Scream

Scream (1996)

After an opening sequence where a teenage girl is terrorized and killed by the ghost-faced killer we get to the main story of Scream. Sidney is having a rough time. The 1-year anniversary of her mother’s death is coming up soon and suddenly a maniac in a mask is terrorizing her. As the bodies pile up the police are at a loss as to how to stop the killing. When they enforce a curfew it only means that the horny teenagers plan a party where they drink, mess around, and watch horror movies! When the killer also shows up though things get real. Will Sidney and her friends survive the night? Who is the killer and why is he or she so homicidal? Watch and find out.

You know I’m going to have to change my mind on this one. When I first saw Scream I really didn’t like it that much. In fact I hated it! I felt that it was a smarmy attack on the genre by a director (Wes Craven) that built his reputation on horror. I mean you have all the in jokes with the janitor being Fred Krueger and the talking of the “rules”. It just always bugged me. But now after having watched the movie again on Blu-Ray I sort of liked it. No actually there is no sort of here I really liked it.

The story is entertaining and paced well. The kills are spread evenly throughout the movie and there are some good jump scares. These are both must haves for a good horror flick. Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson do a great job making us like the characters so that when they are put in danger we as an audience care. This makes the movie work. I mean if this were nothing more then a generic meat grinder of good-looking young actors from the WB who would care. And that is why most of the movies that followed Scream were so damn awful… Just saying. Speaking of the characters Randy, who spends the duration telling everyone about the rules of a horror movie, used to bug the hell out of me. Not sure why, but now he is my favorite character.

Again I’m not sure why I disliked Scream so much when it was new. That said I was disappointed in a couple of things that the movie lacked. This is basically a slasher movie so when we didn’t get any nudity I was sort of shocked. I mean this was a rated R movie so it wasn’t unreasonable to have expectations. Also the gore in this one is almost non-existent. After a good bit with Drew Barrymore letting it all hang out (again talking about the gore…) we don’t have much else going on. So in that way Scream fails as a slasher movie.

Here is my big realization about what I just said. I think that I really get it now that Scream isn’t supposed to be a slasher movie. It is a clever take on the horror genre that is gently poking at our expectations as an audience. That might seem obvious to everyone else but I had thought I was getting an entirely different movie. If you haven’t seen Scream or maybe like me didn’t dig it at all the 1st time around then let me encourage you to take another look. I think you might like it more.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer