Scream Bloody Laughter

Rating: Null/10 (7 March 2004)

"Do you like scary movies?" asks an exaggeratedly sinister voice over the telephone, and with that, "Scream" is off and running. The bizarre phone conversation between this unnamed voice and Drew Barrymore continues as the caller runs down horror movie clichés. ("I am one second away from calling the police!" says Barrymore as the call takes a threatening turn. "But they never get there in time," the caller responds coolly.) Finally, she is challenged to play a game in which she has to answer trivia questions about horror movies. If she gets them right, she lives. If not, she dies.
Despite the gruesome conclusion that this scene eventually reaches, "Scream" is really more of a camp send-up than anything else. What makes it work better than most spoofs, and helps it to establish at least some amount of suspense, is that the script is never quite aware of itself. It manages to pull this off with the clever premise that the characters, mostly teenagers, are all familiar with the traditions and clichés of horror movies. In the James Bond parody "Austin Powers," for example, the villain purposely engages in the action movie cliché of giving his captives an excessive amount of time to escape. But he doesn't do this because he's been watching James Bond movies; he does it because he's a character in a spoof. "Scream" pushes the envelope a little farther, even going so far as to have one character insist, "But this is real life, this isn't a movie!" while never giving the game away and admitting that it is, in fact, a movie.
The main character in "Scream" is Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a high school student who seems to be the killer's next intended victim after she receives a similar phone call ("The question isn't, 'Who am I?' The question is, 'WHERE . . . AM I?'") but escapes an assault by someone dressed in a creepy "ghost-face" costume with a black robe. Among the suspects are her boyfriend Billy, his friend Stu, local horror film geek Randy, and her father, who has gone missing. The combination works best in the second half of the film, when many of the teenage characters gather at Stu's house for a party and the killer makes an appearance.
Aside from the mystery, "Scream" boasts some moments of deranged comic inspiration to rival many recent comedies. Some of the best lines come from Randy, who is always at hand to offer observations about how the situation parallels that of a particular horror movie (perhaps one of those "Wes Carpenter flicks," as one girl speculates), or, in one of the best scenes, a lecture about the rules that a character must follow to survive a horror movie. (In case you're wondering - never have sex, never drink or do drugs, and never, EVER, under any circumstances, say, "I'll be right back.") Kevin Williamson's script is also smart enough to toss in plenty of humour that is not directly related to slasher films, such as the weird dialogue between two characters on a Romantic Evening Walk. ("Do you know what constellation that is up there?" "No, which one?" "I don't know, that's why I was asking you.")
The only problem with `Scream' is that director Wes Craven, a horror veteran, seems to want this to be scarier than it actually is. A few of the killer's attacks, especially the murder of Barrymore's character, make for genuine suspense and some real shocks, but most are surrounded by so much tongue-in-cheek dialogue that I was too busy laughing to be scared by anything. There is some general suspense of the `who-will-live and who-will-die' variety, but no more so than in any action thriller and certainly none of the cold-blooded fear that horror movies are supposed to inspire.
There has been a lot of talk about "Scream" as a landmark for the horror genre, but other than a few scenes and Craven's name in the credits, there really isn't that much to qualify it as a horror movie - at least not an especially good one, in any case. Fortunately, there's enough campy humour for it to earn a well-deserved place as a cult classic, and one that will be a film buff's favourite for years to come.
Verdict - Clever, funny and intermittently scary, the mother of all camp horror movies is a real gem. Filled with real atmosphere and genuine tension, this is a must see, but it is instantly disposable.