Great Horror Send Up!

Rating: 8/10 (22 March 2017)

A masked killer called Ghostface stalks Neve Campbell and her teen friends- this is all you need as a lead in to Scream. It's a great send up to an otherwise tired and overworked genre full of good humor and self awareness. Without giving away too much, one character figures out early that they're being disposed of by the well established slasher movie rules.
Neve Campbell is perfect as the classic, sexually repressed victim/heroine. Skeet Ulrich probably has the best part in this, channeling James Dean as Campbell's boyfriend. Good writing and good plot twists raise this above the usual by-the-numbers body count flick where you walk out wondering how you spent two hours of your life on it.
In your standard issue slasher movie, your supporting cast is usually made up of poorly defined, soon to be slaughtered characters. Scream couldn't do without its supporting cast. Courtney Cox and David Arquette are particularly good. You'll also see Matt Lillard, Drew Barrymore and Jamie Kennedy in good parts. Look for Linda Blair and Henry Winkler in walk-on parts as well.
While there's a good level of slasher movie violence, most of this movie is pretty watchable. So, watch Scream if you haven't already. Just like the killer- you don't even need a motive.