clever, funny, scary

Rating: Null/10 (21 June 2001)

I have found this to be one of the most enjoyable films of the nineties. It spawned a shed load of pale imitations (including to some extent it's own sequels), but not one of them came close to reaching this film's giddy heights. The first twenty minutes is an icredibly effective take on the standard slasher fare - Wes Craven shows how brutally efficient and successful he can be at manipulating an audience. In Drew Barrymore's character he presents an instantly identifiable person and shows how easily she gets sucked into flirting, literally, with death. Drew also deserves credit as she makes her brief appearance probably the most memorable of the franchise. After the tension filled opening - an expertly handled 'how to' of slasher pics - the film totally rips apart the whole genre. Lots of people don't remember how funny this film is. For a start, excepting perhaps only Sydney (Neve Campbell) all of the teens featured are so amoral - the instant reaction to news that the headmaster has been killed is to drive out and hurl stuff at his hanged corpse! The relationship between Deputy Dewey (David Arquette) and Gail Weathers (Courtney Cox) is also touchingly sweet but comic. Much has been made of all the self-referential irony, that this is a horror movie about kids who have seen horror movies, and it certainly adds to the fun but I do not feel that it is the main selling point.
The characters in this film are well drawn out, enabling the subtle humour present to surface. On first viewing, guesssing 'who dunnit' also adds to the fun, and both these factors can be attributed to Kevin Williamson's fantastic script, but the whole reason this film clicks is, for my money, Wes Craven himself. This must surely be his most accomplished film to date. The whole tone of the movie feels exactly right - for the most part it is incredibly light-hearted - allowing the characters to interact without stress or pressure, thus being able to emerge as more than pure knife fodder, but when the necessary killings occur they executed with the up most conviction and terror. This film as such simultaneously becomes a perfect example of the genre and a spoof of it at the same time, making films such as 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' (also penned by Williamson) redundant. It is also for this reason that the 'Scary Movie' spoof didn't really work - how do you send up a film that doesn't take itself seriously? 'Scream 2' and 'Scream 3', although very effective slasher movies don't match up to the original because they are just that - straightforward slasher movies. The humour diminishes with each sequel and so lose what made 'Scream' so enjoyable in the first place and what makes it such a treat on repeat viewings. As a trilogy all three hold up as being three of the best slasher movies ever made - but the first 'Scream' is the loudest.