Fun, if somewhat predictable.

Rating: 7/10 (8 July 2005)

When I'm watching a horror movie, I generally watch for two reasons. Firstly, I want to be scared and enjoy the adrenaline rush of the jumps. Secondly, I want to lose myself within some kind of dark fantasy setup. Despite the fact that Scream fails to provide on either, it's a great movie in it's own right, but I think it's time Scream was referred to as what it is, a suspense thriller, and not a balls to the wall horror movie.
With that comment out the way, I can say this: Scream is the best movie I've seen of it's kind. It has no pretensions to being an out and out horror movie, whereas it's copycats seemed to set out to be scary as hell and fell flat on their faces. The main reason it's such a joy to behold is this lack of pretension. Most modern horror blockbusters make themselves out to be the best thing since sliced bread within the first ten seconds of the trailer. They rarely are. Scream is happy to be Scream, and it doesn't really mind about how scary you find it so long as you're enjoying it.
The cast are pretty annoying (par for the course with a Hollywood horror), but since this is a slasher parody that follows the 'cast iron genre rules' it's worth noting that a few of them are roadkill by the end of the movie. However, aggravatingly enough whereas in Fri 13th or Halloween, anyone who's a complete dummy or a lush or whatever will dead cert be on the end of an axe by the movies end, most of the victims in Scream have little or no relation to the greater plot, something that irked me a bit, as you'd know every death was coming because it'd go back to the random person who only just appeared last scene. It almost seemed that Craven and Williams didn't want any of their stars to die (aside from Drew Barrymore, who in the only shock in the movie is fairly unpleasantly slashed to death and hung in the opening sequence). Add to this the fact that most of the deaths had a 'I've had worse' type effect on me (even the aforementioned sequence is relatively non-violent in comparison to a Jason or Freddy film) as opposed to shocking me, and the horror aspect pretty much failed to have any impact on me.
Aside from the fact that Scream is only scary if you're 14 (in which case you shouldn't have been watching it anyway lol), and the cast is full of people I've had my fill of (Please, someone cast Matthew Lillard in one of these movies and pickaxe his head in the first five minutes!), Scream has a pretty cool (for the time, it's now been copied to death) plot line, even if I did guess whodunit in the opening sequence. The plot twists around and around, and if you haven't seen a lot of these films, it'll probably throw you for a loop. It's well worth watching just to see the intrigue and mystery unfold.
Add to this an original looking killer, some cool black humour, and there's a lot of reasons to watch Scream. It's an enjoyable, unassuming movie with slick production values and a good script and storyline. However, it has got its flaws and I disagree with its classic status. If you're into movies with the 90s/00s brat pack in them (Drew Barrymore, Matthew Lillard, Neve Campbell etc) you'll love this, and if you want a soft entry into horror, check this out as it's a fine place to start, but I would suggest you check out some real, non Hollywood horror as well, not merely confine yourself to the 'horror revival' genre Scream sits in, as frankly, movies like Maniac Cop, Ginger Snaps and Candyman (all of which come firmly recommended) make sitting through Scream seem like a walk in a happy happy field full of dandelions and bunnies. The best of the revival bunch. Recommended, but not perfect.