A Cut Above the Rest

Rating: 9/10 (26 October 2016)

I've seen SCREAM many times over the years, but I'm now realizing for the first time just how amazing, clever, and tightly-plotted the third act is. The way screenwriter Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven handles the various characters and where they're located with respect to each other while all hell breaks loose is like seeing a magical balancing act that could crash and burn at any time. After all, it's hard for anyone to die in a slasher if everyone sticks together in a big group, and it seems like having the third act take place at a big party is setting up the film for failure. But Williamson and Craven somehow finds reasonable avenues to break the characters away from each other instead of having them split up that's typical of these movies. Overall, it's easy to hate on SCREAM while watching it in today's climate, but the film is handled with a lot of class, intellect, and reverence that's still absent in many of today's horror flicks. Because of that, SCREAM remains, to this day, a cut above the rest.