice” movie, but the visual effects in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” are a vast improvement over the cringeworthy and tacky visual effects in “Beetlejuice.” The makeup in Beetlejuice” was superb though, which is why the movie won an Oscar for Best Makeup.

The original “Beetlejuice” movie has a simple plot: The ghosts of a married couple named Adam Maitland (played by Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (played by Geena Davis) try to get rid of the wealthy new family who have moved into and renovated the Maitlands’ former house in the fictional city of Winter River, Connecticut. The house’s new residents are former real estate developer Charles Deetz (played by Jeffrey Jones); his pretentious sculptor/conceptual artist wife Delia Deetz; and their Goth psychic teenage daughter Lydia Deetz (played by Winona Ryder), who is the only one in the family who can see ghosts.

The house is isolated and sits on a hilltop, which is why there are no neighbors who notice the strange activity taking place in the house. The Maitlands reluctantly enlist a troublemaking and wisecracking ghost demon named Betelgeuse (played by Michael Keaton) to try to get rid of the Deetz family. Betelgeuse becomes enamored with Lydia and wants to marry her. Betelgeuse (who lived and died as a human sometime in the 1300s) appears when his name is said three times in a row. There’s an entirely different discussion that could be had about how inappropriate it is for Betelgeuse to marry an underage teen, but it underscores how much of a creep Betelgeuse is and how he comes from an era when it was considered normal to marry someone who is 15 or 16 years old.

In “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Lydia (also played by Ryder) is now a single mother who is the famous host of TV series called “Ghost House With Lydia Deetz,” where she helps people who say they have haunted houses. It’s mentioned that Lydia has been a professional psychic for the past 15 years. Lydia is a pill-popping neurotic who has been dating her manager Rory (played by Justin Theroux), who is an obviously slimy manipulator pretending to be sensitive and caring. Rory not only enables Lydia’s drug abuse, but he also encourages it.

Lydia uses pills to cope with her personal life being a mess. She barely speaks to her parents. Lydia also doesn’t have much of a relationship with her teenage daughter Astrid (played by Jenna Ortega, star of “Wednesday”), who is bitter because Astrid thinks Lydia cares more about her career than Lydia cares about Astrid. Lydia was separated from Astrid’s father Richard (played by Santiago Cabrera) when Richard died in a drowning accident.

Astrid, who is about 16 or 17, is a student at a boarding school, where Astrid is a loner who is treated like an outsider freak because of what Lydia does for a living. There’s a scene where some “mean girls” have vandalized Astrid’s room by putting up a paper ghost in the room that says “Boo.” Astrid is highly intellgent and well-read, but she has a lot of anger toward Lydia. Astrid thinks Lydia is a fraud because Lydia cannot see the ghost of Astrid’s father Richard.

One day, Lydia gets a frantic phone call from her mother Delia, who tells her to come to Winter River immediately. That’s how Lydia finds out that her father Charles died. His plane crashed over the South Pacific, and he was killed by a shark. In real life, “Beetlejuice” co-star Jones, who played Charles, got arrested in 2002 for child porn. Jones is now a registered sex offender, which is probably why he wasn’t asked to be in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which uses animation, visual effects and archival footage of Jones to depict Charles in the movie.

Lydia feels uncomfortable with returning to Winter River, because it brings back bad memories of Betelgeuse, whose name is now spelled Beetlejuice in this sequel. (“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” was actually filmed in the United Kingdom, Vermont and Massachusetts.) Astrid and Rory also go to Winter River to attend Charles’ funeral. Delia and Astrid don’t really know each other but they do have one thing in common: They both despise Rory.

To the horror of Delia and Astrid, Rory uses Charles’ memorial service to propose marriage to Lydia—and he wants to get married in Winter River on Halloween, which is two days after this marriage proposal. Father Damien (played by Burn Gorman), the priest to led the funeral service, has been enlisted to officiate at the wedding. Lydia wants more time to think about Rory’s marriage proposal. However, Rory makes her feel guilty, so she reluctantly agrees to this hasty wedding. Lydia is also seeing some indications that Beetlejuice might be coming back into her life.

Meanwhile, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” explains from the beginning that Beetlejuice has been trapped in an afterlife purgatory. In his previous life (when he was alive), he was a grave robber who married a femme fatale named Delores (played by Monica Bellucci), the leader of a soul-sucking cult. Beetlejuice left Delores, but the ghost of Delores wants to get back together with Beetlejuice by any means necessary to marry him. An early scene in the movie shows Delores putting her sliced body back together, with her restored body in stitches.

Beetlejuice has several mute minions with shrunken heads who wear the same type of striped suit that he does. His most loyal and rusted minion is named Bob. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has a lot of scenes with these minions that might remind people of how the “Despicable Me” animated movies use their own minion characters for anti-hero/supervillain Gru.

One of the biggest comedic gags in the “Beetlejuice” movies is an afterlife waiting room, where recently deceased people wait to get checked in to travel to heaven, hell or somewhere in between. The ghosts appear exactly as how they looked when they died, which means many of these ghosts are mutilated or deformed if they died gruesome deaths. Near the beginning of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Danny DeVito has a quick cameo as an unnamed janitor in this afterlife waiting area.

It’s in this waiting area, there’s an Afterlife Crimes Unit led by a pompous ghost named Wolf Jackson (played by Willem Dafoe), who was an actor when he was alive. Wolf was an actor who was best known for playing a police detective named Frank Hardballed. As a ghost, Wolf still likes to pretend that he’s a real cop. He takes it upon himself to lead team that is looking for Delores, the chief suspect in a spree of murders where people’s souls have been sucked out of them.

And there’s even more going on in this plot: After Lydia accepts Rory’s marriage proposal, a disgusted Astrid storms off on her bicycle. Astrid accidentally crashes through a fence and tumbles into a backyard tree. The tree has a treehouse, where teenage Jeremy Frazier (played by Arthur Conti) happens to be when Astrid has her bike accident.

You know what happens next: Jeremy and Astrid, who are both about the same age and are intellectual loners, have an immediate attraction to each other. But what will happen to their relationship if Astrid is only going to be in Winter River for a few days? There are some twists and turns in “Beetlejuice” which have some surprises that are more unpredictable than others.

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has some nostalgic references to the first “Beetlejuice” movie. The Handbook for the Recently Deceased is once again a pivotal part of the plot. Miss Shannon’s School for Girls, which was seen at the end of “Beetlejuice,” has a much more prominent role in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” Little Jane Butterfield (played by Rachel Mittelman), the pre-teen daughter of nosy real-estate agent Jane Butterfield (played by Annie McEnroe) in “Beetlejuice,” is now all grown up in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” The adult Jane Butterfield Jr. (played by Amy Nuttall) is also a real-estate agent.

Music also plays a big role in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which has “Beetlejuice” composer Danny Elfman returning for the franchise’s jaunty score music. In “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” there’s a soul train where people in the waiting area dance like they’re in a “Soul Train” episode from the 1970s. There are mostly African American people (many with Afro hairstyles) in these soul train scenes, which might or might not be taken a certain way depending on how much viewers know about “Soul Train” in the 1970s.

Songs from Harry Belafonte’s 1956 “Calypso” album—most notably the hit tune “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)”—are prominently featured in the original “Beetlejuice” and can be heard again in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” But the song that gets its big moment in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” is “MacArthur Park,” which was a hit (separately) for Richard Harris in 1968 and Donna Summer in 1978. Also look for a comedic moment featuring Richard Marx’s 1989 hit “Right Here Waiting.”

Keaton, Ryder and O’Hara all give very good performances in reprising their “Beetlejuice” roles. In “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Ryder has the most challenging task of the three original “Beetlejuice” stars because her Lydia character has changed the most from the original “Beetlejuice” movie. Lydia is now a complicated adult with more emotional baggage than what the teenage Lydia character had. Much of the movie relies on Lydia’s reactions to a lot of the mayhem that takes place. Ryder’s performance as Lydia (who gets the most screen time in the movie) could be annoying to some or entertaining to others, but she is always compelling to watch in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” Keaton’s Beetlejuice is essentially the same, while O’Hara’s Delia is even more cartoonish than in the original “Beetlejuice” movie.

Ortega and Theroux are perfectly fine in their roles, but they’re both doing versions of other characters that they’ve already done on screen: the pouting teen character for Ortega, the two-faced liar character for Theroux. The “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” filmmakers made the right decision to have Delores say as little as possible because Bellucci has a limited acting range compared to other stars in the “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” cast, although she looks fabulous as Delores, who could pass for an evil cousin of Morticia Addams. Dafoe hams it up as the buffoonish Wolf, who is the most unnecessary new character in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” at times seems a little too self-satisfied with all of the different subplots that are sometimes left to dangle and are left hanging while another subplot comes along as a distraction. The mischievious rogue Beetlejuice is also not in the movie as much as some viewers might expect from a film named after this character. Overall, if viewers have any curiosity about “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” it’s best to see the original “Beetlejuice” movie first and then enjoy the somewhat wild and bumpy ride that is “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”

Warner Bros. Pictures will release “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” in U.S. cinemas on September 6, 2024. The movie was released in several countries outside the U.S. and had sneak preview screenings in U.S. cinemas on September 4, 2024.

Review: ‘Miller’s Girl,’ starring Martin Freeman, Jenna Ortega, Dagmara Dominczyk, Bashir Salahuddin and Gideon Adlon

January 26, 2024

by Carla Hay

Jenna Ortega in “Miller’s Girl” (Photo by Zac Popik/Lionsgate)

“Miller’s Girl”

Directed by Jade Halley Bartlett

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional Opal County, Tennessee, the dramatic film “Miller’s Girl” features a racially diverse cast of characters (white, Latino and African American) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A wealthy and intellectual 18-year-old high school student sees how far she can go in trying to seduce her middle-aged and married literature teacher, who is attracted to her too.

Culture Audience: “Miller’s Girl” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of stars Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman and shallow movies about inappropriate student/teacher relationships.

Martin Freeman in “Miller’s Girl” (Photo by Zac Popik/Lionsgate)

Too much of “Miller’s Girl” is phony: the pretentious dialogue, the fake accents, and the sexually curious teenagers who only flirt with teachers, not with other students. It’s a tacky drama trying to look artsy. The principal cast members seem to be doing their best to make things believable, but “Miller’s Girl” becomes undone by miscasting and other misguided directorial choices.

Written and directed by Jade Halley Bartlett, the overly verbose “Miller’s Girl” (which is Barlett’s feature-film debut) gives the impression that it was originally a novel adapted into a screenplay. Some viewers might be surprised to learn that “Miller’s Girl” is an original screenplay, even though the words in the movie sound like they were taken straight from a tawdry young-adult novel that’s trying to appear more intelligent than it really is. “Miller’s Girl” had its world premiere at the 2024 Palm Springs International Film Festival.

The central character and narrator of “Miller’s Girl” is a smug 18-year-old brat, ridiculously named Cairo Sweet (played by Jenna Ortega), who lives in an unnamed city in the fictional Opal County, Tennessee. In the movie’s opening scene, Cairo (who is an only child) tells viewers in a voiceover narration that she’s been left to live by herself in her family mansion because her parents are attorneys who are too busy with work and are “permanently abroad.” She lives on an estate called Victorian Village, which is very well-known in the area.

In an example of how fake this movie looks, Cairo is supposed to be fabulously wealthy, yet there are no servants or other employees who are seen taking care of the mansion and the rest of the property. In fact, Cairo is the only person seen in this big house. It’s supposed to make Cairo look like “a poor little rich girl” who’s all alone, but it just looks like sloppy and badly conceived filmmaking. There’s more of this lack of realism throughout this entire movie that’s trying to look like a realistic and “shocking” exposé of the dark side of student/teacher flirtations.

Cairo wonders aloud in her voiceover what it means to be an adult, now that she is 18 years old. To deal with her loneliness, she finds solace in reading books and in writing. Her voiceover comments often sound like what someone would write in a private journal. Cairo has plans to attend Yale University, but it’s too early for her to know if she’s been accepted into Yale.

Throughout the movie, Cairo makes several comments about how she hates living in Tennessee (she thinks she lives in the middle of nowhere) and can’t wait to graduate from high school so she can move somewhere else, starting with Yale in Connecticut. The movie never explains how this wealthy teenager—who is now legally an adult with no supervision and who can afford to travel on weekends or holiday breaks—doesn’t go to places outside of Tennessee if she dislikes being in Tennessee so much. During the entire movie, Cairo is never seen anywhere but in whatever area where she’s supposedly “stuck” living. It’s just more phony-looking filmmaking on display.

Cairo is in her last year of high school, which is an unnamed co-ed public school. The movie starts at the beginning of the school year. She is an avid book reader and is very talented at writing. It should come as no surprise that Cairo excels in a literature class, where a teacher in his 50s named Jonathan Miller (played by Martin Freeman) almost immediately singles out Cairo as an exceptional student. It won’t be long before he finds out that there are pros and cons to Cairo’s exceptionalism.

When Cairo and Mr. Miller meet each other for the first time, she’s quick to tell him that she read all 12 books that were on his summer reading list. He’s very impressed. Jonathan used to teach in the school’s theater program before the school cut the program. He got to keep his job at the school by becoming a literature teacher. It’s one of a few indications shown early in the movie that Jonathan is grateful that he wasn’t laid off, and he has real stakes at keeping his job at the school.

When Cairo tells him that her parents are attorneys, he asks her if she wants to be an attorney too. Cairo replies sarcastically, “As much as I want to be a high school student.” She makes it clear that she wants to be Mr. Miller’s “teacher’s pet” and does things to show she’s attracted to him, such as bat her eyelashes at him coquettishly, or stare at him in lectures as if he’s a genius. Cairo also uses a lot of intellectual vocabulary to let him think that she’s more “mature” than the average student her age.

Jonathan is married to a woman named Beatrice June Harker (played by Dagmara Dominczyk), who is moody and frequently distracted by her work. Beatrice and Jonathan have no children. In scenes where it looks like Jonathan and Beatrice might become sexually intimate, something interrupts the moment, and it’s usually something that has to do with her work. Beatrice has some type of executive manager job, where she works remotely from home and is often heard complaining or ranting about her subordinates, many of whom she thinks are incompetent.

Beatrice can be fun to be around when she’s in a good mood. But when she’s in a bad mood, watch out: She lashes out with cutting verbal insults. She drinks a lot of alcohol, which might or might not be why Beatrice has such a mercurial personality. At one point, Jonathan tells her that she’s an alcoholic. It’s unknown how long she’s had this drinking problem.

Cairo is shown interacting with only one student at the school: a flaky wannabe nymphomaniac named Winnie (played by Gideon Adlon), who describes herself as an “equal opportunity” seductress, because she’s open to having sexual relationships with people of any gender. Winnie seems to have an unrequited attraction to Cairo, who does a little bit of flirting back with Winnie, but it’s all just a tease, because Cairo has no sexual or romantic interest in Winnie.

Winnie is obsessed with talking about sex and seducing people. She’s the one who brings up the idea that Cairo should have the experience of falling in love, or at least seducing someone, before Cairo goes to college. It’s later revealed that Winnie and Cairo are both virgins. Winnie is given absolutely no backstory in this movie. She’s a mostly one-note character whose only purpose in the movie is to be the “talkative and horny” friend. Adlon’s Tennessee accent for Winnie is over-exaggerated in this movie.

Winnie and Cairo are never shown interacting with the other students in a meaningful way. They are not shown attending any other classes. They have such little interaction with the other students, they might as well be homeschooled. But then, there would be no “Miller’s Girl” movie, which is all about teasing audiences into thinking they’re going to see a movie about a “forbidden” relationship between a teenage female student and an older male teacher.

Winnie is aware of how Cairo seems to have a growing attraction to Mr. Miller, even though Winnie and Cairo both know that he is married. Winnie suggests to Cairo that Cairo should try to seduce him and see how far it can go. Meanwhile, Winnie claims to be in lust with a faculty member in his 40s named Boris Fillmore (played by Bashir Salahuddin), who is a physics teacher and a coach of an unnamed team at the school. Boris has a jolly jokester personality, and he happens to be Jonathan’s best friend at the school. Winnie tells Cairo that she wants a real man to take her virginity, and she thinks Coach Fillmore is the ideal candidate.

Meanwhile, Cairo ramps up her seduction scheme when she finds out that years ago, Jonathan wrote an obscure collection of erotic short stories called “Apostrophes and Ampersands.” The book was a flop with critics and audiences, and he hasn’t authored another book since then. He seems to have completely given up on becoming a professional writer. Of course, Cairo finds the book and reads it.

Jonathan and Cairo meet after school in his classroom, where they continue to flirt by exchanging annoying and pompous banter, while Jonathan tries to pretend that there isn’t sexual tension between them. Jonathan can’t resist Cairo’s charms, so he gives special treatment to Cairo by telling her in advance about his mid-term assignment for the class, so that she can get an early start on it. The assignment is for each student to write an essay in the style of the student’s favorite author.

Cairo then quotes passages from “Apostrophes and Ampersands” to Jonathan, in order to flatter him. This manipulation works. He literally becomes teary-eyed with emotions when he finds out that Cairo not only has read his book but that she also seems to likes it so much that she memorized parts of the book.

Seeing him show this vulnerable side, Cairo continues her manipulation by asking Jonathan why he hasn’t written another book since then. “You’re uninspired,” she tells him. He says, “Are you judging me?” Cairo replies, “I’m challenging you.”

This appeal to his ego quickly prompts Jonathan to tell Cairo that she should go to a monthly poetry-reading event that he likes to attend. He doesn’t directly ask her on a date, but it’s a big hint that if she goes to this event, he will be there too. And sure enough, the two of them see each other at this event, where afterwards they flirtatiously share a cigarette.

“Miller’s Girl” takes on a double meaning when Cairo tells Jonathan Miller that she has chosen controversial erotic author Henry Miller to be the writer she wants to emulate in her mid-term essay. Jonathan Miller objects to this choice, because work from Henry Miller is not allowed in this public school system for children. Cairo doesn’t care and insists that Henry Miller is her choice. You know where all of this is going, of course.

Beatrice is aware that Jonathan has taken a special interest in one of his students (she has not met Cairo), but Beatrice doesn’t see it as a problem at first, because Jonathan describes it as an interest in Cairo’s talent. And even when Beatrice finds out that Cairo seems to be fixating on Jonathan, Beatrice laughs it off as a harmless and temporary teenage crush. Jonathan assures Beatrice that he is not romantically attracted to Cairo, but Cairo doesn’t see it that way at all. You can easily guess what happens next in this “teen temptress” movie.

“Miller’s Girl” is very off-kilter in how it presents Cairo. At first, she appears to be an intellectual loner who has no interest in dating anyone. She dresses like an innocent schoolgirl. But then, after just a few conversations with Winnie (whom Cairo doesn’t seem to like very much), she goes to school looking like a party girl who’s ready to go to a nightclub. Winnie offered to give her a makeover, but it’s never shown in the movie if Winnie actually gave her the makeover or if Cairo made these fashion choices on her own.

Cairo’s personality switch is much more jarring than her wardrobe switch. At first, she seems to be genuinely curious about falling in love and eager to have that experience. At one point, she seems to be so infatuated with Jonathan that she thinks he’s some kind of soul mate because she believes that they are both very similar to each other. But then, Cairo becomes a vindictive control freak determined to get her way, no matter who gets hurt. Because very little is told or shown about what Cairo was like before she met Jonathan, it’s not clear if she was this unpleasant all along, or if something about this relationship with this older, married teacher brought out the worst in her.

There’s more than a little misogyny in the way this story is told, because every female with a major speaking role in this movie is either portrayed as a “shrew,” a “seductress” or both. Jonathan is not quite an innocent victim, although the movie obviously wants viewers to have the most sympathy for him. As already revealed in the “Miller’s Girl” trailer, Cairo is supposed to be the villain of the story, even though Jonathan, as the teacher/authority figure in this situation, has more of the responsibility to stop whatever inappropriate flirting was going on between him and Cairo.

The worst thing about “Miller’s Girl” is not the cringeworthy dialogue, which gets worse as the movie starts to unravel in its pathetic attempts to be an erotic thriller. The worst thing about “Miller’s Girl” is not the questionable Tennessee accent that a miscast Ortega struggles to maintain during this lurid mess of a movie. The worst thing about “Miller’s Girl” is that by the end of the film, it becomes very obvious that “Miller’s Girl” is just as empty and soulless as the most of the characters in the movie.

Lionsgate released “Miller’s Girl” in U.S. cinemas on January 26, 2024.

Review: ‘Scream VI,’ starring Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Courteney Cox, Hayden Panettiere and Dermot Mulroney

March 8, 2023

by Carla Hay

Mason Gooding, Jenna Ortega, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Devyn Nekoda and Melissa Barrera in “Scream VI” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Scream VI”

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the horror film “Scream VI” features a racially diverse cast of characters (Latin, white African-American) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: The four main survivors of the serial killings in the 2022 movie “Scream” have relocated from the fictional Woodsboro, California, to New York City, where they are plagued by a new set of Ghostface Killer murders. 

Culture Audience: “Scream VI” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the “Scream” franchise and horror movie sequels that make several references to its preceding movies.

Dermot Mulroney and Hayden Panettiere in “Scream VI” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Scream VI” has further cemented the “Scream” franchise as an intentionally comedic self-parody, but this entertaining movie doesn’t skimp on the horror thrills. The movie’s best scenes make up for the far-fetched revelations in the last 15 minutes. As the sixth movie in the “Scream” series, “Scream VI” is best appreciated by people who’ve seen all the previous “Scream ” movies, because there are many jokes and references to this predecessor films. However, if it’s not possible for someone to see all the previous “Scream” movies, then the 1996 “Scream” film (the one that started the series) and the 2022 “Scream” film are the two most essential moves to watch before seeing “Scream VI.”

The 2000 movie “Scream 3” added a movie-within-a-movie storyline, by creating a fictional horror movie series called “Stab,” which was inspired by what happened in the first “Scream” movie. It’s helpful, but not essential, to watch “Scream 3” before seeing “Scream VI.” What’s most important for viewers of “Scream VI” to know is that “Scream VI” gives a summary of all the revealed identities of the Ghostface Killer (who wears a creepy ghostface mask and a black hooded robe), who is a different person or people in each “Scream” movie. If you didn’t know their identities before seeing “Scream VI,” then the movie spoils all that information.

“Scream VI” reunites directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett with screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, who had the same roles for the 2022 “Scream” movie. Most of the same producers from 2022’s “Scream” are also part of the “Scream VI” team. “Scream VI” picks up one year after the events of the 2022 “Scream” movie, which took place mainly in the fictional Woodsboro, California. Four of the survivors of the Ghostface Killer murders and mayhem that happened in 2022’s “Scream” are trying to put this trauma behind them, and have relocated to New York City. (“Scream VI” was actually filmed in Montreal.)

Samantha “Sam” Carpenter (played by Melissa Barrera), who is 25 or 26, is in therapy but finds it difficult to open up to her therapist Dr. Christopher Stone (played by Henry Czerny) until a pivotal scene that’s a helpful summary for anyone who didn’t see 2022’s “Scream.” When Sam isn’t busy with her two jobs, she’s being overprotective of her younger half-sister Tara Carpenter (played by Jenna Ortega), who 18 years old and a first-year student at the fictional Blackmore University. Tara and Sam live in the same apartment building.

The other two people in this tight-knit foursome are twins Mindy Meeks-Martin (played by Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad Meeks-Martin (played by Mason Gooding), who are also first-year students at Blackmore University. The uncle of Mindy and Chad was Randy Meeks (played by Jamie Kennedy), whose fate is shown in 1997’s “Scream 2.” Mindy is a “Stab” trivia fanatic, while Chad (who was a popular athlete in high school) has a not-so-secret crush on Tara. Chad has come up with a nickname for this quartet of survivors: The Core Four. It’s a name that the other three think is corny, and the movie shows whether or not they go along with Chad’s enthusiasm to give themselves this nickname.

Three of the new characters that are introduced in “Scream VI” have gotten close to the Core Four. Tara’s free-spirited roommate Quinn Bailey (played by Liana Liberato) is having fun dating various men, but her sex life sometimes gets in the way of Tara wanting some peace and quiet. Chad’s roommate is Ethan Landry (played by Jack Champion), a socially awkward misfit who wants to be accepted by Chad and his friends. Anika Kayoko (played by Devyn Nekoda) is dating openly queer Mindy, in a fairly new romance.

As several scenes in the movie show, Tara is resentful of Sam’s hovering presence, because Tara wants to be treated like an independent adult, not a helpless child. Tara and Sam also disagree about how to cope with what happened to them in Woodsboro. Tara refuses to go to therapy, she doesn’t like to talk about what happened in Woodsboro, and she thinks Sam is living too much in the past. Sam thinks it’s detrimental for Tara to avoid getting therapy. Meanwhile, Sam becomes the subject of untrue gossip spread on the Internet that she was really the Ghostface Killer in Woodsboro.

To its credit, “Scream VI” is less cluttered with characters than 2022’s “Scream.” The movie’s opening scene continues the “Scream” tradition of someone being murdered by the Ghostface Killer, who has called that victim on the phone. The person who gets slaughtered in the opening scene is Laura Crane (played by Samara Weaving), an associate professor of film studies at Blackmore University. She teaches horror movies as part of her curriculum.

On the night that Laura is murdered, it’s close to Halloween, and many people are dressed up in Halloween costumes for parties and other Halloween festivities. Laura is not in a Halloween costume when she is seen at a bar, talking on the phone with what she thinks is her blind date for the night. The date is really a Ghostface Killer.

The “date” pretends to be lost and asks Laura to step outside the bar into an alley where he says he is. While she’s on the phone, the caller’s tone turns menacing as he snarls, “You teach a class about slashers, and you still walk into a dark alley alone.” Needless to say, Laura doesn’t last long in this movie.

Without giving away too much information, it’s enough to say that it’s revealed early on in the movie that Sam and Tara are the main targets for the Ghostface Killers. It’s also revealed that whoever is behind the murders that happen also wants to finish the “Stab” tribute movie that was started by Richie Kirsch (played by Jack Quaid), who was Sam’s boyfriend in 2022’s “Scream,” but (spoiler alert for people who haven’t seen 2022’s “Scream”), Richie turned out to be the Ghostface Killer, and Sam killed him in self-defense.

Some other characters who are part of the “Scream VI” are Blackmore University student Jason Carvey (played by Tony Revolori); Quinn’s father Detective Bailey (played by Dermot Mulroney), who is a police officer who investigates homicides; and David Brackett (played by Josh Segarra), an attractive neighbor who lives in the apartment building directly across from the apartment building where Sam, Tara and Quinn live. Sam and Tara (who has given David the nickname Hot Boy) can see directly into David’s apartment and vice versa.

“Scream VI” also has the return of ambitious and arrogant TV news journalist Gale Weathers (played by Courteney Cox), who has written a book about the events that happened in 2022’s “Scream.” Tara and Sam are furious about this book not only because Gale had broken her promise not to write a book about what happened but also because the book at unflattering descriptions of Tara and Sam.

Also making her return to “Scream VI” is Kirby Reed (played by Hayden Panettiere), who was the “final girl” in 2011’s “Scream 4.” Kirby, who is now 30 years old and an agent for the FBI, arrives in New York City to investigate this new set of Ghostface Killer murders. Kirby was a senior at Woodsboro High School when Sam was a freshman at the school. As for other familiar characters from the “Scream” franchise, Sidney Prescott (played by Neve Campbell), the original target of the Ghostface Killer, is not in “Scream VI” but is briefly mentioned as being in hiding in a safe place. Campbell went public about declining an offer to be in “Scream VI” because she felt that the offered salary was too low for her.

“Scream VI” delves more than 2022’s “Scream” did into the psychological fallout of all of these killings. “Scream VI” does a fairly good job at contrasting the ways that Sam and Tara feel about therapy, without passing judgment on either character. As already revealed in 2022’s “Scream,” Sam and Tara are the children of the late Billy Loomis (played by Skeet Ulrich), who was one of killers in the first “Scream” movie. As shown in 2022’s “Scream” and “Scream VI,” there are big indications that Sam is worried that she could have inherited a desire to become a murderer. “Scream VI” has more exploration of how Sam’s suspected “dark side” is affecting her.

The movie’s scenes with Ghostface Killer on a rampage are among the best of the “Scream” franchise. A standout scene is one that involves a ladder between buildings. Another scene that’s suspenseful is when Ghostface Killer goes after Tara and Sam in a convenience store. Meanwhile, there is plenty of sarcastic wisecracking (especially from Libby) about horror movie clichés, who the likely suspects are, and who’s most likely to be killed next. All of these self-referential jokes in “Scream VI” are sometimes to the detriment of the story. The movie doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it expects viewers to know a lot about the “Scream” movies, in order to get most of the jokes.

Barrera and Ortega, who are very believable as sisters with a love/hate relationship, are excellent additions to the “Scream” franchise. Mulroney really hams it up and delivers some of his lines in ways that are pure camp. Panettiere also gives a good performance as “all grown up now” Kirby. Cox doesn’t really do anything new with the Gale character, but she performs well in her action scenes. Savoy Brown is a sassy scene stealer with the Libby character, who has much better character development and funnier lines of dialogue than in 2022’s “Scream.”

There’s no doubt that “Scream VI” is an unapolgetic “fan service” movie that isn’t particularly accommodating to newcomers to the “Scream” movie franchise. And there isn’t anything innovative about the plot reveals, which might remind “Scream” fans of a certain previous “Scream” movie. “Scream VI” is not the best movie in the “Scream” franchise, but “Scream VI” delivers exactly what it intends: horror entertainment that serves up plenty of gore with self-deprecating laughs.

Paramount Pictures will release “Scream VI” in U.S. cinemas on March 10, 2023.

Review: ‘X’ (2022), starring Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Martin Henderson, Brittany Snow and Scott Mescudi

March 17, 2022

by Carla Hay

Mia Goth in “X” (Photo by Christopher Moss/A24)

“X” (2022)

Directed by Ti West

Culture Representation: Taking place in Texas in 1979, the horror film “X” features a cast of predominantly white characters (with one Latina and two African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Six people go to a rented farm to make a porn movie, but the elderly spouses who own the farm show their violent disapproval. 

Culture Audience: “X” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of writer/director Ti West and horror flicks that skillfully blend horror with satirical comedy.

Pictured clockwise, from left: Owen Campbell, Brittany Snow, Mia Goth, Scott Mescudi and Jenna Ortega in “X” (Photo by Christopher Moss/A24)

“X” is a horror film that doesn’t break any new ground, but this “slow burn” movie delivers some gruesome terror with touches of social satire that can bring some laughs. Written and directed by horror master Ti West, “X” is sure to count as one of his best movies. Will “X” be considered an iconic movie that influences countless other horror films? No. However, “X” takes a simple concept that other slasher movies mishandle and makes it something that horror fans can thoroughly enjoy, as long as people can tolerate watching some bloody violence that can be nauseating to some viewers.

“X” had its world premiere at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas. It’s fitting that the movie premiered in Texas, since the story takes place mostly in a rural and unnamed part of Texas. (“X” was actually filmed in New Zealand.) In “X,” the year is 1979, when porn movies made in the U.S. got an “X” rating for adults-only content. Six people in the adult film industry are going on a road trip to an isolated farm that the producer has rented, in order to make a porn film called “The Farmer’s Daughter.” This porn movie is a very low-budget film with only one camera.

The six people on this fateful trip are:

  • Wayne Gilroy (played by Martin Henderson), a brash, fast-talking middle-aged producer whose immediate goal in life is for “The Farmer’s Daughter” to be a blockbuster porn movie—or at least make a fraction of what “Debbie Does Dallas” made, so that Wayne can get out of debt.
  • Maxine Minx (played by Mia Goth), an up-and-coming actress who wants to be as famous as “Wonder Woman” TV star Lynda Carter. Off camera, Maxine (who’s in her 20s) is Wayne’s lover (he left his wife for her), and Wayne has promised to make Maxine a star. Maxine also has a cocaine habit, since she’s seen snorting coke several times in the movie.
  • Bobby-Lynne Parker (played by Brittany Snow), an experienced porn actress in her 30s, who styles her physical appearance like Marilyn Monroe, and who likes to think of herself as the reigning Southern belle of porn.
  • Jackson Hole (played by Scott Mescudi), the porn name of a well-endowed actor in his 30s who is the only male cast member doing the porn scenes in “The Farmer’s Daughter.” Bobby-Lynne and Jackson are also sex partners off-camera, in a “friends with benefits” relationship.
  • RJ Nichols (played by Owen Campbell), the director of “The Farmer’s Daughter.” RJ, who’s in his late 20s, likes to think that the porn movies he directs are cinematic art.
  • Lorraine Day (played by Jenna Ortega), RJ’s girlfriend, a “jack of all trades” crew member who is essentially RJ’s assistant. Lorraine is in her late teens or early 20s and is relatively new to the adult film industry. She’s eager to learn all that she can about filmmaking.

The movie’s opening scene shows viewers that this porn movie shoot will result in a massacre, since police officers arrive at the farm and see several bloody and mutilated dead bodies. The movie circles back to this crime scene at the end of the film. The rest of “X” shows what happened 24 hours earlier, leading up to the massacre.

It takes a while for “X” to get going, since the first half of the movie is about the road trip, arriving at the farm, and filming the sex scenes. The farm is owned by an elderly couple named Howard (played by Stephen Ure), nicknamed Howie, and his wife Pearl (also played by Goth), who have been married to each other for decades. Ure and Goth wear balding hair pieces and prosthetic makeup that give creepy and decrepit physical appearances to Howard and Pearl. Goth gives an absolutely maniacal performance as Pearl, who is much more disturbed and volatile than Howard.

Howard is a cantankerous veteran of World War I and World War II. The first thing that Howard does when he sees Wayne is pull a gun on him, until Wayne reminds Howard that he’s the movie producer who’s renting the farm for a film shoot. Wayne doesn’t tell this farm couple that this film shoot is for a porn movie, but Howard and Pearl inevitably find out because they’re on the property during this film shoot.

Pearl is starved for affection from her husband. When she tries to make amorous advances on Howard, he pushes her away and mentions his heart condition when he says, “You know I can’t. My heart.” Pearl is a former dancer who sees a lot of younger herself in Maxine and instantly fixates on Maxine. Pearl is also a voyeur, so it should come as no surprise that Pearl ends up watching one of the sex scenes that’s being filmed in the barn. And when she finds out that a porn movie is being made on her property, all hell breaks loose.

Before the murder and mayhem begin, “X” makes some sly commentary on how gender affects perceptions and judgments of people’s involvement in porn. This small cast and crew of “The Farmer’s Daughter” are a microcosm of larger issues in the adult film industry: Men are usually in charge and usually make the business decisions. The women are usually expected to follow orders.

Women in adult entertainment also get more of society’s stigma and degradation, compared to men in adult entertainment. A woman is much more likely than a man to be called a “whore” for doing porn. This derogatory name-calling happens in a scene in “X,” even though for “The Farmer’s Daughter” porn movie, a man is just as much of a participant in the sex scenes as the women. There’s a moment in the movie where one of the women flips the proverbial script and makes a decision that greatly upsets one of the men.

And because there are three couples on this trip, their dynamics also represent the types of relationships that can occur in the adult film industry. Wayne and Maxine represent a stereotypical older filmmaker who hooks up with a young actress and tells her a lot of big talk about making her a star. Bobby-Lynne and Jackson are swingers who don’t have any commitment in their relationship and don’t want to be bound by traditional sexual expectations. RJ and Lorraine represent people who are in the porn industry only to get filmmaking experience so that they can move on to mainstream movies.

“X” has the expected sex scenes, but there are also scenes that show the type of camaraderie that can happen during a film production. On their first night after filming scenes from “The Farmer’s Daughter,” the cast and crew hang out and have some drinks together. Bobby-Lynne leads a toast where she says, “Here’s to the perverts who’ve been paying our bills for years!”

After this toast, Bobby-Lynne sings Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide,” while Jackson plays acoustic guitar. Snow’s performance of “Landslide” is very good and one of the unexpected highlights in this horror film. This laid-back party scene is effective in showing how the people in this group have no idea what’s in store for them.

“X” has a few nods to 1970s horror classics, such as 1974’s “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and 1978’s “Halloween.” The comparisons to “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” are obvious. In “X,” Blue Oyster Cult’s 1976 song “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” song is played during a pivotal scene. Horror aficionados know that “Don’t Fear the Reaper” was also prominently featured in 1978’s “Halloween.”

Even though the first half of “X” doesn’t have any real terror, “X” still manages to keep viewers on edge over what might happen. There’s no real mystery of who the villains are, because this is a slasher flick that clearly forecasts who will be the perpetrators of the violence. Although the ideas in “X” aren’t very original, they’re still filmed in very suspenseful ways. And there’s an interesting twist/reveal toward the end of the film. Ultimately, “X” doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is: a worthy tribute to retro slasher films that makes “X” memorable in its own right.

A24 will release “X” in U.S. cinemas on March 18, 2022. The movie is set for release on digital and VOD is April 14, 2022.

Review: ‘Studio 666’ (2022), starring Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, Pat Smear, Rami Jaffee, Chris Shiflett and Nate Mendel

February 24, 2022

by Carla Hay

Dave Grohl in “Studio 666” (Photo courtesy of Open Road Films)

“Studio 666” (2022)

Directed by BJ McDonnell

Culture Representation: Taking place in Encino, California, the horror comedy “Studio 666” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: World-famous rock band Foo Fighters temporarily live in a run-down Encino mansion with a sordid history to record their 10th album, and they have many sinister and supernatural encounters.

Culture Audience: “Studio 666” will appeal mainly to people who are Foo Fighters fans and anyone who doesn’t mind watching campy horror flicks, no matter how derivative and disjointed they are.

Pictured clockwise, from left: Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Rami Jaffee, Chris Shiflett, Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins in “Studio 666” (Photo courtesy of Open Road Films)

“Studio 666” gets bogged down in too many dull horror stereotypes to be consistently campy fun. “Studio 666” will no doubt please people who automatically like anything from Foo Fighters, the Grammy-winning rock band whose members star as themselves in this misfire of a movie. There are Foo Fighters interviews that are funnier than what “Studio 666” fails to accomplish in being an original horror comedy for the band. There’s very little that’s original in “Studio 666,” which has silly jokes that come and go in spurts, just like all the blood and vomit that spew out in this gory movie.

Directed by BJ McDonnell, “Studio 666” was written by Jeff Buhler and Rebecca Hughes, with the screenplay based on a story idea by Foo Fighters lead singer/guitarist Dave Grohl. The movie has a simple concept of the band temporarily living in an abandoned mansion to record Foo Fighters’ 10th album. It isn’t until after they’ve moved in that they find out that the mansion has some dark secrets and is apparently haunted.

It’s yet another haunted house/demon possession movie delivered with very little imagination and intrigue, because everything in the movie just rehashes what hundreds of similar horror movies have already done. “Studio 666” could have been an edgy spoof of the music industry and the process of recording of an album, but the movie just goes down a predictable route of people getting killed off, one by one, in ways that are neither scary nor funny. This movie has practically no jump scares, and the ending drags on for too long. Predictably, the visual effects often look cheap, sloppy and unconvincing.

The opening scene of “Studio 666” shows a murder taking place in a mansion in Encino, California, in 1993. A terrified woman is crawling on the floor with her left leg bloodied and a bone sticking out of the leg. There’s recording equipment and musical instruments in the room. Nearby, the mutilated corpse of a man is on some stairs. The woman screams, “Why? We did everything!” The killer (an unidentified man) then goes in the room and bashes her head in with a weapon.

“Studio 666” then fast-forwards to the present day. Seated at an office conference table are the Foo Fighters band members: frontman Dave Grohl (the band leader), drummer Taylor Hawkins, guitarist Pat Smear, guitarist Chris “Shifty” Shiflett, bass player Nate Mendel and keyboardist Rami Jaffee. (For the purposes of this review, their characters in the movie will be referred to by their first names.)

Also in this meeting is the band’s manager Jeremy Shill (played by Jeff Garlin), who is grumpy and agitated. “Where’s my record?” he asks the band about the Foo Fighters’ 10th album. Dave points to his own head and replies, “It’s all up in here.”

Jeremy tells the band that this album can’t be delayed any longer because he’s heavily in debt and he’s tired of hearing excuses for why they haven’t done the album yet. He says to Dave about these excuses: “It all amounts to frozen shit.” This is what’s supposed to pass as an amusing joke in the movie.

Dave then says that for this album, he doesn’t want to do the same old thing and record at the same old studios. He wants to try something new. And so, Jeremy calls a real-estate colleague named Barb Weems (played by Leslie Grossman), who suggests what she says will be the perfect place for the band to record the album. It should come as no surprise that it’s the same Encino mansion where the murders happened from the movie’s opening scene. (“Studio 666” was filmed on location in Encino.)

When Barb shows the band around the mansion, the house is in a pathetic state, with a dirty swimming pool filled with leaves and other indications that the property has been neglected for a long time. Barb tries to make the house sound more attractive, when she tells the band, “This place has some serious rock and roll pedigree.” She mentions that a famous unnamed music producer used to have a recording studio there, and he used to throw wild parties in the 1970s and 1980s.

Barb then leads them to what she says is the “coolest room in the house.” Of course, it’s the room where the murders took place, but Barb doesn’t tell them this crucial fact. All she will say is that back in the 1990s, a famous band started to record an album in the house, but the group never finished the album because the band members didn’t get along with each other. Don’t expect a real explanation of what happened in that house in 1993, because the “Studio 666” filmmakers didn’t care about having intriguing story for this movie.

When the band and Barb gather in the room where the murders took place, Dave says that he senses a “weird energy” that makes him uncomfortable. He claps his hands together several times. Each time he claps, a grisly scene is shown taking place at the house that the audience can see, but that no one in the movie can see. Ultimately, Dave likes the way the acoustics sound in the room, so he and the rest of the band decide to rent the house to record the album.

Dave is so consumed with finishing the album as soon as possible that he immediately comes up with the idea that everyone in the band should move in the house to record the album. Most of the other band members gripe about it and say that Dave should be the one to tell their families about this decision. Rami, who’s depicted as the band’s oddball ladies’ man, lives with his grandmother. This leads to a not-very-funny joke where Chris tells Rami that he had sex with Rami’s grandmother. Some sex noises are edited in to conjure up this memory, and Rami blurts out: “Stay away from my bubbe!”

Soon after Foo Fighters settle in at the mansion and have their equipment set up, the band’s sound engineer/roadie Krug (played by Kerry King, former guitarist of Slayer) gets electrocuted and dies. It’s one of those “burned to a crisp” deaths—and an indication of more grisly scenes to come. This death was no accident because it was caused by an evil spirit that can shapeshift. Before this electrocution, an entity that looked like black smoke with hands lurks around the equipment, unbeknownst to the people in the house.

Dave then begins having nightmares in repetitive scenes where he seems to be in danger, but then he wakes up and finds out it’s all a dream. He’s also certain that there’s a mysterious man dressed as a house caretaker (played by Marti Matulis), who’s been lurking around the house. No one else seems to see this stranger, which makes it obvious that Dave is going to be the target of something evil. Dave’s nightmarish visions also happen during the day, such as when he’s barbecuing in the backyard, and he sees Krug’s head in the barbecue pit.

And to make matters worse for Dave, he has writer’s block and can’t seem to come up with any new songs. This is an example of the terrible dialogue in the film. Dave exclaims about his inability to concentrate: “My mind is flooded! Sometimes it’s like Prince. Sometimes it’s like Slayer. Sometimes it’s Lawrence fucking Welk.”

Not long after they arrive at the mansion, the band members meet next-door neighbor Samantha (played by Whitney Cummings), who is star-struck, flirtatious and nosy. Dave asks Samantha if she’s seen a man who’s the mansion’s caretaker. She replies, “No, Dave. This house has been empty for years.” Samantha and Rami seem to be attracted to each other, so you know where this is going, of course.

Samantha occasionally stops by for unannounced visits, but Dave thinks that she’s very annoying. As a gift, she brings some lemon bars that she says are frosted with cocaine. Dave says it’s all just a distraction, so he tells Rami to get rid of Samantha. Rami just uses it as an opportunity to let Samantha know that he’s interested in hooking up with her. These scenes could have been hilarious, but they’re just so dimwitted because the dialogue is so lackluster and boring.

Dave soon discovers an old recording studio in the house’s basement. When he plays the reel-to-reel tape, he hears heavy metal music that sounds like wannabe Black Sabbath from the 1970s. And suddenly, he doesn’t have writer’s block anymore and is inspired by what he hears.

Under Dave’s leadership, the band soon adopts this heavier and darker sound. (In real life, Foo Fighters recorded their “Studio 666” soundtrack songs under the name Dream Widow.) There’s no mystery over very what this music is supposed to represent. It isn’t long before Dave’s personality starts changing drastically, and the body count starts piling up.

One of the many ways that “Studio 666” disappoints is how it underuses the talents of the movie’s professional actors. Will Forte has a thankless and uninteresting role as a food delivery person. It’s essentially a cameo, because he’s in the movie for less than 10 minutes.

The character of Samantha is severely underdeveloped and could have been the source of some genuinely off-the-wall or cutting-edge comedy. Instead, Samantha utters mostly forgettable lines, while Cummings just mugs for the camera in this role. Lionel Richie has a brief cameo (less than two minutes) as himself, in one of the movie’s few scenes that can be considered laugh-out-loud funny. Jenna Ortega shows up in a small role toward the end of the movie. The character that she plays in the movie won’t be revealed in this review, but it’s worth mentioning that “Studio 666” is one of three 2022 horror movies that Ortega is in (“Scream” and “X” are the other two), making her quite the “scream queen” of the year.

No one is expecting the Foo Fighters members to be great actors. But for a band that is very charismatic in real life, “Studio 666” presents all of them as characters with cardboard personalities. Grohl and Jaffee are the only true standouts, because they have scenes where they get to show some wackiness that inject a little bit of spark in this tedious horror movie that waters everything down except for the gore. Grohl and Jaffee are also the two band members who look the most comfortable being actors on camera. The rest of the band members are really just bland supporting characters in their own movie and give performances that range from awkwardly stiff to trying too hard.

“Studio 666” is the type of niche horror movie that looks like it should have been released directly to video. Instead, the movie’s first release is in cinemas, but “Studio 666” is not worth seeing for the price of a movie ticket, unless people are die-hard Foo Fighters fans. People who want to see real Foo Fighters entertainment are better off watching a Foo Fighters concert to see what the band does best: Play music and not try to be movie stars in an embarrassing horror flick.

Open Road Films will release “Studio 666” in U.S. cinemas on February 25, 2022.

March 26, 2022 UPDATE: Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins has died at the age of 50. This obituary from the Associated Press has more details.

Review: ‘Scream’ (2022), starring Melissa Barrera, Jack Quaid, Jenna Ortega, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette and Marley Shelton

January 14, 2022

by Carla Hay

Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox in “Scream” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Scream” (2022)

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

Culture Representation: Taking place mainly in the fictional California city of Woodsboro, the horror film “Scream” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Latinos) representing the middle-class and working-class.

Culture Clash: Ghostface Killer murders start again in Woodsboro, with new characters and familiar franchise characters in a race against time to find out who’s responsible for this killing spree.

Culture Audience: Aside from fans of the “Scream” horror series, “Scream” will appeal mainly to people who like horror movies that combine graphic gore with sarcastic comedy.

Dylan Minnette, Jack Quaid, Melissa Barrera and David Arquette in “Scream” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

The 2022 version of “Scream” proves that the series is running out of fresh new ideas, but the movie’s self-aware snarkiness and effective nods to “Scream” franchise nostalgia make the film mostly watchable. Viewers don’t have to see the previous “Scream” movies to understand or be entertained by 2022’s “Scream,” which is the fifth movie in the series. Because it shares the same title as 1996’s “Scream” (the first movie in the series) the 2022 “Scream” movie’s title does it a disservice because it’s more of a sequel than a reboot.

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the 2022 version of “Scream” is the first “Scream” movie that wasn’t directed by Wes Craven, the horror filmmaking master who died of a brain tumor in 2015, at the age of 76. The 2022 version of “Scream” also has screenwriters who are new to the “Scream” franchise: James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick. Kevin Williamson—who wrote 1996’s “Scream,” 1997’s “Scream 2” and 2011’s “Scream 4” movies—is an executive producer of 2022’s “Scream.”

The 2022 version of “Scream” follows almost the exact same formula as certain parts of previous “Scream” movies. A group of people in their late teens and early 20s are targeted and gruesomely murdered, one by one, by a serial killer dressed in a black robe, wearing a creepy ghost mask, and usually killing with a large knife. This murderer is named the Ghostface Killer. The end of each “Scream” movie reveals who’s been responsible for the murders.

Unlike most other horror movie series that keep the same villain for each movie in the series, the “Scream” movie series has a different culprit dressed up as the Ghostface Killer in each “Scream” movie. The first “Scream” movie is constantly referred to in the sequels because the Ghostface Killer murder sprees in the sequels are copycat crimes of the original Ghostface Killer murder spree, which took place in the fictional city of Woodsboro, California. The 2000 movie “Scream 3” added a movie-within-a-movie storyline, by creating a fictional horror movie series called “Stab,” which was inspired by what happened in the first “Scream” movie.

Those are some of the basic things that might be helpful to people who watch 2022’s “Scream” without knowing anything about the previous “Scream” films. The people who will enjoy this movie the most are those who’ve seen all of the previous “Scream” movies, although the 1996 “Scream” movie and “Scream 3” are the two most essential previous “Scream” films to watch to understand all of the jokes in 2022’s “Scream.”

The 2022 version of “Scream” begins with the same type of scene that began 1996’s “Scream”: A teenage girl from Woodsboro High School is home alone in Woodsboro when she gets a mysterious call from the Ghostface Killer, who breaks in the home and attacks her. Drew Barrymore’s Casey Becker character famously got killed in that opening scene in the 1996 “Scream” movie.

The outcome is different for the opening scene in 2022’s “Scream.” Tara Carpenter (played by Jenna Ortega), the teenager attacked in the opening scene, survives this attempted murder. Tara, who’s about 16 or 17, lives with her single mother Christine Carpenter, who is never seen in the movie. Tara’s father abandoned the family when Tara was 8 years old. If you consider some of the family secrets that are revealed, Christine’s absence is the “Scream” filmmakers’ lazily convenient way to not have Christine around, because she would have a lot of explaining to do.

The movie gives a vague explanation that Christine has mental-health issues where she frequently goes away for long stretches of time. When the Ghostface Killer calls Tara, he asks for Christine and says that he knows her from group therapy. Tara says that Christine isn’t home and begins to question how well the caller knows Christine. And that’s when the Ghostface Killer starts to taunt Tara by doing things such has force her answer trivia questions about the “Stab” movies.

Christine’s absence still doesn’t explain why the police or hospital officials don’t seem too concerned about finding Christine when her underage child is in a hospital after an attempted murder. It’s one of the sloppy aspects of this movie, which puts a lot more emphasis on making references to previous “Scream” films than filling any plot holes in the 2022 “Scream” story. There are some other preposterous aspects of the movie, but the absence of Christine is the one that’s the least adequately explained.

More characters eventually populate the movie until most of them are killed off by the end. Tara’s circle of friends consists entirely of other Woodsboro High School students. Because so many characters are murdered, it becomes a very easy process of elimination to find out who’s responsible for this killing spree.

And there’s a part of the movie where someone literally lists all the formulaic rules for “Scream”/”Stab” movies, so major clues are purposely dropped in the film. Therefore, this “Scream” movie, although it has plenty of jump scares, isn’t as suspenseful as previous “Scream’ movies when it comes to the solving the mystery of who’s responsible for the killings.

The other characters in the movie include:

  • Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera), Tara’s older sister, who lives in Modesto and goes to Woodsboro when she finds out about the attempted murder of Tara.
  • Richie Kirsch (played by Jack Quaid), Sam’s new boyfriend who works with her at a retail store. Sam and Richie, who have known each other for about six months, go to Woodsboro together during this family crisis.
  • Amber Freeman (played by Mikey Madison), Tara’s best friend who made plans to party with Tara at Tara’s house on the night that Tara was attacked.
  • Mindy Meeks-Martin (played by Jasmin Savoy Brown), a member of Tara’s social circle who’s a “Stab” trivia fanatic. Mindy is also the niece of original “Scream” character Randy Meeks (played by Jamie Kennedy), whose fate is shown in “Scream 2.”
  • Chad Meeks-Martin (played by Mason Gooding), Mindy’s twin brother, who is a popular athlete at school.
  • Liv McKenzie (played by Sonia Ammar), Chad’s girlfriend who’s a bit of a wild child. She had a fling with a creep in his 30s named Vince Schneider (played by Kyle Gallner), who later stalks her.
  • Wes Hicks (played by Dylan Minnette), a nice guy who’s often teased by his friends because his mother works in law enforcement.
  • Deputy Judy Hicks (played by Marley Shelton), Wes’ mother who is one of the lead investigators in the murder spree. Deputy Judy Hicks was also a character in “Scream 4.”

In addition to these characters, the 2022 “Scream” features the return of these original “Scream” franchise characters, who’ve been in other “Scream” movies:

  • Sidney Prescott (played by Neve Campbell), the Ghostface Killer’s original target who has appeared in every “Scream” movie leading up this one.
  • Gale Weathers-Riley (played by Courteney Cox), an extremely ambitious TV reporter/book author, whose brash and pushy attitude rubs a lot of people the wrong way.
  • Dewey Riley (played by David Arquette), the goofy and easygoing cop who originally clashed with Gale, but then they fell in love and got married.

Sidney, Gale and Dewey all live far away from Woodsboro, but they are lured back to town when they hear that Ghostface Killer murders are happening again. Sidney, who was a Woodsboro High School student in the first “Scream” movie, is now married to someone named Mark (who’s never seen in the movie) and is the mother of infant twin daughters, who are also never seen in the movie.

Gale and Dewey are now divorced. According to conversations in the movie, their marriage fell apart soon after Gale took a prominent newscasting job in New York City. Dewey didn’t like living in New York, so he left Gale. It’s art somewhat imitating life, because in real life, Cox and Arquette met because of the “Scream” movie, they fell in love, got married, and eventually divorced.

While Gale’s career has been thriving, Dewey’s life and career have been on a downward spiral. When certain characters seek out Dewey to enlist his help in catching the Ghostface Killer, they find him living as an emotionally damaged recluse in a run-down trailer. Once a police sheriff, he eventually confesses that he was asked to leave the police department under circumstance he doesn’t full explain. Dewey has become a drunk, although it’s unclear if his drinking problem began before or after he lost his job.

Dewey is also heartbroken over his divorce from Gale. Meanwhile, Gale shows she has a heart because she’s been devastated by the divorce too. Dewey has a personal reason for investigating Ghostface Killer murders: His younger sister, Tatum Riley (played by Rose McGowan), who was Sidney’s best friend in high school, was killed in the original Ghostface Killer murder spree chronicled in the first “Scream” movie.

The 2022 “Scream” movie balances out a lot of the explicitly violent and bloody murder scenes with self-effacing jokes. There are many references to what sequels, reboots or “requels” (movies that are hybrids of reboots and sequels) should or should not do to please die-hard fans. At one point in the movie, when “Stab” trivia buff Mindy marvels at what has happened to Sam so far and how “Stab” fans would react, Sam asks Mindy sarcastically, “Are you telling me I’m part of fan fucking fiction?”

Mindy, just like her uncle Randy, is the self-appointed authority on clues and patterns in these serial killings. She lists three rules of finding out who’s the serial killer:

  • Never trust the love interest.
  • The killer’s motive is always connected to the past.
  • The main victim has a friend group that’s also targeted by the killer.

Because “Scream” spends so much time pointing out “rules” and “clichés” of horror movie franchises, it takes a little bit of the fun out of trying to guess who’s responsible for the serial killings in this movie. The movie literally tells the audience who the killer is, but even if it didn’t, enough people get killed in this relatively small cast of characters to figure out who’s behind the murder spree long before it’s officially revealed.

“Scream” should please fans who want a movie that’s heavy on nostalgia for beloved franchise characters, but something happens to one of these characters that might get very mixed reactions from fans. Because slasher flicks like “Scream” rely heavily on characters in their teens and 20s getting murdered, this “Scream” movie doesn’t do much with character development for the young characters who aren’t Sam and Tara. The two sisters were estranged for a number of years, for reasons that are explained in the movie. Predictably, Tara and Sam set aside their family friction to join forces to get the Ghostface Killer.

Except for one shocking death in “Scream,” the movie really does stick to the formula that it constantly lampoons. At times, this constant ironic self-referencing wears a little thin and comes across as a little too smug. Some of the violence might be a turnoff for people who are extremely sensitive, very squeamish or easily offended by scenes in movies where knife slashes and blood gushing are depicted to full gory effect. This “Scream” movie has no intention of being as original as the first “Scream” movie, but for horror fans, there’s enough in the 2022 “Scream” to be entertained by classic horror tropes, with the ending inevitably leaving open the probability of a sequel.

Paramount Pictures released “Scream” in U.S. cinemas on January 14, 2022.

Review: ‘The Fallout,’ starring Jenna Ortega, Maddie Ziegler, Niles Fitch, Will Ropp, Shailene Woodley, Julie Bowen and John Ortiz

March 21, 2021

by Carla Hay

Jenna Ortega and Maddie Ziegler in “The Fallout” (Photo by Kristen Correll)

“The Fallout”

Directed by Megan Park

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in California’s Los Angeles County, the dramatic film “The Fallout” features a racially diverse cast of characters (Latino, white and African American) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: After experiencing a devastating school shooting, a teenage girl, her schoolmates and her family have different ways of coping with this tragedy.

Culture Audience: “The Fallout” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in well-acted and realistically written dramas about how a mass murder has psychological effects on survivors, particularly young people.

Jenna Ortega and Maddie Ziegler (Photo by Kristin Correll)

There have been several documentaries about how survivors of school shootings in the U.S. are coping with these tragedies. “The Fallout” is a fictional drama, but the movie achieves a rare balancing act of handling this sensitive subject matter with realistic emotions and above-average acting. What makes the movie also stand out is that it’s not a non-stop barrage of depression. It’s able to convey, with occasional touches of levity, how life can go on for survivors, even if their lives will no longer be the same.

Written and directed by Megan Park, “The Fallout” had its world premiere at the 2021 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival, where it won the top jury prize as the best movie in the narrative feature competition. Writer/director Park, who made her feature-film directorial debut with “The Fallout,” also won the 2021 SXSW Film Festival’s Brightcove Illumination Award, given to a filmmaker on the rise. Park previously directed music videos, such as Billie Eilish’s “Watch.” Eilish’s brother/musical collaborator Finneas O’Connell wrote “The Fallout” musical score.

The beginning of “The Fallout” gives the appearance of being a typical teenage story. The movie’s protagonist Vada Cavell (played by Jenna Ortega, in a standout performance) and her openly gay best friend Nick Feinstein (played by Will Ropp) are driving in Nick’s car to their high school. They live in an unnamed city in California’s Los Angeles County. (The movie was filmed in Los Angeles.)

Vada (pronounced “vay-da”) and Nick appear to be 16 or 17 years old, probably in their third year of high school. If they were in their last year of high school, movies like this would make a point of telling the audiences that these students are high-school seniors because Vada and her classmates would be talking about their plans after they graduate. All of the main characters in the movie come from stable, middle-class homes.

Vada and Nick have the type of comfortable rapport that best friends have with each other, where they discuss things they wouldn’t talk about with just anyone. In their conversation while going to school, Nick and Vada talk about drinking coffee, which leads to Vada mentioning that coffee gives her the urge to defecate. Vada and Nick laugh and say that they should have a code for that bodily function when they talk about it in front of other people.

When Vada and Nick arrive at school, it seems like it’s going to be a normal day. The biggest problem that Vada thinks she’ll have to deal with that day is how to comfort her younger sister Amelia (played by Lumi Pollack), who has texted Vada a “911” emergency alert while Vada is in one of her classrooms. Vada quickly excuses herself from class to go in the hallway and call back Amelia, who attends another school and appears to be about 13 years old. Amelia is hiding by herself in one of her school’s restrooms.

It turns out that Amelia called because she’s surprised and embarrassed that she got her first menstrual period while in school, and she’s confused about how to handle it. Vada mildly scolds Amelia for scaring Vada into thinking it was a real emergency. Vada calms Amelia down and gives her a “big sister pep talk” on what do next. And like any good older sister would do, Vada offers to take Amelia out for a meal after school, so they can talk some more about this milestone in Amelia’s physical growth toward womanhood.

Feeling satisfied that she handled the situation correctly, Vada then goes into the ladies’ restroom. She sees a fellow classmate named Mia Reed (played by Maddie Ziegler) doing her own makeup in the restroom mirror. Based on the way that Vada stares at Mia, Vada is slightly in awe of Mia, who has the look of an Instagram model and a reputation at school for being somewhat of a social media influencer. The other students talk about Mia as if she’s a mysterious and glamorous loner, who gives the impression that she’s more sophisticated than the average student in high school.

Mia comments to Vada: “Photo day,” to explain why she’s doing her makeup instead of being in class. Vada replies before she goes into a stall, “I’ve got to get my shit together.” It’s Vada’s way of saying that she thinks she should pay more attention to her own hair, makeup and wardrobe. When Vada comes out of the stall, she says to Mia as a compliment, “You don’t even need to wear makeup.” And that’s when they both hear gunshots.

During the next six minutes of terror, which are shown from the point of view of the students trapped in this restroom, viewers can hear that people in the school are being killed by a gun. There are screams and cries for help amid the gunshots. This violence is never shown on camera because it doesn’t need to be. It’s a massacre that has occurred all too-often in real life.

Vada and Mia hide in the same bathroom stall together and stand up on the toilet, in case the shooter comes in and looks for feet underneath the stalls. As Mia and Vada clutch each other in horror, someone bursts into the room in the stall next to them. At first, the girls think it’s the shooter, but it’s really a fellow classmate named Quinton Hasland (played by Niles Fitch), who quickly identifies himself.

Mia and Vada tell Quinton that he can hide with them in the same stall. The girls are shocked to see that Quinton’s clothes are covered in blood spatter. He tells them that he hasn’t been shot, but he’s panicking because he witnessed his brother getting shot. Quinton is understandably anguished over the decision to run for his life or stay behind to try to help his brother.

The movie doesn’t show how long Vada, Mia and Quinton were crouched in fear in the bathroom stall. Nor does “The Fallout” show what happened when the police and medical emergency teams arrived. A visual clue later in the movie indicates that eight people died in this massacre.

And “The Fallout” isn’t about what happened to the shooter and why he committed this heinous crime, except to indicate that he was a male student from the school. The shooter is never seen or heard in the movie, although his name is mentioned in one of the movie’s most emotionally powerful scenes. It’s implied that the shooter died at the scene, most likely by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The rest of the film is from Vada’s perspective about how Vada, Mia, Quinton, Nick and Vada’s immediate family (her parents and Amelia) deal with the aftermath of tragedy, including coping with survivor’s guilt. Vada goes into school-appointed counseling with an empathetic therapist named Anna (played by Shailene Woodley), who tries to break down the emotional walls that Vada puts up in their first few sessions together. Vada tries to persuade Anna that she’s doing as well as she can in her recovery.

In her first session with Anna, Vada talks about how she sleeps up to 14 hours a day, but insists (not very convincingly) to Anna that it’s only a few more hours of sleep per day that was part of her normal routine before the shooting. Vada gives this self-evaluation of her personality: “I feel like I’m very good at managing my emotions. I’m very low-key and chill.” Anna patiently advises without sounding judgmental: “It’s really good to show your emotions.”

Despite what Vada told Anna, there are signs that Vada isn’t coping well at all. When Vada is awake in bed, she shivers and twitches in fear. Her excessive sleeping is a sign of depression. And when her parents—Carlos (played by John Ortiz) and Patricia (played by Julie Bowen)—try to talk to Vada about what happened, she shuts them down and tells them that she’s going to be fine. Vada avoids her family by sleeping in her room as much as she can.

During family time together, such as during meals, Amelia talks as if nothing bad really happened, perhaps in a way to try to get things back to normal. But based on Vada’s angry reactions to Amelia’s nonchalant small talk, Vada is offended that Amelia acts oblivious to how this tragedy is affecting Vada. Although Vada doesn’t want to open up to her family about what she’s going through, she doesn’t want them to completely act as if the school shooting didn’t happen either.

Shortly after the massacre, Vada found out that the shooter (whom she didn’t know) had followed Vada on Instagram. It’s a small detail, but how Vada reacts when she finds out is indicative of how she doesn’t like to show many of her emotions on the surface. She expresses some surprise, but then is quick to add that she never knew the guy and never followed him on social media. Her response is to brush it off, but deep down, this information must be disturbing to her.

After the shooting, Mia and Vada begin texting each other and become each other’s confidants. Mia invites Vada over to her house (it’s here that it’s obvious that Mia’s family has more money than Vada’s family), and this invitation leads to Vada going to Mia’s place for regular visits. Both girls are afraid to go back to school, but Mia’s anxiety is more severe, since she tells Vada that she’s afraid to leave her bedroom. Because of Vada’s visits, Mia gets over that fear and the fear of leaving her house.

Mia’s gay fathers, who are successful artists, are away in Japan on business. Mia, who is an only child, keeps in touch with them by phone, but they are never shown in the house with Mia. It’s implied that they leave Mia alone a lot, which is why she’s more independent than most of her teenage peers. But it’s also made her lonely, and it explains why she quickly bonds with Vada. After the school shooting, Mia’s parents grant Mia’s request to not go back to the school and to be homeschooled instead.

Vada is intrigued by Mia because before they became friends, she had a perception of Mia of being somewhat of a “badass,” based on Mia’s dance videos that Vada watches on the Internet. The first time that Mia and Vada hang out together, Vada remarks that in real life, Mia is very different than what Vada expected: “In the videos, you come off as so hard.” Vada is pleasantly surprised at how nice and down-to-earth Mia is when interacting with her. When Vada expresses anxiety about going to the funeral of Quinton’s brother, Mia offers to go to the funeral with Vada.

Because of what they went through together during the school shooting, Mia and Vada feel like they can openly talk to each other about it. During one such conversation, it’s revealed that while Vada’s way of dealing with the trauma is excessive sleeping, Mia’s anxiety has resulted in insomnia. Vada asks Mia, “Did you have the craziest nightmares last night?” Mia replies, “You have to be able to sleep to have nightmares.”

Mia is seemingly more confident than Vada, but Mia has her insecurities too. Mia guzzles wine and liquor and she smokes marijuana to block out whatever emotional pain she’s experiencing. Vada gets caught up in drinking alcohol and smoking weed with Mia.

And there’s a memorable scene in the movie where Vada impulsively tries Ecstasy for the first time when she’s at school. While flying high on Ecstasy, she gets blue ink from a pen all over her face, and she has trouble navigating her way down a flight of stairs. It’s one of the few scenes in “The Fallout” that’s intended to be funny. “The Fallout” infuses this slapstick comedy into the story as a way to show that life after a school shooting isn’t all gloom and doom for the survivors.

However, the movie also authentically shows in a non-judgmental way that drug use is often a coping mechanism for trauma survivors. Not much is shown or discussed about what Mia’s drug/alcohol use was like before the school shooting. But there are definite references to Vada being a good student before the shooting. Her “good girl” image begins to tarnish after the shooting took place when her grades start to slip, and she shows signs of minor delinquency.

Despite her occasional acts of teenage rebellion, there are signs that Vada identifies more with nerd culture. Vada mentions in a therapy session with Anna is that she has a celebrity crush on actor Paul Dano, who usually plays soft-spoken, geeky characters. And in a conversation between Vada and Mia, they ask each other if they prefer Drake as a sex-symbol rapper or when he portrayed a basketball-star-turned-misfit-paraplegic teen in the TV series “Degrassi: The Next Generation.” Mia and Vada both agree they prefer the wheelchair “Degrassi” version of Drake.

Vada’s parents try to do the best that they can to help her cope with the shooting tragedy, but Vada tends to avoid them. Vada’s relationship with her mother Patricia has more tension (Vada describes Patricia as “uptight”) than the relationship that Vada has with her father Carlos. There are also hints that some of this tension is because Vada thinks that Patricia prefers Amelia over Vada.

There’s a scene in the movie that exemplifies this tension. Vada sees Patricia and Amelia joking around together in the kitchen. Amelia and Patricia don’t see Vada though. Vada looks sad and a little jealous as she observes them and then walks away.

And in an earlier scene, Patricia tells Vada: “All I want is what’s best for you. I want to see that sparkle back.” Vada looks insulted by that comment, and then tells Patricia, as a way to hurt her mother emotionally: “You know that Amelia got her period?” Patricia looks surprised and says, “When?” Vada than smugly replies, “Like forever ago. I guess she just didn’t want you to know.”

But Vada is keeping secrets too. She doesn’t tell her family about her friendship with Mia. And as Vada spends more time with Mia, they become closer in a way that indicates that their relationship will become more than a friendship. Vada also expresses a sexual attraction to Quinton. (This isn’t spoiler information because it’s in the movie’s trailer.)

Vada doesn’t define her sexuality in this movie, but at one point in the story, she describes herself as a socially awkward virgin, and she expresses some disdain at the thought of herself having a husband in the future. It’s interesting that the two people who are her possible love interests are also the ones who were hiding with her in the restroom during the school shooting. The movie leaves it open to interpretation if Vada showing a romantic attraction to them after the shooting was a direct result of this shared trauma or if she was already attracted to them anyway.

Meanwhile, Kevin and Vada start to become distant from each other. He’s aware that Vada is spending more time with Mia. But he’s become an anti-gun-violence activist (there are scenes of Kevin doing things that will remind people of the real-life David Hogg), while Vada avoids going to the activist rallies that Kevin now enthusiastically attends. Vada admits to Mia that she feels a little guilty over not doing more to speak out against gun violence. But the movie shows that, just like in real life, not every survivor of a gun shooting is going to become an activist.

Before Vada’s life was turned upside down, she was closest to Kevin, her sister Amelia, her father Carlos and her mother Patricia. After the shooting, the movie shows an emotionally resonant moment that Vada has with each of them, as she comes to terms with how she’s changed since the tragedy and how her relationship with each of them has changed. When Vada has a heart-to-heart talk with her father, she says something that rings true to anyone who’s survived a mass shooting: “I had no idea one guy with a gun could fuck up my life so hard in six minutes.”

What will stick with people who watch “The Fallout” is how the main characters in the story seem like they could be based on real people, thanks to writer/director Park’s terrific handling of this story and the superb acting by the cast members. It’s not an easy thing to do a coming-of-age drama about people affected by a school massacre. And the last five minutes of “The Fallout” is a harrowing example about how “getting back to normal” is something that’s hard to define and even harder to experience.

UPDATE: HBO Max will premiere “The Fallout” on January 27, 2022. Warner Bros. Pictures will release “The Fallout” in cinemas in countries where HBO Max is not available.

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