Good for what it is

Rating: 6/10 (24 October 2000)

Being a fairly big horror fan I put off seeing this one because I got tired of hearing the "best scary movie ever" chant and knew it couldn't live up to the hype. (Although anything with Barrymore, Cox, Arquette and Campbell is in it's self a scary proposition) As a spoof of slasher films it's pretty good at what it does, the acting isn't all that bad believe it or not and Craven, who's not my favorite, did a fairly good job. The tongue in cheek humour was good and I esp. liked the homage it gives to it's forefathers. Some great background music which probably lends itself to giving away the killer.
On a scary scale however, it rates up there with "The Little Mermaid". Mostly it rehashed all the old slasher modus operandi and if you've seen a Craven film before you can tell when someone is going to get it. No suspense at all and it constantly resorts to the old "Pop Goes the Weasel" jump outs for it's frights. Also, it put out too many red herrings about who the actual killer is for my tastes.
6/10 (because of some good lines and paying respects to Hitchcock but sadly no Phantasm or Romeros) but if you think this is the end-all-be-all of horror watch a few of the movies this one took from.