`SCREAM 2' GHASTLY GOOD FOR A SEQUEL.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

It's a sequel.

So, by nature, ``Scream 2'' doesn't have the fresh, sassy charge that last year's slasher movie send-up so smartly displayed.

But with ``Scream's'' writer Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven on board, the new bloodbath is as clever and well-crafted as could reasonably be expected.

And even though it lashes out at sequel stupidity with the same wry, self-satirizing vigor that the first one applied to teen horror movie cliches, the filmmakers have wisely made ``Scream 2'' more of - well, a teen horror movie. This one's primarily concerned with scares, the postmodern chuckles play like afterthoughts, and it delivers a satisfying amount of both.

Commencing with the opening sequence, a finely staged riot of life-reflecting-art gags. Jada Pinkett and Omar Epps play a young college couple attending the premiere of ``Stab,'' a film based on the ``true story'' best seller about the murders that occurred in the first film. The theater is filled with fans wearing those Scream masks and waving plastic daggers. But somebody isn't messing around with wimpy plastic.

The resultant murders freak out the nearby Windsor College community, more so because ``Scream'' survivor Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is a drama major there. Someone is clearly staging a real-life sequel to the previous murders, and just about everyone Sidney knows is suspect.

Is it Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy), the video store nerd of the first film, who's now attending Windsor's cinema school? How about Sidney's hunky new boyfriend Derek (Jerry O'Connell) - after all, her high school sweetheart proved to be homicidal.

When sleazoid TV reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) shows up towing Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber) - the man who was wrongly imprisoned for killing Sidney's mother - they exhibit suspicious behavior, too. So does the inept deputy Dewey Riley (David Arquette), if only because he's still got a crush on the ghastly Weathers.

There's a batch of attractive new meat on display, too, most of which gets filleted by film's end. Craven stages some, um, killer bits along the bloody path: a chase that ends up with the prey trapped in a soundproof recording booth; an escape from a wrecked car that requires crawling over the unconscious killer; a disturbing theater exercise that enables the academic in the director to link horror movie psychology and classic Greek myth.

The jokes are generally well-conceived, too. Whether it's Cotton Weary's determination to cash in on his tragedy, a depressingly believable film-class debate on the merits of sequels or Pinkett's race-based put-downs of the whole cheesy genre, ``Scream 2'' likes its humor as dry as its action is splattery.

So what if we've seen all this before? As anyone involved with this classy piece of horror exploitation will tell you, it's all about the execution.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Scream 2'' (R; violence, language).

The stars: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Jamie Kennedy, Jerry O'Connell, Jada Pinkett, Liev Schreiber, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Laurie Metcalf and Elise Neal.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Wes Craven. Written by Kevin Williamson. Produced by Cathy Konrad and Marianne Maddalena. Released by Dimension Films.

Running time: Two hours.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Three Stars.

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Photo

Photo: With a killer on the loose again in ``Scream 2,'' no one's safe, including Neve Campbell, left, and Courteney Cox.