In the last video, we went over all of the
horror movie references that were made in the original Scream, and while there were
a few obscure titles here and there, most of them were pretty mainstream. However, as there isn’t a lot of documented
information pertaining to the films that inspired Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s 1997 sequel,
we’re gonna have to dig a little deeper. So in this video, I’m going to do my darnedest
best job to list EVERY SINGLE HORROR MOVIE REFERENCE THAT CAN BE FOUND
IN SCREAM 2. What is up Scream team, Zack Cherry here,
and if you’re as obsessed with horror movies as I am, you might want to consider hitting
that subscribe button, and turning on those bell notifications (setting them to all). That way, you can stay up to date with all
my latest content. For this video, I’m listing every direct
horror movie reference that was made in SCREAM 2, including all visual homages, because honestly,
there are a ton of them to be found here. So just for shits and gigs
, toss this video
a thumbs up, and be sure to let me know in the comments down below any other horror movie
references you think I might have missed. Let’s get into it! Before we go over the Scream 2 references
though, I just want to point out a few things that I missed from the first movie. I actually only noticed this particular one
while I was editing the last video, which is crazy for me to think about, because this
had been a mystery to me for the past 25 years. What were the two movies tha
t Casey Becker
was planning on watching with her boyfriend? I always just assumed they were generic video
store cassettes, but I guess I never had a reason to pay close enough attention until
now, because you can clearly see that these VHS tapes are distribution releases. Of course this could be a moot point by
the time SCREAM releases on 4K UHD later this year, but at the time of this recording, the
blu-ray version is the highest quality available which only allows for so much depth of field. L
ooking at that top movie, it was pretty easy
for me to put together that this was HALLOWEEN, based on the title’s distinct font and coloring. You can even faintly make out the movie’s
cover art in this overhead shot later on. And yeah, I guess that makes sense, Casey
did say this was her favorite scary movie, however the tape below it proved a bit more
challenging to uncover. Based on the spine, the only thing I could
make out for absolute certain was the Paramount logo, so I went through the sc
ene some more
to see if we get another shot of it, and sure enough, as Casey had placed the movies on
top of the television, we’re able to get a brief glimpse later on as she’s crouched
down beside it. I had to blow up the image, flip it upside
down, and adjust the sharpness, but I WAS able to make out a partial title on the VHS's
upper side label, which unmistakably could only be Children of the Corn II: The Final
Sacrifice, which was released by Paramount on VHS with a purple spine that matche
s the
one we see in this shot. The more you know. Another missed reference, which a lot of you
commented on, I will admit I left out on purpose as I didn’t feel it pertained to horror,
but yes, Tatum does reference Casper The Friendly Ghost, when speaking to the killer in the
garage. And yeah, there was a Casper movie, and he
is a cartoon ghost, which falls under the umbrella of horror, so guess I will include
that. The thing is, the horror genre is not absolute,
and there are definitely a lot o
f blurred lines when it comes to individual categorization,
for instance Scream references Basic Instinct. Is Basic Instinct a horror movie? Not completely, but it does encompass many
genre tropes, like a mysterious killer who murders people with a distinct weapon and
MO, so therefore, I’m gonna include that in my horror collection because it is a horror
movie to me. Deal with it. And finally, as two last references pointed
out to me by Scott Reed and Jim Haggard, respectively, the scene in whic
h Sidney locks herself in
the hatchback while the killer tries to break in is taken from 1988’s Lady in White, and
Billy’s explained motive of Sidney’s mother having an affair with his father was the same motive of the killer in 1981’s Happy Birthday to Me. Okay, now that we’ve gotten that out of
the way, we can get into the SCREAM 2 references. Right off the bat, just as the original had
done with its poster art inspired by Silence of the Lambs, Scream 2 borrows from a somewhat
familiar trend o
f two shadowed faces side by side on the cover, which was previously
used on the poster art for 1993’s Malice, a Neo-noir thriller starring Nicole Kidman
and Alec Baldwin, in which a newly wed couple’s lives are upturned when they rent their home
out to an unstable surgeon. This design was also used for an alternate
poster for 1994’s Wolf, in which Jack Nicholson plays a publisher who transforms into the
titular beast after he is bitten by one on business trip to Vermont. And as most of us horro
r fans know, it would be
used again the following year, but arguably it was most memorable for its use in Scream 2. Getting into the movie proper, Phil and Maureen
arrive at the Rialto theatre which is holding the premiere for Stab. Based on The Woodsboro Murders, the best-selling
novel by Gale Weathers, the film, or at least the parts of it which we’re shown, are pretty
much a shot for shot remake of Scream, and you best believe I’m going to be listing
this as one of Scream 2’s horror movie ref
erences, as it acts as the film’s biggest tie-in,
reenacting the entire Drew Barrymore sequence, as seen here with Heather Graham in the role. Additionally, all of the film-within-a-film
scenes were directed by Robert Rodriguez, making him the Scream universe’s version
of Wes Craven, a factoid that became officially canon during Scream 4’s Stab-a-thon. Inside the movie theatre, audience members
are treated to a couple of flying Ghostfaces zipping by over head, as well as the glow-in-the-dark
car
d that reads “Filmed in Stab-O-Vision”. This is a reference to famed horror producer/director
William Castle, who was well known for his in-theatre gimmicks that would draw in huge
box-office number. Specifically, his 1959 film House on Haunted
Hill, in which an eccentric millionaire played by Vincent Price, offers a group of five strangers
$10,000 each to spend the night in a haunted mansion with him and his wife. Castle hyped audiences for what he would call
EMERGO, an innovation whereby a 12-
foot-tall glow-in-the-dark plastic skeleton zip lined
across the room. As the movie within a movie begins to play,
we’re treated with a tried and true call back to 1960’s Psycho. The genre cornerstone from Alfred Hitchcock,
where very much as Janet Leigh’s character took a fateful shower, we see Stab’s depiction
of Casey prepare to do the same. When Phil takes off to the movie theatre restroom,
we get a reference to 1974’s Black Christmas when the killer hiding in the stall starts
whispering uni
ntelligibly. However, if you listen carefully, you can
make out the phrases “Billy did it” and “listen mommy.” Just like half of the Ghostface duo in Scream,
Billy was also the name of the killer in Black Christmas, who would make phone calls to a
sorority house in which he would repeat similar sounding lines that painted a disturbing backstory. The theory is that Billy allegedly once live
in the house with his family where he had done something unspeakably terrible to his
baby sister, Agnes. As
the words Billy and mommy are used together
by the killer here, it also acts as a clue to the film’s eventual big bad. Speaking of 1970s classics, John Carpenter’s
Halloween was definitely the biggest inspiration for the first movie, with homages and direct
mentions showing up numerous times throughout, and while there are a few well hidden references
in this movie, which we will get to, there was a line of dialogue which didn’t quite
make it into the final film, but appears in an earlier draft
of the script, where Maureen
jokes with the killer, who she thinks is her boyfriend, by asking him if she can get his
ghost. A well known line that was TOTALLY used by
PJ Soles’ character, whilst The Shape disguised itself with a bed sheet. I can only imagine this line was removed since
a character like Maureen, who self-admittedly hates the horror genre, would never reference
such a specific quote. Now, when it came to the original Scream,
the iconic opening scene was for all intents and purpo
ses, inspired by the film When a
Stranger Calls, so naturally in order to keep things fresh, they would have to source some
other horror movies in order to create just as compelling an opening scene for the sequel. And while these titles are all a little less
mainstream, there are at least five different horror movies that are referenced in the movie
theatre murder, so let’s go through them in order of release starting with 1973’s
Messiah of Evil. An obscure gem among the numerous low-budget
dri
ve-in horror flicks, the story follows a young woman who goes searching for her missing
father in a strange Californian seaside town, governed by a mysterious undead cult. In one scene, a character is murdered in a
movie theatre by the other patrons, who turn into vampires and feast on her as she tries
to escape. Next up is 1980’s He Knows You’re Alone,
which probably bears the closest resemblance to this kill, and was even referenced by Randy
in an earlier draft of the script. The film, which a
lso features Tom Hanks in
one of his first major movie roles, follows a killer who’s targeted the wedding party
of a soon to be bride. The opening scene depicts a movie within a
movie, as watched by two friends, where one of them believes she’s being stalked by
someone who has followed her into the restroom. As the killer takes a seat behind her, he
waits for a calculated moment of violence on screen before inflicting a lethal blow,
making it so her final scream won’t be noticed by other audienc
e members, and allowing him
to quietly sneak out before anyone realizes what’s happened. This scene is also a reference to 1985’s
Demons. Written by Dario Argento and directed by Lamberto
Bava, the Italian-made film depicts a random group of people who are all invited to a screening
of a mysterious horror film, only to find the picture has come to life, as they become
trapped inside the theatre with a hoard of ravenous demons. In one moment in particular, a woman who’s
being attacked, rips her w
ay through the movie’s projection screen, inciting panic amongst
the theatre’s audience. This could also be a reference to another
foreign film with 1987’s Angustia, or Anguish to North American Audiences, in
which Zelda Rubenstein of Poltergeist fame plays a controlling mother
who uses telepathy to send her middle-aged son on a murder-spree. This takes him to a movie house where he begins
killing concession workers and audience members, where it’s revealed that the events of the
film are taking
place in yet another movie within a movie, that’s being watched by
a theatre audience who have also been targeted by a serial killer. In a classic example of life imitating art,
the murders are committed just the same as they play out on screen. And as the movie deals with a demented mother
who pushes her son to murder, the parallels to Scream 2’s killer are not lost on this
connection. And finally, from 1991 is the film Popcorn,
starring Jill Schoelen and Dee Wallace, two faces who should alre
ady be familiar to you
if you viewed my reference video for the first Scream, as the former appeared in the Drew
Barrymore-esque role from When a Stranger Calls Back, and the latter being the quintessential
horror movie mom, was alluded to during the video store scene reference to The Howling. The movie itself, follows a ragtag group of
college film students as they organize a horror marathon in a dilapidated theatre, where they
employ William Castle inspired gimmicks, like flying mosquitos and
electro-shock seating. In typical slasher fashion, the show gets crashed by a deranged, master-of-disguise killer, who throughout the night, picks the film students off one by one. In the final scene, he stops the show with
the inclusion of a live act wherein he plans to murder Schoelen’s character in front
of the entire audience, making them believe it’s all part of the gimmick. This is all very evocative in Maureen’s
murder in Scream 2, as the crowd initially thought her death to be a publicit
y stunt
that was designed for the movie’s premiere. With our next reference, which I’m sure everybody
and their grandmother knows by now, Scream director Wes Craven was the brainchild of
the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, along with its iconic villain Freddy Krueger. The first Scream movie was teeming with references
to that franchise. In fact, besides Halloween, that might have
been the second most referenced movie to be included. With Scream 2, as far as I can tell, we only
get one referen
ce to it, and that comes in the scene in the dorm room as Sidney is watching
Cotton Weary’s Current Edition interview on TV. In a quick shot on Hallie rummaging through
her closet, we can see hanging on the door is the widely recognized striped sweater worn
by the killer. And I don’t know what it is with Sidney’s
best gal friends owning attire that was seen in the Nightmare franchise, as we already
saw Tatum wear Johnny Depp’s crop top jersey in the last movie. But since both those characters me
t a grizzly
fate, this could have been a clue to another parallel between the two franchises, as it’s
worth pointing out that at one point during production, Hallie was going to be one of
the film’s killers, marking the inclusion of this sweater as an indication of her eventual
unmasking later on. Also also, just like Wes Craven throughout
the franchise, we get a cameo appearance from writer Kevin Williamson, playing the Current
Edition host. Next up is the film class discussion, and
sadly, we d
on’t really get a lot of horror movie references here, as the topic is geared
more towards movie sequels in general. However, we do get direct references to 1979’s
Ridley Scott directed Alien, as well as Aliens, its 1986 follow up from James Cameron. Set in the distant future, the film follows
the crew of a commercial spacecraft, who picks up a distress call from an inhospitable moon,
where they unwittingly pick up a chest-bursting, acid-spewing alien creature, who poses a deadly
threat to human
kind. Then, in the high-octane, action-geared sequel,
original survivor Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) joins a team of space marines,
as they battle against a league of xenomorphs who’ve overtaken an entire moon-based colony. And yes, I do classify BOTH of these movies
as horror because they’re about a freakin’ monster trying to kill a bunch of people. That is the very definition of a horrifying
situation. However, I always balk at the idea that Randy
would speak with such authority w
hile correcting Joshua Jackson, when in fact, he was the one
who got the line wrong. Student: "Get away from her you bitch" Randy: I believe the line is "stay away from her you bitch” Ripley: GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU BITCH! We also get a reference to House II: The Second
Story, a 1987 supernatural horror comedy in which the new owner of a sinister house gets
involved with reanimated corpses and demons searching for an ancient Aztec skull with
magic powers. In an alternate deleted scene, another st
udent
does make reference to the Friday the 13th franchise, by joking that Part 20 is a superior
movie to the original, but other than that, the horror movie references are very light
here, probably so the story could draw more parallels to the original Scream. Still seems like a huge missed opportunity
though. Later that night, at the Omega Beta Zeta sorority,
we check in on Cici who’s breaking those house rules by eating pizza in the living
room. As the killer calls her, she begins channel
sur
fing, before settling on Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des grauens, a 1922
silent German expressionist horror film, produced as an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s
1897 novel, Dracula. This is perhaps a very cheeky nod to the fact
that Cici’s portrayer, Sarah Michelle Gellar, was at the height of her Buffy the Vampire
Slayer fame during filming. However, this time around, she’s less about
kicking ass and more so just taking messages, as we see the killer’s crank calls have
rattled her cage a
bit. And as this entire sequence is meant to be
yet another re-creation of the Drew Barrymore kill from Scream, we get another tie-in to
this sequel’s predecessor, giving us a more abridged version of that opening scene. On top of that, the killer even patterns their
crimes off of the film, initially going after random people who have the unfortunate luck
of sharing the same names with the three original victims. There’s also a quick reference to Friday
the 13th, as Cici’s friend on the other l
ine, who happens to be voiced by Selma Blair,
delivers a variation of the all-too-well-known distorted sound effect from Harry Manfredini’s
eclectic film score. Although, the composer set the record straight
a while back, informing us that the correct verbiage is Ki ki ki, ma ma ma, as an abbreviation
on the famous Betsy Palmer line Mrs. Voorhees: Kill her, Mommy. Kill her. yet another clue to this film’s
villain. Moving along, after the killer has now made
their presence known to Cici and chase
d her all the way up to the attic, they deliver
a few stabs to her back before hurling her over the balcony’s edge. Cici’s fall, and the shot of her lying on
the ground below, are nearly identical to the final scene of Halloween, where Dr. Loomis
shoots Michael Myers out of the Doyle house, where he falls to similar effect. We then get an obscure reference right after
this from Joel, when he mentions to Gale that he was only hired to film an interview, and
not Faces of Death 14. Faces of Death,
later re-released as The Original
Faces of Death, is a 1978 Mondo horror film, shown in a documentary-like style, about a
pathologist who presents a variety of sourced footage depicting various and gruesome ways
of death. It went on to spawn 7 more sequels throughout
the 80s and 90s, most of which were unofficially linked to the series. Following Sidney’s attack at the Delta Lambda
house, Police Chief Lewis Hartley assigns two of his best detectives to her protective
detail, and after spending a
ll morning with them, she gets all the hot goss, including
their names, which we learn as Officer Richards, and Officer Andrews. According to editor Patrick Lussier on the
film’s audio commentary, Kevin Williamson named the two characters after Miramax executives
Richard Potter and Andrew Rona, however, as Kevin Williamson is also known to be a huge
fan of John Carpenter’s Halloween, citing it as his favorite movie of all time, it’s
more likely that Richards and Andrews are an homage to the chil
d actor duo of Kyle Richards
and Brian Andrews, who appeared in the film as Lindsey Wallace and Tommy Doyle. On the other side of campus, Dewey invites
Randy on an Ice Cream date, where the two catch an entertainment program on TV interviewing
Tori Spelling, who as Sidney had predicted in the first film, wound up playing her in
the movie version of her life. This segues into yet another Scream re-creation,
as we watch Spelling as Sidney and Luke Wilson as Billy, hamfistedly act out the school ha
llway
interaction. I also find it really hilarious that Tori
Spelling basically spoils the movie in her interview. I mean, I know for her (in that universe) it’s based off a
true story and all, but I still get ragged on for making youtube videos that
reveal the killers from a 25 year old movie, yet Tori Spelling drops the ball on opening weekend,
and nobody says shit. Double standard much? Anyway, Randy starts throwing out character
names as suspects, including Hallie’s, who Dewey immediately ki
boshes based on the fact
that serial killers are typically white males. To which Randy counters by pointing out that
female killers do exist in horror movies, referencing Friday the 13th’s Mrs. Voorhees,
as well as Candyman’s daughter. Randy: She’s sweet, she’s deadly, she’s
bad for your teeth. Obviously, this would be an awesome spinoff which I would absolutely pay good money to see, but since such a character is thus far only a mere twinkle in her father’s eye, this will just act as a referenc
e to the 1992 original, featuring Tony Todd as the titular terror. Moving ahead, Sidney attempts to drop out
as the lead of her college play, but gets an inspiring pep talk from Gus, the drama
teacher, which makes her reconsider. He speaks to the themes of unavoidable fate,
which sounds very familiar to a similar lesson that Laurie Strode was taught in the original
Halloween. Next up, Randy shows off his wikipedic knowledge
of horror when he tries to guess the killer’s favorite scary movie, and
keeping within
the theme of college based slashers, he guesses no more than five different films. First up is 1982’s The House on Sorority
Row, in which a group of sorority sisters are stalked
and murdered one by one, after a seemingly innocent prank goes awry. Also from 1982 is The Dorm That Dripped Blood,
in which four college students are stalked by an unknown assailant while staying on campus
over the Christmas holidays to help clear out an abandoned dormitory that’s set to
be demolished. Th
en from 1984 is Splatter University, in
which a sociology instructor finds her new teaching duties at a private college interrupted
by the presence of an escaped mental patient on a murder spree. We also have the 1981 mystery horror film,
Graduation Day, in which members of a high school track team are targeted by a masked assailant days before graduating. And then Final Exam, also from 1981, in which
a psycho killer shows up on a college campus to slash up pretty coeds and dumb jocks. The film
even features a character named Radish,
who serves as the partial inspiration for Randy Meeks, who, although not long for this
sequel, would be pleased to know that his death in and of itself is an homage to another
well known 80s slasher, The Slumber Party Massacre. Released in 1982, the film follows a power
drill wielding, escaped serial killer, who turns a high school student’s slumber party
into a bloodbath. The kill in question comes earlier in the
film’s runtime, when a telephone repairwom
an is pulled into her van in broad daylight,
as passerbys fail to take notice. Almost identically echoed in this infamous
moment. With the campus now on lockdown, Gale and
Dewey go searching for a VCR so that they can view Joel’s crowd footage from the police
press conference. When the killer surprises them, Gale takes
off running down the halls, and later through a maze of sound panels, and while not a definite reference, this set piece
may have drawn its inspiration from a similarly nail-bitin
g sequence seen in the 1995 Russian
horror/thriller Mute Witness, in which an FX make up artist without the ability to speak,
accidentally gets locked in a movie studio overnight, where she observes a small
crew shooting a snuff film that results in murder After being discovered, she’s relentlessly
pursued throughout the facility, as she desperately tries to find a way out, in some of the most
stylish suspense set-pieces I’ve ever seen in a horror film. The rest of the movie is kind of ridiculou
s,
but that chase scene alone easily makes this one a must watch. While this is all going down, Derek gets hazed
by his Omega Kappa brothers for giving his letters to Sidney, who as punishment, leave
him tied up in the auditorium. Originally, when the script had Derek and
Hallie as two of the killers, Mickey was to be the one getting hazed instead, as that
version saw him as the one giving his letters to Hallie. This would have incited the Kappa brothers
to leave him tied up to a tree outside of
their fraternity, where he would have later
been murdered by Ghostface while Sidney tries to cut him loose. This entire storyline is a reference to the
earlier mentioned Final Exam, where a fraternity pledge is tied to a tree for giving his pin
away to his girlfriend. And As he’s left outside alone for the entire
night, he becomes an easy target for the film’s killer. We then get a quick nod to Twin Peaks, the
David Lynch television series that follows the murder of a small town high school hom
ecoming
queen that originally ran from 1990 to 1991. The series went on to include a feature length
film in 1992, entitled Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, as well as a more recent revival
series on Showtime in 2017. The reference in question comes when the police
car transporting Sidney and Hallie stops at a traffic light. The usage of this imagery would show up often
throughout the series and 1992 film, typically as a portent right before some sinister occurrence
was about to take place. Moving
ahead, as the stage is set for the
climax, we finally get a pay off for all those clues that were given to us earlier when it’s
revealed that the evil mastermind behind everything was actually the perky news reporter, Debbie
Salt, whose real identity turns out to be Mrs. Loomis, aka Billy’s mother. In what is probably this film’s most prominent
horror movie reference, a psychotic matriarch returns to exact revenge for the death of
her son, exactly as Mrs. Voorhees had done in Friday the 13th, wh
ich in an ironic twist,
Randy had sort of actually figured out earlier on. We even get a similar moment of Mrs. Loomis
trying to break down a door with Sidney behind it, just as Mama V had done with Alice, hiding
in the pantry. We also get another visual homage to Psycho,
as Mrs. Loomis peaks through the small hole made in SCREAM 2. left in the door, just as Anthony Perkins
had done to spy on Janet Leigh through the walls of the Bates Motel. And in yet another reference, Sidney’s axe
brandishing
mania is possibly an homage to Jack Nicholson in The Shining, Stanley Kubrick’s
renowned psychological horror flick from 1980, in which a hotel’s off-season caretaker
develops cabin fever and tries to murder his family. Finally, we get one last reference in the
1987 Italian slasher film Stage Fright, also known as Deliria or Aquarius, about a dance
troupe who lock themselves inside a theatre for a rehearsal of their upcoming musical
production, unaware that an escaped psychopath has snuck insid
e with them. With the climax of the film depicting an axe
wielding final fight between the heroine and villain throughout the bowels of an auditorium,
the Scream 2 centrepiece feels highly evocative. And with a killer coming back for one last
scare, they even need to be shot between the eyes before they can truly be ruled out as
dead… well, sorta. And there you have it, every horror movie
reference (that at least I could find) Honestly, there’s probably way more that
I missed, so please feel fre
e to admonish me in the comments if you noticed any others. Next time we’ll be going through all the
horror movie references made in SCREAM 3, so stay tuned for that. I'd like to thank my Patreon supporter Eliza. If you guys want to see even more SCREAM,
HALLOWEEN, or FRIDAY THE 13TH content, my channel’s got tons of it, you can check
out this video right now. Until next time, I’ve been Zack Cherry,
and I’ll be right back!
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