It's not exactly a scream.

Rating: Null/10 (15 December 2000)

Scream is a pretty general teen flick, that has some thinking put into it but not a whole lot. I don't care if this movie is a bit scary or isn't at all. (Along with most people, I agree that this wasn't at all frightening.) Instead of wanting to be scared out of my seat, I examine the different parts of the film, and specifically the plot and/or script.
This film is quite entertaining and since I can manage through it more than five times, it must be okay. The plot and story that is created is clever but sort of a let down. When we find out who the killers are and what their motives were for going on a killing spree, it kind of leaves you with a thought of "that's it?" The idea works but if it would have been changed, it might have worked better.
The characters and actors involved are good and fit the roles very nicely. Being not much of a Neve Campbell fan, I think that this is one of the areas they could have made a lot of improvements on. This is strictly my opinion, so just skip ahead if you don't care. Campbell does not strike me as the "scream queen" type, but obviously the casting department disagrees. Having to watch her act like she can...act, for almost two hours is torture. If they would have gotten anybody else to play the role of Sydney, I might have enjoyed the movie more. David Arquette, Courteney Cox Arquette, Matthew Lillard, Skeet Ulrich, and everybody else gives good performances.

The writing is a little cheapo and bland, but it still pulls it off. It lacks creativity, but does have some humorous moments. (Which was a must.) A few, well, a lot of lines were poorly written and maybe they could have used some different writers. Considering that this is a slasher/horror film, I'm not looking for some intelligent and greatly worded lines. But at least try to put some thinking into it. This doesn't fall under the writing category but I want to point this out. Another problem and something that I found very irritating was the numerous amount of goofs,bloopers, blunders, call it what you will. Simple and huge things were ruined and that just shows that a couple of people weren't doing their job.
So, I can watch Scream now and again, but this is far from a well organized film. If anybody wants to see a simple and easy-to-follow movie, this one is for you.