Scream Week (2016)

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

No wonder you may say after watching how brainless they act (pun very much intended). Btw if you are watching the german dubbed version, you can easily take off one or even two points of my rating. It's barely a decent attempt on the whole "I know what you did (whatever time of last year)"-schtick.The protagonists are more or less all despicable and you won't find yourself caring too much about them. There are others in there and the twist towards the end may sway you to like this I guess. On the other hand it's a bit far stretched. Especially because there seems to be a lack of information to put it mildly and just wild assumption. Why every other horror movie thinks it needs a zinger at the end? Well ... whatever

Nederhorror. That's the name for horrors coming from the Netherlands and I must say that they are famous for bringing horror into our rooms. Sneekweek is the new entry in the genre. But for me it was a mediocre horror. let me explain, it's full of suspense but you have to wait for the last 35 minutes before the suspense comes in.When a prank goes wrong and someone dies years later the witnesses are dying one for one. And let it be done by someone with a mask. So it's way back to the eighties when horror was back in business due Scream (1996) and the I Know What You Did franchise (1997). This is exactly what you will get but here the horror doesn't come in from the first minute. It does almost take an hour before the real murders are happening. Sure, there are murders in the first hour but they aren't bloody or gory or by other words, the red stuff doesn't flow. The nailgun killing could have been gory as hell but having a nail in your head straight to your brains and still clever enough to go hide under a bed was for me the moment were this flick lost it's credibility. What you do have the first hour are girls walking around in bikini's looking hot and the bunch going from on party to another and banging girls, but after a while you have seen it and I thought, when does the horror comes in. That's as I said earlier in the last 35 minutes. There you have one murder after another, still, not bloody or even gory even as a driller killer scene is added, to be honest. The director and writer(s) did know there classics because every kill you could refer to a classic old school slasher. Word picking up if you want to see the parties going on and on and do see them killed one by one in for a nookie a original way but sadly for me when things really go wrong it was a bit too late. Netherhorror, yes, but not a classic.Gore 0,5/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 3/5 Story 2,5/5 Comedy 0/5

Expectations weren't high, and with good reason it turns out. Dutch movies usually aren't great to begin with, but Dutch movies emulating popular American films are often worse. In this case, it's Scream that's being "hommaged". This is a horror comedy made by people who obviously love horror films and have seen their fair share of them. But they've never actually made one before, and it shows.The plot starts out oh so conventional. A bunch of students accidentally get someone killed in a silly game and do the dumbest thing imaginable (which is usual in this genre): they cover it up and try to forget about it. It obviously doesn't work, and when we catch up with them two years later, the recently graduated college kids turn out to be using not only the fun type of drugs to cope with their shady past. The standard horror trope archetypes are applied to these characters, the likes we've seen a thousand times before. The fact they spend most of the movie either bickering or engaging in supposed sexy slang doesn't make us care at all for them, we just want to see them die horribly fast. For that, the movie certainly takes its time. The masked killer soon stalks the premises of their backwood residence - insofar there are any backwoods in Friesland - but it takes quite a while before people really start dying. Meanwhile, our patience is tested when the kids argue their way from one party to the other, accompanied by obnoxiously loud techno music. To appeal to the modern generation I guess.And then the second half of Sneekweek arrives. All bets are off as to the identity of the killer. It's not as obvious as you might think. In fact, it's not considerably complicated either, the movie just feels like making it so by twisting things around to such an extent that everybody is suspect. The kills pick up pace rapidly, but leave a lot to be desired in terms of originality or scariness. Not to mention in terms of looking convincing, which they don't. The story quickly turns equally messy, until the final reveal which feels like a big letdown. At least the comedy starts kicking in by providing a few good laughs to horror aficionados, including a memorable one-liner or two. These obviously reference the genre more than they do the movie itself, as is the Sneekweek's intent. The movie's whole set-up is one big reference to the genre, playing with conventions and adding narrative surprises by making things seem different than they are based on what you expect from a slasher movie. Thing is, this sort of film is hardly novel by now. In fact, Sneekweek's prime example Scream is already 20 years old by now, and has been referenced so often that making similarly self reflexive films has become a horror staple itself.Sneekweek hardly innovates. It does surprise from a narrative stance, but not in a satisfactory way. The movie desperately tries not to adhere to our expectations, and thus ends up confusing audiences more than frightening them. Unless they didn't see Scream or any similar self referential slasher films these past two decades. Considering the movie seems to focus on an audience of 16 to 18 year olds with its young cast and irritating soundtrack, there's bound to be a few people who feel this horror movie was original. Whether they'll enjoy it remains another question.