Scream review
Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. For those who know me you know about my love for horror films so once a month I’m going to review and discuss a scary flick. We’ll look at the classics, some new films, and I want your suggestions on what I should review. I’ll do my best to cover all the different genres within the genre – slashers, ghosts, monsters, etc.
SPOILER ALERT! – These will be reviews so if you haven’t seen the movie you’ll want to watch it first before you read this. Let’s do this.
Scream
The phone rings and a woman answers. Wrong number but the man calls back. They start talking and a little flirting begins, she makes popcorn, and they discuss scary movies. Lighthearted enough until the caller asks her name because he wants to know who he’s looking at. Hmmmm, scary now. Gets better! She finds her boyfriend tied up outside and is told if she can answer a question then he’ll live. He asks a great question – who is the killer in the original Friday the 13th movie? She proudly yells out repeatedly “Jason!, Jason Voorhees!” to which he correctly informs her is wrong. Any really good horror fan knows the answer is his mother Mrs. Voorhees. Boyfriend dies, and then so does she at the hands of a killer we will come to know as Ghostface just as her parents come home but can’t hear her screams as she is brutally murdered and hung up in a tree.
I’ll admit I can’t do this scene justice in a quick recap because honestly, it’s pretty great. It progresses so well from playful as we mentioned into deadly. Tense, excellent pacing, and very well written. If that’s first 12 minutes or so, can the rest of the film deliver? Survey says…yes.
After all that, we move to the rest of the movie. This murder has put a small town on edge as our main character Sidney Prescott prepares to mark the one-year anniversary of the murder of her mother. As the murders continue, they try to decipher who the Ghostface killer is. A curfew is put in place and at a party thrown by one of her friends, the killing ratchets up. A showdown with the unlikely perpetrators is done so uniquely, you must appreciate it even if you don’t like it.
I don’t want to sit and write blow for blows reviews every time and this movie is a good example.
So, what do we think about Scream? I’ll put aside my personal thoughts and just stick to what the reality is. It changed the horror game. That opening scene we mentioned at the beginning is fantastic and does a few things. It showed a major Hollywood star Drew Barrymore in a horror film, she wasn’t scantily clad, and here’s the best part– a lot of the hype for the film involved her being in it and boom!, she’s dead in the first 15 minutes. Very Hitchcockian and so well done. That scene has gone down as one of the better horror opens and maybe just best scenes of all time. Doesn’t stop there though. The film is famous for being self-aware and satirizing itself. The characters interest in the horror genre and recognition of the rules of surviving a horror film are so interesting. The scene where Jamie Kennedy’s character does this speech is very funny. No drinking, no sex, and never say I’ll be right back!
The last act where we find out that Billy and Stu are behind this is intricate and crafted well. Billy needed to kill Sidney’s mom a year ago because her affair with his father wrecked his parents’ marriage. They plan to frame her dad for everything while actually stabbing themselves to feign surviving the ordeal. Sadistic and I love it! It almost works until Courtney Cox’s obnoxious television reporter saves the day. One last great trope as Randy remarks that the killer always gets one last gasp just as Billy does and Sidney shoots him in the head. Since Gale and Sidney both survive, do we have two final girls in this film?!
When Scream hit theaters in December 1996, horror was on a decline (to be clear those are their words and not mine) Kevin Williamson’s script was hot and shopped around until the late, great Wes Craven agreed to direct. Can’t argue with the results. This film succeeded in so many ways. A great script and boy was it cast well. This was not amateur night at all. Well-known actors were in this film including the aforementioned Drew Barrymore, and Courtney Cox who wanted to play a completely different character than her role on Friends. This film also proved to be a huge springboard for a lot of the cast. David Arquette, Rose McGowan, Matthew Lillard, and of course Neve Campbell all became household names. Great cameos from Linda Blair, Henry Winkler, and even Wes Craven as the Freddy Krueger janitor!
This movie is going to be on every great horror film list and regardless of my feeling of the film, deservedly so. Very smart, sharp, and let’s not forget it does have enough violence for the gore fiends out there.
This film is absolutely part of pop culture now in America. Ghostface is now one of the most recognizable villains of all time even to those who have never seen the movie. Pretty sure my parents had a Ghostface flag they hung outside their house when the trick or treaters came. Halloween is one of my favorite films, and I love that it’s the movie they are watching at the party, and it has now become part of another iconic horror film. One of the great lines in this film comes from Sidney’s friend Tatum saying, “You’re starting to sound like a Wes Carpenter flick” Excellent job, Mr. Craven.
Enjoy the trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3J6ACKQ7K0