Great opening . . . then I fell asleep

Rating: 3/10 (20 April 2010)

Amazing. I honestly don't know how Wes Craven does it. He takes another genuinely interesting premise and absolutely slaughters it on screen - and I'm not referring to the body count here.
The opening ten minutes are admittedly great. Drew Barrymore reaching for the phone, only to find herself in conversation with a stalker is inspired. What a pity then about the rest of the film.
Back in the mists of time when horror movies used to scare people - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Omen, Psycho - Scream would probably have passed without notice. But since The Evil Dead, it seems you don't have to scare people anymore, you simply have to amuse them.
Quite honestly, I don't care about Jason's mum, nor about Jason, nor about who was hiding behind the curtain with a machete in their hand and wearing a stocking over their head halfway through Prom Night III.
The genre of horror lost its teeth some time ago. Just occasionally a modern day classic will rear its head. If you want to see real true horror, watch Wolf Creek from about 2005.
For those of a less demanding taste watch this drivel, masquerading as a horror film and stuffed full of characters straight out of any number of American sitcoms. Which brings me back to my earlier point: how does Wes Craven manage to slaughter so many genuinely good ideas?
I recently saw his New Nightmare aka Nightmare On Elm Street Part 7, and it was virtually identical to Scream. The same sets, the same characters, the same supposed shocks you can see coming from a mile off. The only difference of course was in place of the tiresome Freddy, we have some tiresome bloke in a mask waving a fake knife.
Fake just about sums it up.