October 9th - Scream 2 (AMC Cut) **🔪

 Someone (or perhaps more than one, right?) is once again disguised in the Ghostface mask and black costume, stumbling over furniture, getting hit in the head with plant vases, and calling up Sidney, telling her "It's Showtime." So the other evening, I had the film on while doing a little this or that. I had missed the opening of "Scream 2" (1997), which had Cic Cooper (Sarah Michelle Gellar) in a film class going back and forth with other students (including Joshua Jackson, Timothy Olyphant, and Jamie Kennedy (returning as Randy)) before Sidney needed to speak to Randy about the Omar Epps / Jada Pinkett murders in the opening sequence theater Stab premier (based on Gail's book on the Billy Loomis / Stu crimes).  So before revisiting the Scream franchise, I watched a lot more of "Halloween H20" (1998) over the years. I can't, for the life of me, remember the last time I watched "Scream 2" prior to this year. I guess with Scream 5 coming next year, I had Scream on the mind this year. In "Halloween H20", there is a brief clip from "Scream 2" in it when Molly and Sarah are in their private school dorm room featuring Cici being called by (I'm guessing) Olyphant's Mickey in the Ghostface costume and mask before she is pursued throughout her sorority house. Much like others contacted and terrorized by Ghostface, Cici tries to prevent the inevitable...stabs after a valiant effort to fight or flight. Unfortunately Cici's fight is short-lived and she takes a flight off a balcony thanks to Ghostface killer. I love to think about the alternate universe where Cici is much more than just some random victim stabbed and thrown off the balcony to the sidewalk for a splat. I think it is the Buffy fan in me, of course, who wants Cici to be a stronger character instead of a Gellar cameo appearance. But how this is brought up in "Halloween H20", momentarily connecting the "Halloween" and "Scream franchises makes plenty of both series' fans groan. I think O'Connell's "I Think I Love You" music number in the cafeteria is far more cringe, but that's just me. Still, that had me wanting to yet again revisit "H20" just to see the quick mention. Sort of a rubbing of elbows. It was an era in time when I was wonderfully young and not yet some jaded, nihilistic middle-aged horror fan, I guess. Those trips back in time help to ease the tensions of life...although seeing Buffy, err, Cici trading jabs with other film students about "sequels better or worse than original films" is a pleasant conversation / debate before dearly departing this sequel in an unflattering way that is more than a bit of a bummer.