By Jason Haskins
Remember all of those crappy slasher movies of the nineties? Urban Legend? I Know What You Did Last Summer? Valentine? Amongst many horrible others, mind you. Well, you can be sure to thank Wes Craven for ushering in the new era of slasher films in the nineties with his 1996 classic, Scream.
Craven's no stranger to the genre, having reinvigorated it a decade earlier with A Nightmare on Elm Street, which introduced us to a new boogeyman--one who could slay us in our dreams. With Scream, he again brought a new breed of killer--one who toyed with the victims and was well aware of all the horror conventions because of the popularity of the genre.
Drew Barrymore gets offed in the first ten minutes, which not only shocks the audience because of how graphic and depraved, but also because she was a big star at the time. The scene is creepy, with a game of call and harass, stalk and trespass, and gut right outside the house, Scream starts with a hoot.
Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is still reeling after the death of her mother and the reputation that followed, but she didn't know what was in store for her when she starts getting threatening phone calls from a killer who's motive is not yet known. On top of that, she's having sexual trouble with her boyfriend. Now, her and her friends must survive this terrible game that the killer is playing. An obsessed horror movie fanatic might just be the end of their teenage lives.
As the movie progresses you get to know some of Sidney's peers and they've seen become classic characters not only because of the latter three sequels, but because they were creatively designed to incorporate all of the things we've known to identify with the genre.
One of the funniest character is Randy (played by Jamie Kennedy) who's a video store clerk and suspect in the murders himself, as he is in touch with the stereotypes of horror movies and helps Scream become a self-aware meta-flick for us to giggle along with when we're not being entertained by the death and mayhem.
Kevin Williamson's script is on the ball for a lot of reasons- not just creating an awesome atmosphere for these teens to thrive in--in between being murdered--but a fantastic idea altogether. Granted, I will say that the movie fails to measure up to the greatness that's captured in the first onscreen kill, but it does a terrific job trying to capture it again--and the movie is still really unsettling at moments because of the killer's balls and insanity.
There are some moments I thought were bad calls such as the killer randomly showing up at the super market and in the bathroom at Sidney's school, which were obviously added for dramatic effect and to keep the movie working in between the big opening and the awesome finale, but they dragged down the plausibility quite a bit. Other than that everything works so well in this movie. Craven gives you characters to care about and seeing them die sucks quite a bit. He did a fantastic job of creating suspense even when the killer is onscreen, which I think is amazing.
I've watched this movie more times than I'd care to admit and each time I have such a good time with it. There's a dazzling array of fun and interesting characters from Dewey (the deputy of the town played by David Arquette) to Gail Weathers (Courtney Cox plays the despicable television journalist who Sidney has a beef with) and I just love everything these guys did to re-examine a genre that had become more than stagnant up to this time period. If you haven't seen this yet, wake up and smell the millennium, baby!
5 out of 5 stars
© Jason Haskins, 2011
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