Movie Review: Scream 7

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The Scream movie franchise is now 30 years old, with the release of the original “Scream” in late 1996. All of the movies in this series are about the same, horrific stabbings and death, with the victim often running for their lives until finally caught and stabbed more times than is ever necessary to cause their demise. The plots are often idiotic, with a huge surprise ending, “who is the killer or killers?”, that are always ridiculous and illogical based on the entire plot of the movie.

While the new “Scream 7” movie is better than the last one, it is still very stupid, with some death scenes that will remind some of the “Final Destination” movie franchise, which is famous for its imaginative death special effects. This movie has a few death scenes at the crazy level of a Final Destination, with an overkill ending involving two pistols that has to be seen to be believed. There are once again too many scenes where a character should definately be dead, but either does not die, or comes back from the dead.

For this new edition, Neve Campbell is back as Sydney Evans, after starring in Scream 6, because she was insulted by the amount of money they offered her. Considering her ambitious acting career that started with the TV series “Party of Five”, over 30 years ago, she has to be embarrassed to be so well known from a horror movie series this idiotic. However, when it comes to money and the precarious profession of acting in Hollywood, nobody can be blamed for cashing in when a money opportunity comes along.

After being almost killed in the last Scream movie, Courtney Cox is once again playing the reporter Gale Weathers, and is the only cast member to have appeared in all seven Scream movies. Relative newcomer Isabel May plays Tatum Evans, Sydney Evans’ daughter, and is most likely the actor who will take over this series, unless this whole movie franchise mercifully dies after seven stupid films. In the end, if one of these movies makes enough money, they will make another one.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are an accurate and very low 33%. I agree with this rating and do not recommend this movie, even for the most die-hard Scream fans.

Movie Review: How to Make a Killing

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It is never a good sign for a new movie release when a key fact on the poster does not match the movie. The main character, Becket Redfellow, can inherit 18 Billion Dollars (from the movie), not 28 Billion Dollars (from the movie poster). From ChatGPT, this could be about movie marketing, but for me, this looks like a glaring error right from the start.

After one of the women in a wealthy family marries the wrong man, whom she later divorces after having a son, she is barred from having anything to do with the family or their money. What doesn’t make much sense in the movie’s main premise is how her son could have any claim to the 18 billion dollar family fortune after she was banned from the family, and later dies. Why would her son somehow be able to kill the seven relatives in the family who are the remaining heirs, and then be somehow unbanned from the family because he is the only remaining relative? It also does not appear that the son or his mother are the kind of people who would consider mass murder for money. Why would anyone think they could kill seven people in a row and get away with it? From the start, this logline or movie concept should never have been greenlighted.

“How to Make a Killing” stars Glen Powell as Becket Redfellow, Margaret Qualley as Julia who is a former insane girlfriend of Becket, Jessica Henwick who plays the love interest in Becket and Ed Harris as Whitelaw Redfellow, who is the head of the family and the subject of a hunting rifle and bow and arrow scene with Becket at the end of the film – one of the few impressive scenes in this below average movie. Unfortunately, this movie does not work on several levels, including the rare attempts at humor or irony.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a correct and very low 48%, and I agree with this rating and do not recommend this film.

Movie Review: Wuthering Heights

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The book, “Wuthering Heights” , written by Emily Brontë, was published in December 1847 and is one of the most well-known books of its kind in history. Five movies have been produced from 1939 to 2011; with this new version, starring Margo Robbie and Jacob Elordi, the sixth. This new movie is only inspired by the original book and is not a faithful adaptation. For those thinking that this movie is a typical love story with a happy ending, you will be disappointed. The main message I received from this film is that love can bring out the best and the worst in people. Love can invoke extreme anger, jealousy, rejection, fear, ego, cruelty, depression, and revenge. Far too often, the joy that comes with love can be followed by an equal amount of unhappiness and anger.

This story starts with a poor family adopting a homeless boy, and over the years, the boy, Heathcliff, becomes more than brother and sister to his new sister, Cathy. Their father is a very unhappy, cruel man, played by Martin Clunes, who gambles away all their money. By a fluke of luck, Cathy is taken in by a wealthy family, which forever separates her from Heathcliff, providing the major conflict of love and loss for the remainder of this story. When Cathy and Heathcliff reunite after many years, their reunion creates a great deal of anger and revenge, not happiness. Within a few weeks, Heathcliff marries a young woman, Isabella, played by Alison Oliver, who is part of the wealthy family, even telling her that the only reason he is marrying her is to hurt Cathy. What follows are scenes of Heathcliff abusing Isabella, with one disgraceful and unnecessary scene where he has Isabella crawl around on the floor and bark like a dog. Why the hell have a scene like this in any movie like this one? We get it. Love can hurt. We know this, we also do not need to see someone being cruely treated and abused.

The ratings for this movie are correctly low with both IMDB and with the critics. If there was any chance for this film to receive high ratings, the abusive, cruel scenes, and the depressing, too-long story killed any chance of positive reviews. It is hard to understand why a movie like this was made, and why rising and famous actors like Margo Robbie and Jacob Elordi would read a screenplay like this and then agree to take the part.

The IMDB rating of 64% and the Rotten Tomatoes rating of 63% are correct, and I rate this movie 50% and advice to steer clear of this too-long, dark, depressing mess.