Self-Reflexivity in Scream

Rating: 7/10 (22 April 2006)

People are into this movie because they appreciate it has an endearing. This movie is, throughout, self-reflexive. This is how it can be self-deprecating in a really endearing way. It still has intrinsic scares; it is not explicitly a movie about moviesit carries the self-reflexive thing just as far as it needs to and uses it in just the right way. The most obvious example of this from the movie is when the guy lays out the rules of a horror movie and predicts what will happen next. When I think of Scream, these are the ideas immediately present in my mind: pure play in fright, the garage door scene, the archetypes, the self-reflexive attitude, epitomized by that one scene in which a character lists aloud the rules of the horror genre.