Title: Scream
Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Kevin Williamson
Release Date: Dec. 20th, 1996
Cast: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Skeet Ulrich, Jamie Kennedy
Scream Cliff’s Notes
After watching one to many scary movies, a masked killer cries havoc and lets slip the dogs of slasher movie war. Teenagers in their twenties don’t make it.
Lecture
The industry impact of Scream can’t be understated. After its release, studios and independent producers alike rushed to copy its success. It’s easy to see why; Scream offers almost everything: a groovy killer; developed layered characters portrayed by quality actors; a bidding-war inducing script; and a master horror director. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it has to be good. Luckily for us, it is good. It’s so good…
Scream makes its money (so much money) by hitting a bull’s-eye in three separate areas. It is, first and foremost, a slasher flick. Upon the first viewing, Scream’s roller coaster structure and intense chase scenes reek of the very best of horror – the terrifying Roger Jackson phone calls are some of the creepiest around while the chase scenes have a shot adrenaline in them not seen since Psycho’s shower scene- and create the new millennium’s go-to horror flick.
But where Scream deviates from the slasher structure is where it is even more efficient. This is a slasher flick where the characters have seen slasher flicks, allowing Scream to both deconstruct and replay events from countless other films. Not just satisfied with retracing events from slashers, Scream also viciously increases the intensity of the replay, making it seem almost common place.
“Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door. It’s insulting,” Sydney chides the killer, moments before he jumps from a closet, blockades the front door, and chases her up the stairs.
Lastly, Scream embraces the nostalgia that the audience shares in regards to the slasher. Woodsburo is so inviting and the characters so engaging that it’s hard not to long back towards the collective youth of the horror film.
Nowhere in Scream’s self-referential streak is this more obvious then, while watching the genre fave Halloween, Jamie Kennedy tells an on screen Jamie Lee Curtis to “Look behind you, Jamie.” Just as the Ghostfaced killer lurks behind him. It’s a startlingly accurate scene, on that is playing out in the mind of the viewer as it happens before them. But, while Scream is lovingly tossing slasher tropes left, right, and center, it never forgets why the audience is there. This is a horror flick in the highest form.
Acting
Things here are pretty much excellent. The supporting cast is very strong, with Arquette, Ulrich, Cox, McGowan, and Lillard playing their parts with aplomb. Meanwhile, Jamie Kennedy has all of the best lines and had me in stitches. But this flick belongs to Neve Campbell and she comes through like a champ. Playing a final girl’s final girl, she owns just about every scene she’s in.
Directing
Craven again gives a decade’s worth of panache to his film. Scream is stylishly shot, with crazy angles and vivid colors. What’s more, Craven’s sense of timing, for both horror and humor, is fantastic. His set-ups give stylish nods to the slasher films of yesteryear, while the events are purely modern. There is plenty of debate as to which film is his best; but for my money, Scream is the high-watermark of one of the genre greats.
Script
Kevin Williamson zeros in on the tropes of slasher cinema with razor focus. Every scene, every bit of dialogue is laced with a knowing witticism about the horror mythos; scenes and events seem to play in upon themselves, being both referential and original. It’s like hardcore.
Effects
Scream is fully loaded with gun shots, stabbings, a vicious disemboweling, and the world’s best use of a doggie door.
Highlights
While I could mention the above Jamie Lee Curtis/Jamie Kennedy bit, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the first eight minutes of this flick. Some of the best in horror cinema.
Lowlights
This isn’t so much a nitpick of Scream, but of the whole slasher boom of the late 90s. There’s no way that Mathew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich are teenagers (in the real world, they actually have a year on Arquette). In fact, the whole cast seems prematurely aged with the exception of Cox and Arquette, who are supposed to have seven (!) years on their cohorts.
Final Thoughts
The quintessential horror flick of the 90s, Scream holds up surprisingly well as one of the genre greats.
Grade: A-