Scream

Rating: 10/10 (17 March 2005)

If you like scary movies, then you'll love this homage to them from director Wes Craven (The Hills Have Eyes (original), A Nightmare on Elm Street). It begins with the great opening with Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) having a phone call from an unknown caller (voiced by Roger Jackson) that grips you with the words "What's your favourite scary movie", and of course "I wanna know who I'm looking at", and ends with her being gutted from the tree swing. Then it moves to the key story in the town of Woodsboro where young Sidney Precott (Neve Campbell) is. A year ago, in a day's time, her mother Maureen was raped and murdered, and after getting a call from the killer herself she is under close watch by her suspicious boyfriend Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), best friend Tatum (Rose McGowan), news reporter Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox Arquette) and young police Deputy Dewey Riley (David Arquette). It soon turns into a curfew as the cops search for the killer, "Ghostface", and the final scenes take place at a house party with more victims taken out, and deadly revelations. Also starring the humorous Jamie Kennedy as Randy, Liev Schreiber as a brief Cotton Weary, Henry Winkler as Principal Arthur Himbry and look out for The Exorcist's Linda Blair and Craven himself. What makes this a great horror film is not only the comedy elements, but the inter-textual references, i.e. the characters talking about horror films, and they are in one. To be honest, I only knew of and wanted to see it because I saw the spoof in Scary Movie before it, and turned out to be a brilliant horror comedy. It was number 22 on The 100 Greatest Scary Moments. Outstanding!