Pretty good, but very overrated

Rating: 9/10 (27 September 2004)

'Scream' is at once a great horror movie and also one of the most hated films in the genre.
**SPOILERS**
A young teenager (Drew Barrymore) is viciously slaughtered, and shakes up her high-school. A group of friends, Sidney (Neve Campbell) her boyfriend Billy (Skeet Ulrich) his friend Stu (Matthew Lillard) and his girlfriend Casey (Rose McGowen) start talking about how terrible it was and decide to throw a party to get the tension out. However, the kill has attracted big city news reporter Gail Weathers (Courtney Cox, before she was Cox-Arquette) to town who immediately buts heads with town deputy Dewey (David Arquette). After Sid is attacked, Gail and Dewey decide to try to get along so they can help uncover the murderer. This proves very hard, as the killer arrives at the party being held and starts bumping off more teens, finally leaving Sid, Billy, Gail, Dewey, Stu, and local horror freak Randy (Jaime Kennedy) to stay alive in the killer's path. The killer reveals that s/he is also responsible for a back-story involving Sid a little over a year before.
The Good News: Although it seems as though nothing more went on, that is it, and Kevin Williamson did a fantastic job with only those few scenes. He manages to get jumps and laughs coming pretty regularly in the short span, which is spread out over an hour and forty minutes. By sending up the genre, he gives himself more room to wriggle with than by simply parodying it. I feel this wouldn't have been as big if the film was like 'Airplane,' where it parodied the genre. The film does have some pretty scary moments, including my favorite when Sid is in the bathroom and she checks under the stalls for a person in the stalls, then sees the killer's boots and finally a long black drape come down to hide themselves, and she is forced to make the decision of either risking her life to get out or risk her life in a confrontation with the killer. A great moment and one of few really scary scenes in the film. I also love the whole ending, with Randy commenting on the movie he is watching while the killer is creating the same scene behind him, not to his knowledge, to the whole truth about the killings being revealed, to the final outcome. The whole party scene is great, with several deaths, a few false deaths, and a ton of blood. I do have to say that, while I am very good at guessing the killer the first time I watch one of these movies, it took a while for everything to click and I knew who the killer was. Some friends who also do that as well figured it out right about the same time I did, so it could through you off as well. It was also a nice creative twist to have a back-story that happened off-camera instead of being shown as the prologue to a film. Gutsy move and well worth it.
The Bad News: I strongly believe this film is responsible for about 90% of the truly terrible 'horror' films out there right now. By poking fun of the genre within the genre confines is, at once a creative move, and the other a terrible idea because now you have the whole subgenre of horror films where everyone comments on the situation at hand by referencing it with another horror movie. It was nice the first time out, but now every horror film since has at least one person who will reference the situation with a famous horror film. It is very tiresome, irritating, and no one cares anymore. I blame 'Scream' for this trend, and for that I will not rate it above a '9' for that reason.
The Final Verdict: Even though it spawned a whole annoying subgenre of the horror film, this is still a pretty scary film and at least deserves a look for anybody seriously interested in horror films.
Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence