Scream (1996)

**Scream was the first of its kind that redefined horror with new rules, a meta plot, and rebellious unexpected twists.**

Scream followed all the rules and simultaneously broke them in a brilliant self-aware genre reinvention that leveraged every horror movie trope to set up and subvert every expectation. Scream is a love ballad to horror movie fans that intimately knows and zealously honors the legacy of terror-filled films that came before while creating something new, innovative, bold, and surprising. Scream’s dark humor and admiration of overused horror plot points resulted in one of the first meta films in history. Characters know they are living a real-life horror film and yet make dumb and predictable horror movie decisions tricking the viewers into a sort of safety before breaking all the rules and surprising with unexpected twists and turns. Scream was the first of its kind and welcomed a whole new horror sub-genre and a movie franchise that still has no end in sight over 25 years later.

**_Scream delivered a breath of fresh air into the slasher franchise and holds up rather well nearly 30 years later._**

The plot of this film follows a cookie-cutter structure that models nearly all of the great slasher franchises of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but that is entirely the point. Scream is completely aware of the tropes of horror movies and utilizes them in a creative way by adding commentary and subtle comedy delivered by the characters throughout the film. It is not a full-fledged comedy by any means; there is no forced humor or jokes, but it is more of a dark comedy that pokes fun at itself in the background.

The performances from our main cast were great. Neve Campbell delivers an excellent badass performance and is the perfect lead for the franchise. She is capable of fighting back in a brutal way and rivals Laurie Stroud from Halloween as my favorite final girl of all time. Courtney Cox was quite good as well; she had limited screen time but was able to really make the most of it. David Arquette was okay; he did not blow me away by any means, and he is quite replaceable in my opinion. Matthew Lillard was my favorite of the film; his performance was over the top and quite mentally deranged, which worked really well. Skeet Ulrich was also quite good, but took a backseat to Lillard in my opinion.

The direction of this film was great. Wes Craven did an excellent job delivering unique shots and utilizing the camera angle and height quite well. I do think this movie needs a little more gore and violence for it being a slasher film. There was really only one kill that was quite memorable to me. For it being a homage and critique of the slasher genre, it was lacking quite a bit in the slash department. In addition, the runtime felt a bit bloated, and I think if this was cut down to maybe ten minutes, the viewing experience would have been better.

Overall, I do think this movie is slightly overrated, but it is still a great film and worthy of its praise (for the most part).

**Score:** _79%_ |
**Verdict:** _Great_

Now let's be honest. Who didn't guess right from the outset what was going on in the sleepy Californian town of "Woodsboro"? Perhaps I'd just watched too many editions of "Scooby Do" as a child to be left in the dark for very long, but it's really the execution of this darkly comedic horror that made it an enjoyable watch. Drew Barrymore valiantly steps up to the plate as the opening "Casey" who rather unwillingly introduces us to the menacing "Ghost Face" whilst reminding us of a few "Janet & John" tips on how not to react when you get a series of creepy phone calls from a person who sounds very much like Jack Nicholson. Thereafter attention swings to "Sydney" (Neve Campbell) who has remained in the place after the brutal murder of her mother exactly one year earlier and who appears to be next in line... Luckily for her, she has her hunky boyfriend "Billy" (Skeet Ulrich); local Deputy "Dewey" (David Arquette) and soon feisty journalist "Gale" (Courteney Cox) all on the case so surely she is bound to be fine? Except, well it quickly becomes clear that this isn't a town where trust is abundant and so the criminal could be just about anyone. Now I can't lie: Matthew Lillard is probably one of the most irritating men ever to step in front of a camera, but here even he manages to contribute quite well to a slasher-horror that pays a little homage to a few of those gone by - I hope Jamie Lee Curtis got her fee; but that also blazes quite an innovative trail of it's own. It hits the ground running and rarely stops for breath as it overdoses on the ketchup; the stupid decisions and hysterics all whilst taking a ping at the vacuousness of both the headline-grabbing local media and the whole sex-obsessed fraternity culture. Campbell and latterly Cox deliver something just a bit different, and pithy, to the mix and the gory pace of the film carries it along for a couple of hours that seems to want to respect the genre a little more than just to subsume us all in a more typical, blandly written, video-effects feast that so often robs any story of much of it's menace. I felt a bit sorry for poor old "Steve" though.