Wes Craven's knowing slasher movie

Rating: 8/10 (8 November 2016)

As this film opens a teenager played by Drew Barrymore is alone at her home when the phone rings; at first it looks like a wrong number but the caller keeps calling and starts to threaten her. He starts asking her questions about well-known horror movies before we see the masked killer murdering her. The next day everybody at her school is talking about the murder; the film concentrates on Sidney Prescott, a girl whose mother was murdered a year previously; her boyfriend Billy Loomis; and their friends Tatum Riley and Stu Macher. It isn't long before the killer starts targeting Sidney; early suspicion falls on Billy but another attack while he is in police custody leads to his release. The friends talk about the events as though they are the plot to a horror movie like 'Halloween' and 'Friday the 13th' and somewhat inevitably the ongoing murders follow the 'rules' established by such films.
By the time 'Scream' was released in 1996 it seemed that the slasher genre had long past its peak but this brought it back into vogue this time with a more knowing slant. The opening was a great hook; Drew Barrymore was well enough known for the viewer to assume that she was going to be playing the protagonist of course by now there can be few viewers don't know what happens to her; even so the opening is impressively scary. The way the film plays with the genre is a lot of fun as it turns clichés into 'rules'. There are plenty of possible suspects for the person behind the creepy mask including Sidney's friends and even her father who is meant to be away on business but can't be contacted; the eventually revelation includes a twist that I won't spoil. Throughout the film there are plenty of scares and a good sense of threat; there are also plenty of gruesome deaths. The cast is pretty good; especially Neve Campbell, as Sidney; Courteney Cox, as tabloid TV journalist Gal Weathers, and David Arquette, as out of his depth Deputy Dewey Riley. Overall this is a fine film if you are looking for plenty of scares, some decent laughs and plenty on knowing references to earlier horror films.