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 --
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