Review of Scream (1996) by Berc — 30 Jun 2016

The artistic medium of film is very subjective. Every audience member has a different set of criteria they use to measure their viewing experience. Not everyone shares the same set of criteria. If we did, what a bland and uninspired world this would be.

What I Personally Liked About "Scream":

Wes Craven has always been one of the better directors of modern horror films. He keeps the direction tight, he gets the shots he wants, and he knows how to pace the production to garner the maximum impact of his thrills and chills. While he might not have been at the top of his form here, he was still better than most terror-spinners from the mid-nineties. It doesn't hurt that he has a halfway decent script from Kevin Williamson to work from either. Playing off the unwritten rules of horror movies was an inventive trick that had been touched upon previously but had never been fully explored. This was a fairly witty, counter cultural screenplay that did its best to revitalize a stale genre. In addition, its twist ending was quite wild for 1996. Neve Campbell deserved the spotlight shone on her as well. You can tell she's dedicated to her craft and really believed in the material that was presented to her. I was very glad to see her in this role, particularly after not being given nearly enough to do in "The Craft" which was released earlier in the same year. I just wish she had better cast member surrounding her. The only notable exception to that statement is Jamie Kennedy. While his solo career featured a couple of hilariously bad pictures ("Malibu's Most Wanted" and "Son of the Mask" spring to mind immediately), his over-the-top style works well within the context of "Scream.".

What I Personally Disliked About "Scream":

Pretty much every other cast member that is not Neve Campbell or Jamie Kennedy. Seriously. Some of them have had wonderful roles outside of this movie, but here it is a different story. David Arquette really stands out as the worst of the worst for me. He's far too cartoonish for this film. His character is far too distracting to be effective. It's like being repeatedly slammed against a brick wall every time he shows up. In a film which contains the queen b--ch lite antics of Courteney Cox, the unabashed Johnny Depp-edness of Skeet Ulrich, and the ham-and-cheese Henry Winkler provides, that's saying a lot. There's also an over reliance on teen drama to further the plot. While it nicely skewers the horror genre, it does accidentally fall prey to the soapish teen flicks of the decade with too many boyfriend/girlfriend problems and too many high school gossiping circles (the bathroom scene where Sidney hides while listening to her classmates ponder her role in the killings is cringe worthy to say the least).

My Overall Impression of "Scream":

Growing up, I held a very deep interest in horror movies. Sadly, the genre started to take a downward swing in the early nineties. Dimension bought the rights to both the "Halloween" and the "Hellraiser" series, New Line bought Jason Voorhees, and the terror we knew from the eighties started to collapse under its own weight. "Scream" was the new blood needed to pump through the veins of the terror industry and breathe life back into scary movies. It will never live up to the horror classics that came before, but it was good enough to bridge the gap until something better came along.