Scream? Yawn, more like...

Rating: 1/10 (28 October 2000)

I have to say I was seriously underwhelmed by this movie, though possibly more than I would otherwise have been had there not been so much hype about how wonderful it was.
The first sequence with Drew Barrymore was very well done, and would have made a good short film, but the whole "aren't I cool having all the characters in my 'horror' movie talking about horror movies" thing got very old very fast; it was a good idea, but overused to extremes.
However, I was more put off by the "we're making a movie for teenagers so we must make sure we explain everything VERY CLEARLY so everyone knows exactly what's going on" approach to the script: for the first half hour or so it seemed like we'd get a couple of minutes of plot, then an Exposition Break as some character had to explain to some other character exactly why they disliked them, or what their personal problems were, or whatever. Dull, dull, dull.
In the end I gave up and watched the last half on fast forward. Ah, so that's who did it. Well, ho hum.
Shame, I really liked Wes Craven's first 'Nightmare on Elm St' movie and the last half of 'Last House On The Left' is pretty much unforgettable (then again, so is the appalling dialog in the first half!); I think I'll have to watch both of them again to remind myself that he could make good movies once.