Scream 4 (2011)

The kindest thing I can say about Scream 4 is that it isn’t terrible. That is hardly a recommendation, but given the circumstances, it could have been a lot worse.  There a few touches here and there that help make it watchable – Marley Shelton’s awkward deputy; Hayden Panetierre’s likable turn as the horror fanatic, Kirby; a few humorous moments involving Gale Weathers and two members of the high school AV Club; and the unmasking of the killer, which is genuinely surprising.  The problem is that we have seen it all before and even the reveal at the end isn’t enough to overcome the familiarity. Though, one could argue that the familiarity is the entire point of Scream 4 – the killer is essentially doing a “remake” by recording the murders and posting them online. 

What’s even more irritating is that original characters in the first film seem to have regressed since the third movie – Dewey and Gale once again are at odds with one another.  How did Dewey get promoted to Sheriff? In Scream 3, at least Dewey was slightly competent – he is the one that notices the photographs of Maureen Prescott, Sidney’s deceased mother, were taken on the same studio back lot where STAB 3 is being filmed.  He also manages to save Gale from certain death by firing his revolver at the killer. Unfortunately, in Scream 4, he just stumbles around the scenery and makes a complete ass of himself. Even more embarrassing is the fact that, in the movie’s climax, he is incapacitated with a bed pan. Dewey and Gale’s story line ended in Scream 3, there was really no reason to have them in the movie, other than the fact that they are “fan favorites.”   Gale’s redemption in the original Scream was an inspired idea; a lesser movie would have predictably killed off the character.  The problem is that, in each sequel, she has the same damn character arc – she goes from a bitchy tabloid journalist to being a more compassionate heroine.  Granted, Scream 4 does a clever variation on the character – she is so desperate to get back into journalism that she is willing to team up with two nerdy high school students, Charlie and Robbie, who have their own podcast.  This leads a few amusing scenes between Gale and the two students, but for all principle purposes, it’s the same story we have seen in the previous movies.  Just like in the first movie, Gale plants hidden cameras at a party hoping that something big will happen.

The character of Sidney is far less interesting to watch, despite being a “ stronger” character she still makes questionable decisions that endanger her and the lives of the others.  As flawed as Scream 3 was it, at least, gave Sidney a strong character arc; she begins the film as a complete recluse that is highly paranoid of the outside world (she has a fence around her property and arms her house with a security system).  Her only contact with the outside world is through the telephone – she counsels abused women on a hotline. She occasionally visits her dad and talks to Dewey, but otherwise she lives a lonely existence. Eventually, after learning about the murders of set the set of STAB 3, Sidney chooses to come out of hiding and face her fears. More importantly, she is opening herself up to other people. Scream 3 may be the weakest out of the original trilogy, but Sidney does make for a compelling heroine.  In Scream 4, Sidney has become a best selling author of a self help book and her hometown, Woodsboro, is the final stop on her book signing tour.  She finds, much to her horror, that her much younger cousin, Jill, and friends are being terrorized by a killer donning the “Ghostface” mask.  Given Sidney’s past experiences with serial killers, you would think she would be a more formidable opponent for the killer, but she is fairly useless for the most part. Sidney is not that engaging of a protagonist and this is largely due to her passivity this time around; it doesn't help that she is often pushed to the sidelines to make room for her younger and “more attractive” co-stars.

Scream 4 opens with not one, not two, but three pre-credits scenes. In the first scene two girls are watching a horror movie in a house and receive a threatening phone call. They, naturally, bite the big one, but it is all revealed to be a movie being watch by two blondes sitting on a couch. One of blondes, Rachel, complains about how stupid the movie is, only to be stabbed by other blonde, Chloe, who tells her she talks too much. However, this is also revealed to be a movie (a movie within a movie within a movie) being watched by two teenage girls, Jenny and Marnie, hanging out in the living room.  Jenny plays a prank on Marnie by calling her cell phone and impersonating “The Voice.”  Needless to say, both girls are promptly disposed of and then the SCREAM 4 title card flashes across the scene. This is meant to be hip, but it completely undermines the horror of the scene – the deaths of Jenny and Marnie are too abrupt to have any real impact.  In the first movie, the death of Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) was so unnerving because it slowly built to that moment. It was a rare instance in which stunt casting great benefited the movie–Drew Barrymore, the biggest star in the cast, is killed off in the first ten minutes, thus letting the audience know in the advance that NO ONE is safe. The opening to Scream 4 makes me yawn with indifference. WHO ARE THESE GIRLS?  I admit I’m out of tune with the times, therefore I have no clue if the two actresses cast in this scene (Aimee Teegarden, Britt Robertson) are big named television actresses, or if this was a movie they happened to get cast in. Were their deaths supposed to be shocking? It lacks the freshness of the first movie and the shock value of the second film – the first two victims are murdered (in a movie theater) during a screening of the movie STAB. Hell, even the much maligned Scream 3 had an interesting variation on this formula – the opening scene is a (failed) chase to the rescue; Cotton Weary, while stuck in traffic, receives a phone call from the killer and races to his apartment to save his girlfriend.  Naturally, it turns out disastrous for both of them. The whole “movie within a movie” idea was amusing in Scream 2, especially with Tori Spelling playing the “movie” Sidney, but it is pretty tiresome this time around.

Scream 4 reflects Wes Craven’s, and Kevin Williamson’s, contempt for the endless horror remakes that have plagued the cinemas over the last decade; three of them being  updates of Craven films (The Hills Have Eyes, The Last House on the Left, and The Nightmare on Elm Street). Hence, it is no coincidence that practically all the young, NEW characters come to horrible ends, while the original cast members (Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette) survive the ordeal with a few injuries.  Sidney sums up everything perfectly when she tells the killer, “You forgot the first rule of remakes, __. DON’T FUCK WITH THE ORIGINAL!”  It is also not too surprising that the teenagers in Scream 4 are meant to be pale imitations of the characters in the original – Jill (Sidney), Kirby (Tatum), Charlie (Randy), Trevor (Billy), and Deputy Judy Hicks (Dewey).  Though, I would argue that Kirby is superior to Tatum, however, I’m probably in the minority on this one.  It also a tad bit ironic seeing Craven being critical of remakes considering he was a producer on a few of them; the aforementioned The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left, as well as a dreadful remake of the 1962 classic, Carnival of Souls. 

This is one of the few instances where a downbeat ending might have worked better; it would have been genuinely shocking if Sidney had been killed off at the end, thus forcing one of the younger cast members to take up the torch. Sure, it would be a cheap shock, but it would also be quite unexpected. 

 Initially, this is what Kevin Williamson seems to be setting up in his script -the character of Kirby is pretty savvy when it comes to horror movies and is, probably, the most sympathetic character in the entire movie, but this turns out to be a ruse. Plus, making Kirby the heroine would contradict the whole “anti-remake” theme that pervades the movie.  

Also, like other slasher movies, Scream 4 is loaded with pretty useless characters, the most obvious being Rebecca, Sidney’s publicist, played by Allison Brie. Rebecca is excited by the murders in Woodsboro and hopes to exploit them for her, and Sidney’s, benefit. Sidney is appalled by her attitude and fires Rebecca. We know that her time is brief and she is killed in a particularly brutal fashion – stabbed multiple times and thrown from the roof of a parking garage.  There are also the extremely inept police officers, Perkins and Hoss, who are assigned to guard Sidney and her relatives. They have a horrible habit letting their guard down – people are murdered on their watch and they allow the killer to sneak up on them.  How many bumbling police officers can one movie have? There’s Dewey, Deputy Hicks, and these two idiots. It would be far more interesting if the police were actually presented in a more competent manner, yet still at loss when it came to the murders (see John Saxon in Black Christmas). As a result, there are a lot of pointless, and redundant, scenes of police officers puttering about, while teenagers are getting butchered at an alarming rate. Who knows? Maybe Wes Craven is paying homage to his first movie The Last House on the Left – which features similar scenes of lawmen acting like idiots.

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It’s hard to do a review of Scream 4 without revealing the killer’s identity, so if you still haven’t seen it (and desperately want to), then I suggest you skip this section of the review, because I will RUIN it  for you.  If you have seen Scream 4, or have no desire to see, or simply don’t care, then READ ON. 

Finally, after all the bodies have piled up, it is revealed that the killers are Jill and Charlie. The reveal of Charlie itself isn’t too surprising, but the unmasking of Jill was a jaw dropping moment, at least for me.  Jill proves to be an extremely ruthless villain and even murders Charlie once she no longer has any use for him.  Why commit all these murders? MEDIA ATTENTION!  Growing up, Jill was jealous of all the attention that Sidney got in the family and decided that turning to murder would be an ideal way to direct the spotlight towards her.  After bumping off her friends at a party, and believing she killed Sidney, Jill inflicts injuries on herself and frames her ex-boyfriend Trevor by planting a gun on his corpse to make it seem that she is the sole surviving victim of the night’s atrocities. Ironically, at the movie’s end, Jill is given the media attention she always craved, but isn’t alive to enjoy it.  I like the reveal of Jill being “Ghostface”– it is hard to believe that such a sweet faced, innocent looking, girl could be a cold blooded killer. The critical flaw is that Emma Roberts doesn't have the acting chops to pull off the transformation; she plays the “psychopathic” Jill by acting all fidgety, shouting her lines, and emphasizing certain words (“Sidney THIS! And Sidney THAT!”). Also, she isn’t remotely intimidating in any of her later scenes, and it is completely baffling how the survivors have such a hard time taking Jill down – she is so tiny.

It is hard to swallow that the scrawny Charlie and petite Jill were capable of committing the murders that “Ghostface” does throughout the course of the movie – that’s the disadvantage of having a stuntman donning the “Ghostface” costume. I also have a hard time believing that Charlie would murder Kirby. She  is, essentially, Charlie’s dream girl and her finally showing interest in him would, at the very least, give him second thoughts about carrying on with the whole“let’s murder everyone” plan. It would be more interesting if Kirby became a source of friction between Charlie and Jill, 

 which, in turn,  allows for Sidney to take advantage of the situation. The whole finale in the hospital is so silly that it undermines the tension that Wes Craven was trying to create - Dewey gets hit in the head with a bed pan; Gale and Deputy Hicks stumble into the room in the nick of time; Sidney takes out Jill by shocking her head with a defibrillator; Jill some how survives the shock and comes at Sidney with a knife, then Sidney shoots her in the head with Deputy Hicks’ gun. It’s easily the weakest ending in the entire series – yes, it is even weaker than the ending to Scream 3.

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Scream 4 was a flop at the domestic box office; grossing 38 million on a 40 million budget. This was a huge come down from the previous entries in the series (the first two grossed over a 100 million, while Scream 3 made 89 million). Its poor performance at the box office almost guarantees no more Scream sequels; though, I guess a Scream TV series is in the works.  Maybe I am being too hard on Scream 4 – it’s not a great movie, but it is certainly better than the Slasher genre dictates.  It is overly familiar at times, but it moves a long at a fairly swift pace and is never boring.  I have no desire to own it on DVD/Blu-ray, but if it’s on television, or Netflix, it is worth a look – there are certainly worse ways to spend 111 min. If you go in with extremely low expectations, then you will be pleasantly surprised that it isn’t terrible. Again, that’s not exactly high praise, but that is about the best I can do.

Credits

Cast: Neve Campbell (Sidney), Emma Roberts (Jill Roberts), Hayden Panetierre (Kirby), Courtney Cox (Gale), David Arquette (Dewey), Rory Culkin (Charlie), Allison Brie (Rebecca), Nico Tortorella (Trevor), Erik Knudson(Robbie), Marley Shelton (Deputy Judy Hicks), Mariella Jaffe (Olivia), Anthony Anderson (Deputy Perkins), Adam Brody (Deputy Hoss), Mary McDonnell (Kate Roberts), Lucy Hale (Sherrie), Shenae Grimes – Beach (Trudie), Anna Paquin (Rachel), Kristen Bell (Chloe), Aimee Teegarden (Jenny), Britt Robertson (Marnie), Roger Jackson (The Voice).

Director: Wes Craven
Screenplay: Kevin Williamson
Running Time: 111 min. 

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)

WARNING: This review has nothing but SPOILERS in it! So, if you haven’t seen the cinematic atrocity that is I Still Know What You Last Summer, then I suggest you skip the review altogether. On the other hand, if you have seen, or really don’t care, then please read on. 

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is one of the most ridiculous sequels in the Slasher genre, which is saying quite a lot.  It is so bad that it makes the first movie look like an absolute masterpiece. What ever flaws I Know What You Did Last Summer had, it was at least a serviceable horror film with solid performances from Jennifer Love Hewitt and Sarah Michelle Gellar, and a few scares to boot. There was at least an attempt by the filmmakers to build suspense and give the characters an arc; the sequel tosses all of that out the window and replaces it with a higher body count and a horribly contrived script.  The first film was riding on the coattails of Scream; when Wes Craven’s self aware horror film became a huge hit at the box office, and with critics, it led to an entire spawn of copy cats, I Know What You Last Summer being one of them. The other connection that the first film had with Scream is they shared the same screenwriter, Kevin Williamson.  The movie proved to be a hit at the box office, if not with the critics, and domestically grossed $72 million against a $17 million budget; a sequel was only inevitable. It certainly didn’t hurt that I Know What You Did Last Summer left itself open for second movie.

In an interview for Cinefantastique (December 1998), one of the producers, Stokely Chaffin,  plays down the slasher element and laughably attempts to sell it as a psychological thriller,
 “Plus there is a thread of surreal weaving in and out of the story. Is what seems to be happening really happening? How much of what is going on is a projection of Julie’s emotional state?”
This might be true if many of the scare scenes were shot from Julie’s point of view, but this is not the case, and too often the audience is tipped off to the reality of the situation.  There is a fairly silly scene in a night club where Julie sees Ben Willis, the killer, standing by the  railing on the second floor, staring at her. This could be dismissed as a hallucination, except that a second later Julie is in the foreground facing the camera when, suddenly, Ben Willis’ shadow materializes in the background.

 Of course, this begs the question, “How does a middle aged man wearing a slicker not call attention to himself in a night club?”  In the first film the slicker made sense as it was set in a fishing community and practically every other citizen wore one.  In the sequel, it is baffling as to why Ben Willis would still don it, considering that it has no practically purpose - his identity is well known to Julie, so it is not like he is trying to retain his anonymity.

Also, Ben Willis’ master plan is overly complicated and makes no sense; Julie and her roommate, Karla, receive a phone call from a local radio station and will win an all expense paid vacation to the Bahamas, over the 4^th of July weekend, if they can name the capital of Brazil. They, wrongly, guess Rio de Janeiro, but the deejay says they are correct and sends them the tickets. Of course, this turns out to be an elaborate ruse by Ben Willis to spring his trap on the unsuspecting Julie.  Think about that for a minute – Ben Willis’ gives Julie and friends an all expense paid trip to the Bahamas just so he can exact his revenge on her!  Couldn’t he have just snuck into her dorm room and bumped her off there?  Where is he getting the money to fund such a scheme?  What if Julie had other plans and couldn’t go on the trip? It is an extremely flimsy framework to hang your horror film on. It even makes less sense once it is revealed that Will Benson, the dreamy boy that has eyes for Julie, is, in fact, Ben Willis’ son (“Benson. Get it? Ben’s son!”), and has been in on the ruse from the get go – he supplied the voice of the obnoxious deejay.

In the same Cinefantastique article, director Danny Cannon explains, “The idea of a residence being menacing has been a pet project of mine for a long time, because I’ve always been fascinated by the haunted house idea. I wanted to stay away from the typical haunted house, though. You know the kind I’m talking about: some gothic monstrosity with the turrets and gloomy clouds constantly overhead. I had to try something different.” 

 Unfortunately, for Cannon and company, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is essentially your average slasher movie, complete with a thunderstorm, set on a tropical island; there is absolutely nothing that differentiates it from previous efforts.  If Cannon wanted to make a “haunted house” type movie, then why have the plot be so needlessly complicated? Instead of Julie and friends “winning” a trip to the Bahamas, why not have Will invite his friends to spend the weekend at his house?   While Julie has no romantic interest in Will, she does regard him as a FRIEND (the true horror to any male watching the film), so it isn't a stretch to believe that she would be willing to go along, especially after her fight with Ray.

The last scene of the movie only expose how ridiculous Ben Willis’ master plan was all along;  he rather easily sneaks into Julie and Ray’s house (some how having survived being shot EIGHT times), hides under their bed, and drags Julie underneath before she has time to react.  Why didn’t he do that in the first place? He could have saved himself a lot of time, money, and effort. Not to mention, there would have been a significantly smaller body count.  Many people have interpreted this ending as a being a dream, but I highly doubt that as it is clearly set up that Ben Willis is physically in the house;  the camera lingers over a track of muddy boot prints that Julie some how fails to notice.  Plus, someone closes the bathroom door while Ray is brushing his teeth.

I must admit that I loathe this ending, as well as similar endings in other horror films.  The original Halloween had an open ending, but that was genuinely creepy; the thought that Michael Myers is still out there is scary.  He could strike at any minute.  The ending to I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, however, is silly and just a cheap shock – it’s the equivalent to being started at a haunted attraction when a teenager in zombie make up jumps out from behind the bushes. It may get a jump out of you, but it has no real lingering effect.  Were the filmmakers setting up a third Last Summer movie?  Jennifer Love Hewitt, in her interview with Cinefantastique, seems to suggest this,

“The ending of the film is something I don’t believe anybody is going to be laughing at, though. It’s a real shocker. Depending on how well I STILL KNOW does at the box office, there just maybe a third film in the series – maybe I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER AGAIN.”   Sadly, there was indeed a third film in the series, the direct to video, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, though Hewitt was not involved with that movie.  Good for her!  

The first film benefited from its rather simple premise; a group of friends, after a night of partying on the beach, accidentally run over a pedestrian and, fearing the repercussions it might have on their futures, dump the body in the ocean, promising each other never to talk about it again.  A year later, Julie, reluctantly returns to her hometown after finishing her freshman year of college and receives a letter that reads, “I know what you did last summer.”  The rest of the film concerns the efforts of Julie and friends to find out the identity of their stalker before it is too late.  It is a movie that is not without its flaws, but it is slickly made that it is easy to overlook them.  I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, on the other hand, is so absurd that you will either find it funny or extremely irritating.  I belong in the former category.

Ben Willis also has some incredible foresight; in order for his scheme to work, he must get Ray, Julie’s blue collar boyfriend, out of the way.  Julie initially invites Ray to go on the Bahama trip, in hopes that they can patch up their relationship. At first, Ray is absolutely against it, slightly peeved that Julie was so quick in turning down his offer to come back home on the fourth, but having no qualms in going to the Bahamas with her friends.  However, his best friend/comedy sidekick, Dave, tells him to lighten up, and convinces Ray to drive up and surprise Julie.  The two of them get in Ray’s truck, and, after a “hilarious” sing a long to White Snake’s “Here I Go Again,” come across a body lying on the side of the road. Ray pulls over to investigate, much to the displeasure of Dave.  Sadly, Dave’s apprehension proves to be correct as it turns out to be one big trap. The body is really a mannequin and Ben Willis takes no time in disposing of Dave. He then gets in the pick up truck and runs Ray off the road. Ray survives the ordeal and ends up in the hospital.  Again, it is incredibly uncanny that Ben Willis knew which route Ray and Dave were going to take.  What would he have done if Ray had not changed his mind? Did Ben Willis set up this trap knowing Ray would come this way or did he just assume it? What if he set up this trap and Ray never came? Wouldn’t that be embarrassing?  What if someone else happen to pull over before Ray?  It is a scene that offers up more questions than answers. 

In this movie’s defense, this kind of scene springs up in practically every Slasher movie. The most famous being the canoe scene in The Burning. In that movie, a group of camp counselors on a raft come across a supposedly abandoned canoe in the lake and paddle over to retrieve it.  They get closer and closer, and suddenly the killer, Cropsey, springs up from the canoe and kills them with a pair of garden shears.  After this viewing this scene, I kept asking the following questions: How long was Cropsey in that canoe?  How did it not tip over when he sprang up to surprise the counselors? What if the people on the raft said, “To hell with the canoe,” and kept on padding?  However, the difference between The Burning and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is that in 1981 this scene was genuinely surprising and blindsided many people in the audience, but by 1998 it had become a cliché.

I personally theorize that Ben Willis is really a fallen super hero, it would explain not only his incredibly foresight, but his amazing regenerative powers as well.  Throughout the course of the two movies the following happens to be Ben Willis:

1)      He is run over by a car at a high speed and then dumped into the ocean.

2)      His hand right hand gets lopped off and once again he is dumped into the ocean.

3)      He is shot EIGHT times by Julie, falls into an open plot in the rain, and slowly gets consumed by mud.

Yet, not only does he survive these ordeals, but has a speedy recover each time.  There is no hint that he is supernatural entity, therefore he must be a mutant; one of Charles Xavier’s pupils that turned bad and made it his goal to torment humankind. It explains so much!  Also, if Willis’ main beef is against Julie, then why does he bump off the entire hotel staff?  What does he hope to gain? After all, the entire point of his plan was to get back at Julie, so there is absolutely no reason for him to be taking his wrath out on everyone else. 

Jennifer Love Hewitt was a rather effective heroine in the first movie, however, in the sequel her performance is far more pronounced; it often feels like she’s doing a parody of her character in the first film. She does a lot of screaming, shouting, and is very high strung through out; there are very few subtleties in her acting. In the first film, there is this brief moment when Julie is being hit on the geeky Max (Johnny Galecki) and while she puts on a friendly demeanor, you can tell she is uncomfortable simply by her body language, and by the look she gives Helen (Sarah Michelle Gellar).  Julie is a goody two shoes and it is simply not in her character to tell anyone off, no matter how annoying that person might be.  The whole point is that the character actually gets stronger as the movie progresses, whereas in the sequel, she pretty much remains paranoid and angry; there is no room for character development. 

Freddie Prinze, Jr. was rather ill served by both of the Last Summer movies; in the first movie he is a red herring and the audience is misled into believe that he had in part in writing the letters.  In the sequel, his role is reduced to that of an extended cameo – the movie occasionally cuts back to Ray as he scrounges the resources that will take him to Julie; he pawns the engagement ring he bought Julie for a gun and manages to commandeer a boat. His total screen time adds up to a little over ten minutes.  The only reason Ray is in the sequel is to provide the gun that Julie uses on Ben Willis at the end, otherwise, he is a fairly useless character.

Though as pointless as Ray is, he is not nearly as inept as Julie’s best friend, Karla, played by popular singer, and Moesha star, Brandy.  The characters two defining characteristics are that she is sassy and a complete enabler; she encourages Julie to cheat on Ray with Will. Brandy does the best she can with the material that is given her, but there is very little for her to do, except scream and offer up a few quips.

I like Mekhi Phifer as, Karla’s constantly befuddled boyfriend, Tyrell. He is a perfect audience surrogate - he shifts from sheer disbelief to complete frustration at all the nonsense that is going on right in front of his eyes.  You’re not the only one, Tyrell!  He is also given the best line in the entire movie, “All I know this is the worst vacation of my life. I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m fucking horny, and I aint seen one goddamn psycho killer.”

Matthew Settle is appropriately bland in the early scenes, but once Will Benson's true identity is established, the limitations of his acting are cruel exposed; he sports a Cheshire Cat grin, does a lot of shouting, and offers up a few quips. It is  reminiscent of Timothy Olyphant's performance in Scream 2; the only difference being that Olyphant has a much greater screen presence.

There are few other flourishes that I like, particularly Jeffrey Comb’s offbeat performance as the uptight hotel manager – his awkward exchanges will Julie and friends are easily the highlights of the movie.

Muse Watson is a genuinely creepy villain and has great screen presence, unfortunately, his screen time is limited to the last minutes.  Jack Black has an amusing cameo as a stoner pool boy, who, when he’s about to meet his untimely end, tells Willis, “Don’t do that!”  The opening, in which Julie goes into a confessional and discloses her sins to a priest, is genuinely unnerving and fairly well played by Hewitt.  A nice sense of dread hangs over the proceedings, unfortunately, the filmmakers ruin it when it is revealed that the priest is really Ben Willis and that, in a not surprising twist, the whole thing was a nightmare.  Unfortunately, the bad greatly outweighs the good and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, despite what  its director and producer claims, is your quintessential Slasher movie with very few surprises and even less scares.

Credits

Cast: Jennifer Love Hewitt (Julie), Freddie Prinze, Jr. (Ray), Brandy Norwood (Karla), Mekhi Phifer (Tyrell), Muse Watson (Ben Willis), Jeffrey Combs (Mr. Brooks), Matthew Settle (Will), Bill Cobbs (Estes), Jennifer Esposito (Nancy), John Hawkes (Dave), Jack Black (Titus – uncredited), Benjamin Brown (Darick).

Director: Danny Cannon
Screenplay: Trey Callaway.
Running Time: 100 min.