Deep Dive Disney: Wes Looks at The Scream Team

It’s October everybody, which means the Halloween season is well and truly upon us. While last year I only had one Halloween special, and those who aren’t subscribed to my Patreon didn’t even get to read it, this year, I’m going all out with a whomping seven Halloween themed articles, some Disney related, some not so much. In any case, today on Deep Dive Disney, we will be looking at our first Disney Channel Original Movie, or DCOM as they're sometimes called. If you want to argue semantics, we did previously discuss the Descendants trilogy, but those articles were re-imaginings as opposed to our more traditional deep dives. In any case, today’s outing is a fun little ghost story from 2002 called The Scream Team. Despite a lot of these DCOM’s having budgets that the people who made Mighty Morphin Power Rangers would make fun of, this one actually boasts a surprising amount of solid talent in the cast, including names like Eric Idle, Tommy Davidson, Kathy Najimy and, interestingly enough, a very young Kat Dennings. So what’s our story here? Well, The Scream Team takes us to the rural New England town of Steeple Falls, where Ian Carlyle and his family are in town for their grandfather’s funeral. While staying in Grandpa Frank’s old house, Ian starts believing that his grandfather’s ghost is trying to contact him. Ian’s ghost investigation leads him and his sister Claire to discover that Steeple Falls is home to a sort of celestial way station where recently deceased spirits cross over into the next world. Running this little operation are a team of ghosts sentenced to community service before they can cross over who refer to themselves as… well… not the The Scream Team, but we’ll get into that a little later. The point is, the it’s fortuitous that these kids have run into these ghosts because after Grandpa Franks’ soul is captured by the vengeful spirit of Zachariah Kull, alleged pyromaniac and local town folk legend, the kids are going to need all the help they can get to save their grandpa and prevent the town from being turned into a smoldering pile of ash. It's not exactly high art, but it’s a perfectly charming film. Let’s take a look at The Scream Team.

Main Character:

There’s not a whole heck of a lot to say about Ian and Claire. As far as child actors go, they’re perfectly fine and we know at least one of them would go on to have a somewhat respectable career after this. Claire is basically the snarky sibling who spouts off one liners, which is pretty much what Kat Dennings has been doing with her career ever since. Still, I appreciate that Claire’s a lot less stubborn and single-minded than her younger brother. While Ian is fixated on stopping Zachariah and saving his grandfather, Claire tries to find different new angle to solve the problem and ultimately ends up saving the day. As for Ian, he was hit very hard by the loss of his grandfather, having always felt closer to him than he did to his own dad, more on that when we discuss Ian and Claire’s father. Ian is definitely more willing to believe in the supernatural than his family and is really excited by the idea of solving a mystery to save his grandpa. He’s not exactly the most developed character, but he’s perfectly serviceable for this sort of movie.

Villain:

According to legend, in the 1700’s, Zachariah Kull lived in Steeple Falls with his wife in a cabin on a hill. Zachariah was obsessed with fire, with some saying that he would spend hours just staring at it. So the legend goes, one night, his wife Rebecca tried to leave him and in retaliation he burned the cabin to the ground, killing her in the process. For his crimes, Zachariah was burned at the stake without trial. Later that night, the local church burned down, with many believing the ghost of Zachariah to be responsible. Centuries later, Zachariah became something of a folk legend in the town of Steeple Falls, with local asshole Warner McDonald running an annual festival dedicated to the legendary fire starter. Personally, I think profiting off the memory of a dude who killed people is more than a little fucked up, but I don’t think Warner cares. Zachariah himself is a pretty intimidating customer, standing larger than life, engulfed in flames and looking like a cross between Dracula and Slash. He would be a legitimately scary presence in the film, if it weren’t for, no exaggeration, the WORST fire effects I have ever seen in my life. I get that these DCOMs were made with almost no budget, but come on, these graphics would be laughed out of a Nintendo 64 game. In any case, the reason Zachariah abducts Grandpa Frank, as well as several other wayward souls who weren’t ready to cross over to the other side, is because he’s using their life force to power himself up so he can finally take his revenge on the town. However, later in the film we learn that Zachariah isn’t actually evil. Vengeful certainly, but he’s not actually the pyromaniac boogeyman the town has believed him to be all these years. In reality, Zachariah Kull was a man of science, a visionary inventor who found a way to harness the power of natural gas decades before anyone else. Unfortunately, since many of his experiments resulted in things catching on fire, the ignorant townsfolk thought of him as a fire-obsessed madman or a practitioner of the dark arts and treated him as such. As the film puts it, he was different, and people fear what is different. And not for nothing, the fact that Zachariah speaks with a thick Irish accent probably wasn’t helping his case given how the Irish were viewed in those days. The fire that burned down his cabin and killed his wife was just a tragic accident, but the people didn’t see it that way and burned an innocent man at the stake without a trial. Frankly, given the circumstances, I can understand why old Zachariah is more than a little pissed off at the town of Steeple falls. Not only was he burned alive for a crime he didn’t commit, but now, the town is holding an annual festival that celebrates the death of his beloved wife. Shit, if I were Zachariah, I’d want to burn the place down on principal too. Warner McDonald actually knew the truth about Zachariah, but kept it to himself because a festival dedicated to crazed pyromaniac is apparently more marketable than one dedicated to a misunderstood scientist who was burned for a crime he didn’t commit. Zachariah wants nothing more than to join his beloved Rebecca in the next world, but he cannot cross over until he feels that Justice has been done. Zachariah feels that this means burning down Steeple Falls, but Claire actually ends up saving the day by posthumously clearing Zachariah’s name, allowing Zachariah’s vengeful spirit to finally rest.

Side Characters:

Okay, before we go any further, I need to address something. No way in hell was The Scream Team the original title of this movie. How do I know, because the name “Scream Team” is never used once in the movie. Oh, there is a team of ghosts in the film, but they’re not called The Scream Team, they are, in fact, called, The Soul Patrol, which, incidentally, is a much better title for the film. I can’t for the life of me imagine why they changed it. Best guess, some obscure funk band from the 70’s that happened to be called The Soul Patrol threatened a lawsuit, and by that point, it was too late to change any of the dialogue. In any case, let’s talk about the members of the Soul Patrol. First up is Jumper, the ghost of a guy who died jumping out of a plane whose job it is to track down wayward souls. Of the three main ghosts, Jumper is the quickest to befriend Ian and Claire. He spends most of his screen time cracking cringeworthy one liners or pranking Ian with fake high-fives. He gets a little annoying, but he doesn’t outstay his welcome since he gets captured by Zachariah half way through.

Running the show is Mariah, played by the very funny Kathy Najimy. Mariah hates her job but still takes it very seriously and anything that might cause her time on earth to be extended causes her to stress out like crazy. Kathy Najimy is a brilliant comedic actress and while she doesn’t get a ton of screen time here, she still manages to get a lot of laughs.

Rounding out the soul patrol is Jumper’s Partner, Coffin Ed, played by Monty Python’s own Eric Idle. Eric Idle is a really funny guy, but a lot of the projects he appears in can best be described as “At least it’s a Paycheck.” I’d say that this film falls into that category, but Eric Idle still manages to get more than a few genuine laughs in this film. Ed has been with the Soul Patrol for over two hundred and fifty years and he has long since stopped giving a shit. You’d think after spending time with the kids he’d form some kind of bond with them, but no, not really. He honestly doesn’t give a fuck about these kids, bailing on them anytime things get hairy and frankly, it’s more than a little hilarious.

I’d like to finish off this section by discussing Richard, Ian and Claire’s dad. I don’t know who this actor is, but hats off to the guy, he puts way more effort into this performance than you’d think would be called for in a DCOM. You get the sense that Richard didn’t really have a great relationship with his dad now that he’s gone, he regrets that they never were able to reconcile. What’s so great about this is that very little of this needs to spelled out for the audience. All we get are some subtle looks and a few lines of dialogue and we get the whole picture. I’m honestly surprised that this much effort was put into a performance that didn’t require it, but I’m not exactly complaining about it.

Memorable Scenes:

There are a few memorable moments throughout this movie. My favorites being any time Ed bails on the kids and leaves them to get picked up by the cops. I don’t know why, but how much Ed just doesn’t give a fuck about these kids cracks me up.

There’s also this really fun scene when the kids confront Zachariah and this time, Mariah gets involved and she actually proves herself to be kind of a badass, easily no selling Zachariah’s fire attacks. I just thought that was really cool.

However, my favorite moment in the film comes right at the beginning. We see Grandpa Frank and the kids working on Grandpa’s automatic pumpkin carver and having a great time, but then, we zoom out and discover that this actually some home movies that the kids are watching during their grandfather’s funeral. As many of you may know, around this time last year, I experienced the loss of someone very close to me, so that numbness and pain that Ian is feeling, that hit close to home for me.

Story:

As we discussed in the previous section, this movie deals heavily with the theme of loss as well as unfinished business. The movie opens with this family mourning the loss of Grandpa Frank and each experiences it differently. We get the sense that Richard and Grandpa Frank were very different people and that made it difficult for them to relate to one another, and unfortunately, history seems to be repeating itself with Richard and Ian. These two clearly love one another, but they struggle to find common ground. For most of the movie, we believe that Grandpa Frank’s unfinished business is to help expose the truth about Zachariah, and while that was certainly something that needed to be done in order to save the town, really, all Grandpa wanted was to spend a few more hours with his son and tell him how proud he was of him. Sure, Richard didn’t follow in his dads footsteps, becoming a doctor instead of an inventor who ran the local hardware store, but he’s used his skills to help a lot of people and has raised two great kids. What decent father wouldn’t be proud of that.

The Dark Disney Factor:

Well, this is a ghost story, and while nothing in this crosses over into the territory of full blown horror, there are plenty of spooky things going on here. As I said, Zachariah Kull is a pretty scary customer, provided you can get past the horrendous special effects. It’s especially creepy when we find his lair down in an abandoned mine shaft and see the souls he’s captured as terrifying faces sticking out of rocks.

Final Thoughts:

And that was The Scream Team. Was it perfect, no. Honestly, I wouldn't say it was all that great, but it was fun, charming and definitely a cut above your average DCOM. Next up, our Halloween celebration continues with the long awaited return of Deep Dive DC as we look at the Dark Knight taking on his deadliest foe yet, the legendary Count Dracula. See you next time.