This Film Rediscovers A Genre.

Rating: 10/10 (6 April 2000)

In the 1980s' the horror film genre took off in a big way. Initial films were followed by sequel after sequel after sequel. This ended up making the genre into a laughing stock, the scares weren't scary the acting was at best 'hammy'. To coin a phrase it all went a 'bit pear shaped'. Upon watching Scream for the first time I set my expectations low, this was an error because this is a truly brilliant film, a masterpiece of horror in its own right.
Wes Craven uses the tired nature of horror flicks to his advantage throughout this carefully plotted film, with constant jibes and references to inferior slasher flicks of the past. Both Craven and Williamson have combined to deliver us a well presented and scary movie that is a thrill a minute from the first Hello to the final fright.
The plot centres around a teenage girl named Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) who is being terrorised through phonecalls and attacks of various sorts from a person in a ghost-type costume. As the film carries on many victims succumbe to nasty ends to the killer, who is trying to make a statement until the time comes for his ultimate and essential victim.
The location for this film is a quaint little middle-class American town. As usual in Hollywoodland, there only seems to be one type of person in these surroundings and they would be White people. The race card is played again by Hollywoods big bosses which doesn't necessarily let the film down, but does rub me up the wrong way somehow. So for me the film loses some of its high status that I'm building for it.
This aside it is a really good film, the best horror for a long while, and streets ahead of the many similar films such as I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Faculty and Urban Legends.
This film does put things right for horror films in many ways and sets them back up alongside any other type of film in the world.
This film will probably go down as a classic. Leave all other horror films alone when making your choice, this is the one you will appreciate the most, a thoroughly good, enjoyable, witty, thrilling and scary film. Nuff said.