The Completist

There are a lot of things that I had hoped I would have done by this point in my life. We all have that, I'm sure. All of us, however accomplished we are in life, see more as having been in the cards. For some of us, that's a very reasonable opinion considering our abilities and our accomplishments, but for others it's an irrational thing. For me I think it's something closer to the former, but probably we all think that. I can think of one thing that I hadn't done that I probably didn't have to.

Following on the heels of a mostly complete viewing of the Howling films, it was someone's idea to watch all the "Scream" films back to back. I had always had some interest in the Scream sequels, having enjoyed the original fairly well and somehow having never gotten to the rest. Here was my chance to make things right. It's a chance that, lamentably, we all too seldom are granted in life. I was determined to take advantage of it in this case.

A reasonably-sized group of people assembled in pursuit of the same goal. Altogether, I think eight people were there at some point, though two of them were there for only part of one movie, and two more slept through significant stretched of the four films. Another was absent for part of one to drive another home. In reality, that left two of us who were present and awake for all four films, and I think we both may have left the room briefly while movies were running. I was gone only the adjacent kitchen, which I don't think was bad.

It worked out to be a tolerable expenditure of something under seven hours. I find myself feeling that life might well have been complete after all without the three sequels under my belt, but it's too late to go back now. My great criticism is that the sequels particularly don't feel as if they meet the description of a slasher movie, even if one makes allowances on account of them being satire, which I don't. Still, I had a good time and made some friends, so it was a worthwhile experience.