Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit...

Rating: Null/10 (18 November 1998)

I nearly had to force myself to sit through this. This film is an insult to the intelligence, and the fact that so many people fell for it disturbs me more than anything in the film. This film just grabs every cliche of the genre and runs with it, but insists on giving us a knowing wink all the time as if just because it knows it's bad, that that somehow makes it great.
Well here's a brain storm, the old films it's "spoofing" knew they were bad to, duh. There's a line in the movie something like (I didn't write it down):"Those old horror movies just have some bad actress with big tits running up the stairs when she should be running out the door". This is shortly followed by a bad actress (Neve Campbell) with big tits running up the stairs when she should be running out the door. I mean yes, ha ha, but this is pretty straightforward sarcastic stuff. Was this film written by a 15 year old? That's what this film is full of, quick forgettable laughs. The film had a few good sadistic splatter laughs too (the opening scene, the garage door) but they were too few and far between. In between we put up with the banal going's on of a bunch of loathsome teens played by 20 something actors. I felt like I was watching Beverly Hills 90210.
The acting by b-grade TV actors/actresses (which makes them d or e grade film actors) was extremely ordinary. You've got to have questions about any film where Courtney Cox gives the stand-out performance. I see a lot of you other commenters (bless your little souls) have praised Barrymore and Campbell. Um....have you not seen any other films. I imagine if top actresses, the likes of Meryl Streep or Michelle Pfeiffer ever lowered themselves to this type of film and you could compare, then you might think differently about Barrymore and Campbell.
I was not scared once in this film. Any chance of scares was ruined because they played everything for laughs. I think that the word "horror" is misused when describing these types of films. This can hardly be called a horror film, it's a slasher film. True horror is felt when watching films such as Silence of the Lambs, Seven, or classics like Psycho.
Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, it'll do if you can't think of anything else quickly, it looks like Williamson couldn't think of anything else with Scream. Instead of telling a good story or building strong characters, Scream spends its running time smart-assing around. Well the jokes on the audience who think that this is clever. Mr Williamson and Mr Craven are laughing all the way to the bank.