Scream 2

Scream 2 is objectively one of the best horror sequels - even though I love Bride of Frankenstein an immense amount, it's essentially its own movie, whereas this is a true sequel, building on story, and most importantly characters from the first. This does everything the first did, but bigger, badder, and - I'm fairly certain - better. The characters really come into their own here - they're sort of superficial in the first one, but they really change and adapt here; it could be argued that this is the only Scream movie with real character arcs, especially for Gale. On an additional Gale note, it's remarkable how fully Courtney Cox inhabits the character, when by all rights I should never be able to think of her as anyone other than Monica Gellar. For me, it's Gale that's her key role. Well, that or Julie from Masters of the Universe, anyway. It's almost unfair to single out Gale/Cox, as everyone in this is great: Liev Schrieber does creepy/funny very well, David Warner (David fucking Warner!) has a cameo as a sinister drama teacher, David Arquette and my doppelgänger Jamie Kennedy display lovability and comic timing that neither of them would manage to capture again, and the supporting cast is a role-call of the ninties: Joshua Jackson! SMG! Portia De Rossi and Rebecca Gayheart ("Hi! No, I really mean that: hi."), and not forgetting Luke Wilson, Tori Spelling (brilliantly referencing one throwaway line from the original into an extended cameo) and Heather Graham, playing herself, playing Drew Barrymore, playing Casey Becker. Grounding it all, Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, horror's greatest Final Girl. Weak links: (and SPOILERS FOR A 16 YEAR OLD MOVIE) they cut so much of Micky from the movie (he's way more prevalent in the deleted scenes on the BluRay) because they were afraid that it would be too obvious he was the killer - in particular trimming down that the stuff about him being a documentary student - that when he is revealed as the killer I genuinely didn't know who he was the first time I watched it. Audiences are dumber than you think, Wes, even the clever ones. Also, the soundtrack suuuuucks, the 90s music scene having run out of steam in the two years between the orginal and this. I mean, Creed, man. Creed. Urgh, But balls to the cod-rock - the dialogue, direction, photography, score and scares are all top banana, and it just has so much more ambition than it's due, the most ambition showed in a horror sequel since, well, The Bride of Frankenstein. Come on, how many slasher sequels find time for a performance of a plot-relevant Greek tragedy and a full musical number? I Still Know What You Did Last Summer just had to make do with Jennifer Love Hewitt in a bikini.