Something to "Scream" About

Rating: Null/10 (30 July 1999)

Wes Craven's "Scream" is a horror movie with a difference: the characters in it have watched (and know all the cliches of) horror movies. The film was written by Kevin Williamson, whom was paid a rumoredly very large sum for his horror-comedy screenplay called "Scary Movie," and it's easy to see why. On paper, this is a movie with scares and a surprise abundance of laughs and in-jokes; it's a crowd-pleaser and a critic-pleaser as well. Miramax bought it, a famous director was attached to it, and the title was changed. The rest was history.
It tells the story of Sidney (played by Neve Campbell), who begins receiving threatening phone calls from a ghost-masked killer that quickly begins slashing the local teenagers. The movie also stars, among others, David Arquette (as a dim-witted policeman), Courtney Cox (as a nosy reporter), Skeet Ulrich (as The Boyfriend), and Drew Barrymore (as a possible victim).
The plot in "Scream" is definitely pretty standard and plays out just the way we expect it to; it has fun letting us guess who the killer really is. And the standardness of the plot is really more of a tool than a setback. By showing us a typical horror movie plot with a rather typical outcome, screenwriter Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven have come up with a worthy showcase for kids who know all the angles of the movie genre they find themselves in. Rated R. 111 minutes. 8 out of 10.