What Did You Watch This Weekend?

By  · Published on June 23rd, 2014

Dimension Films

The Weekend Watch is an open thread where you can share what you’ve recently watched, offer suggestions on movies and TV shows we should check out (or warnings about stuff to avoid) and discover queue-filling goodies from other FSR readers.

The comments section awaits. I’ll get the ball rolling with the movies/TV my eyeballs took in this weekend.

The only reason that Scream doesn’t hold up 100% is because of the cell phone (and landline!) technology at the center of its story. And of its scares. The commentary on Wes Craven films made by Wes Craven did for ringing what Jaws did for a dorsal fin. There’s a magic in that opening scene where Drew Barrymore is terrorized by a dinging piece of plastic – at one point hanging up, collapsing in fear, and when the phone rings again we jump with her.

It’s a great movie to revisit for many reasons, but the two that stuck out the most this time around were 1) the sheer tightness of Kevin Williamson’s script and 2) the preternatural ability Craven has to take a slapstick scene (like throwing beer bottles at Ghostface in a garage) and convert it into something unsettling (like Rose McGowan’s neck being crushed at the top of a garage door jamb). Wasn’t it incredible to watch a villain that was both scary and idiotic? Someone who was legitimately pretty bad at killing but still pulled it off?

It also makes a stellar double feature with Halloween.

On the other end of the spectrum, Rob watched the finale of Orphan Black and had some choice words for it.

What did you watch this weekend?

Movie stuff at VanityFair, Thrillist, IndieWire, Film School Rejects, and The Broken Projector Podcast@brokenprojector | Writing short stories at Adventitious.