Scream - Review

Do you remember when Scream first came out back in 1996? It was a big deal movie, a self-aware teen slasher flick... half parody and half legitimate horror film. Plus, it was directed by genre legend Wes Craven, the filmmaker behind hits including The Hills Have Eyes and A Nightmare On Elm Street. Critics loved it, fans ate it up, and the film spawned two sequels (soon to be one more) and a stream of similar teen slasher comedies. I was very young at the time of its release (9 or 10), so I didn't see it until my teen years. But by that time, I became a horror fanatic, and was really looking forward to watching this movie... and then the disappointment began. Scream is easily one of the most overrated movies I've ever seen!

The movies takes place in the small town of Woodsboro, California, which is currently being plagued by a series of murders. The killer is an unknown individual simply known as Ghostface. He wears a common Halloween costume and stalks his victims before he murders them. His main gimmick though... he's a scary movie buff. Before he goes in for the kill, he calls his victims and asks them "What's your favorite scary movie?" Ghostface's main sights, however, are set on the young Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell)... a high school senior whose mother was murdered one year earlier. So now, there's a killer on the loose, few clues are left behind, and everybody is a suspect...

I will admit, the concept behind Scream is actually pretty clever... a slasher flick that makes fun of other slasher flicks. I normally love intentional send-ups, and I do enjoy horror movies, so this seemed like a great concept. Not to mention, the idea behind the killer is kind of intriguing too. Not so much the "What's your favorite scary movie?" concept (so gimmicky), but the idea of him wearing the common Ghostface costume makes his identity truly ambiguous. Plus, I have to give Scream credit for giving recognition to the classic slasher flicks that inspired it. The way it lists the cliches and pokes fun at them has its moments, and Scream definitely had a hand in defining the modern perception of the slasher genre. Unfortunately, Scream ultimately kills its decent ideas (no pun intended) with poor execution (again, no pun intended).

Here's the thing the bugs me about Scream, nothing feels particularly authentic. That's not uncommon for a horror movie, especially those that are spoofing the genre. Scream, however, goes for realism and favors believability. Ultimately, it fails to pull that off. The characters aren't believable, the script feels contrived, and the dialogue is laughably bad. Plus, aside from the famous opening scene, nothing is particularly memorable about it.

The actors... they're pretty miscast. You have Neve Campbell, Drew Barrymore, Mathew Lillard, Jamie Kennedy and others all playing high school students. First problem... NONE OF THEM LOOK LIKE TEENAGERS!!! Again, not particularly uncommon for the genre, but when you're going for realism, it kills the effect. On top of that, most of their deliveries are totally over-the-top. No performance is believable enough to work with the concept. Granted some aren't horrible, on average slightly better than the typical slasher. But still, they don't really work. You also have Courtney Cox, David Arquette, and even The Fonz... erm, Henry Winkler in various supporting roles. Granted, their acting is slightly more enjoyable than the so-called "teens" but their characters just aren't engaging enough to justify the lack of enjoyment from the others. It doesn't help that the dialogue in this movie is just painful. Not one word sounds natural, and every line spoken feels unbelievably forced. I get that its a satire, but having a character constantly making glib comments on how the movie's events resemble a horror cliche just gets annoying. What a waste of a promising concept!

Of course, for any slasher flick, the main question is usually how well it delivers on the horror front. Well, I will say that the opening is pretty enjoyable. Its easy to see why it was referenced and parodied many times throughout the 90s. In the scene, Drew Barrymore's character gets a call from the killer while she is at home by herself. I won't spoil it, but I will say that it was a pretty enjoyable and creepy scene... and does set up the movie quite well. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie goes downhill. Aside from a couple of adequately memorable kills, Craven went for a more semi-minimalist approach. Its adequately bloody, but the lack of any extreme gore that could have made up for the weak story is sorely missed. Again, the failed approach at realism just didn't work for this kind of movie.

So yeah, Scream is easily one of the most overrated movies I've ever seen! It had some good ideas for the time, but it doesn't deliver on what it promises. Its a mediocre horror film and a mediocre satire, nothing more than that.

My Score: 2 out of 5!