My mom grew up among the slasher golden era of the 80s, so she adored the genre and many of the 2000+ VHS tapes she had around for a lot of my childhood were various slasher franchises and what we didn’t have by 7 or 8 I was begging my parents to rent for me from Hollywood Video or Movie Starz on a regular basis. So it goes without saying that Scream coming in and revitalizing the entire genre’s popularity for a handful of years was a big deal in our household and I was probably very young the first time I saw it which was likely not long after it came out on tape in probably ‘97, same with the sequels in later years. I then proceeded to watch it so many times across my childhood well into adulthood that practically every line and scene and even delivery are memorized at that point, which made stepping back to write as objective a review as I can somewhat difficult but I found the more of a critical eye I applied to it the more it worked out.
As always starting with the negatives, the worst thing I can say about the movie is that it is VERY Kevin Williamson. Sometimes that means genuinely clever lines and plot twists, but sometimes that means being convinced that any pop culture reference or cultural commentary you have to offer is wildly clever and insightful and hilarious but instead it makes your teenage characters seem incredibly fake and stilted and like you’ve watched too many Tarantino movies. It is incredibly 90s and the longer the film went on, the more cringe some of the “post-modern” or “self-referential” dialogue really becomes and it is easily the most dated thing about this film other than the cell phones. When this is coupled with Wes Craven’s career long tendency to play even black comedy as pretty big and broad in his work, it can render characters and situations as almost cartoonish in their presentation, and several of the legitimate supporting characters like Stu (until the climax where he gives arguably the best performance in the entire film), Dewey, and Randy feeling like over-the-top sketches instead of living, breathing characters sometimes.
However, it is obvious upon any watch why this film became such a cultural phenomenon in the 90s that it sort of relaunched slashers as a viable mainstream genre for a while. The opening scene which is just absolutely perfect from casting to setting to atmosphere and one of the greatest pieces of horror cinema ever made. The many iconic scenes and lines from start to finish that would become deeply cemented in the mind of horror fans even if we didn’t have the likes of Scary Movie and awards show skits that rammed them even further into the pop culture cloud. The obvious, vocal love of slasher history and lore that is so deeply ingrained in everything that happens. The more real-feeling danger of bored suburban sociopaths with a cell phone that is as true now as it was in ‘96 when the film was coming during the second serial killer boom of the early to mid 90s. The very brutal attacks which purposefully avoid the highly creative kills of the 80s for something that felt a little more, well, Gainesville Ripper. An absolutely expert cast that only ever plays it as broad as Wes asks them too and can sell the drama and often hack writing, a who’s who of up and coming young actors and actresses of that time and also for some reason Jamie Kennedy.
It is perhaps the best directed film in Wes Craven’s filmography, nothing is out of place, everything is fully thought through, the locations are entirely realized and the cast is giving their a-game. I’m a huge Wes Craven fan, so this is indeed high praise coming from me who considers numerous Craven films better overall than Scream despite its significance in my life. The score by a composer who’d later get a couple of Oscar noms is fantastic, totally capturing the feel of a 70s or 80s slasher score while also being a little more classic AND a little more modern with a Nick Cave needle drop that’d later recur in many of the sequels as the unofficial theme song for the series. The effects had one terrible head squish but managed to effectively balance brutal reality with aiming for a more mainstream audience than gorehounds like me which is a move I can respect cause it really paid off.
I thought it’d be a lot more difficult than it actually ended up being breaking down what does and doesn’t work in this classic film. Nothing I’m gonna say is gonna keep anybody from watching it, and you probably don’t need me to tell you it is one the most essential films of the era and of the genre, but it was nice removing myself from a lifetime of a nostalgia and trying to view it as if it were my first time again. I found some stuff I genuinely didn’t enjoy in my 30s after almost 30 years worth of evolution in screenwriting even if it didn’t take away from liking the film.
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