Scream Review
by Chuck Dowling (chuckd21 AT southeast DOT net)July 8th, 1997
SCREAM
A film review by Chuck Dowling
Copyright 1997 Chuck Dowling
Scream (1996) ** out of ***** - Cast: Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, Skeet
Ulrich, David Arquette, Drew Barrymore. Written by: Kevin Williamson.
Directed by: Wes Craven. Running Time: 111 minutes.
The popularity of "Scream" puzzles me. When I first saw the trailers for it,
I came away with the notion that it didn't look very intelligent, or
different than any other slasher movie. After seeing the film, I agree with
my initial assessment.
In "Scream", someone wearing a grim reaper-type halloween costume is trying
to kill off Neve Campbell and her little friends who, just like most slasher
movies, think "What? A friend was murdered? Cool!". So who is the killer? Oh
who could it be? Who cares. I particularly enjoyed a scene where, after
Campbell is brutally attacked and almost killed (which then results in the
arrest of her boyfriend and sparks the memories of her mother's rape and
murder a year earlier), she's in the mood to party! Of all the annoying,
superficial characters, only David Arquette as a youthful rookie police
officer shines through as someone interesting.
The opening scene was wildly praised, and I have no idea why. In it, Drew
Barrymore is stalked (via the telephone) by the killer. There's nothing new
in it (maybe the telephone part), and Drew's character acts just as dumb as
any other slasher movie character. The scene is entirely overblown, and as
with just about every slasher film, the scene's music TELLS you when to jump
instead of just letting the story scare you.
The problem, as far as I can see, is the script. Writer Kevin Williamson has obviously seen lots of horror films, but he confuses writing an intelligent
script containing some clever nods to great horror movies with an average
slasher script in which every character is a horror movie encyclopedia. All
the characters in "Scream" have way too much horror movie knowledge to be believeable. A few of them, sure. But all? So the script comes across as
"See? I've seen lots of horror films! And I'm telling you I've seen a lot of
horror films! See? All these characters are specifically talking about the
horror movies I've seen!" One character, a geeky video store clerk who takes
his knowledge of horror WAY too seriously, annoyingly telegraphs many of the
events during the final scenes.
Also, there are too many moments where the masked killer is seemingly
supernatural and psychic. The killer can telegraph where a potential victim
might wander off to. Then there are moments where the killer might knock on
a door and then immediately vanish without a sound, even though the victim
is right there to investigate. And every time the killer attacks someone,
the victim inflicts some heavy damage upon the killer. This damage never
seems to hurt though, (ahem) as with EVERY OTHER SLASHER MOVIE.
Have I made it clear that there's no difference between "Scream" and any
other slasher movie? Sure it's infinitely better that just about every
horror release from the past two years, but almost anything is better than
another "Hellraiser" or "Halloween" installment. Wes Craven's direction is
certainly more competant than most slasher films, but in the film he keeps
making references to his own "A Nightmare on Elm Street" which gets terribly annoying. He even goes as far to have a janitor at the school named Fred
who's dressed exactly like Freddy Krueger. It's not cute. And "Scream 2" is
filming now, with a "Scream 3" to follow it. Say, that's a new concept,
horror sequels! I wonder if all the characters in those will keep commenting
on how badly horror movie sequels "suck". I wonder how many times Craven
will make it known that all the sequels to "Elm Street" were terrible. Care
to place a wager? [R]
--
Chuck Dowling -- <[email protected]>
Visit Chuck's Movie Reviews at http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/
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