REVIEW: Scream (1996)
Back in the 90s, when 'meta' wasn't a buzzword, this little slasher film was ready to disrupt the teen-horror sub-genre to its core
The story of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) relied heavily on the sparks of brilliance from Kevin Williamson's script. Getting chased by a masked killer wasn't novel, but constructing an entire movie as a «sort of» parody of the slasher teen sub-genre felt «fresh» at the time. A task that Shrek, for instance, would successfully replicate five years later for the animated category—attacking Disney's fairy tale utopias and its peers.
For a generation, some of the young actors in the Scream series became teen «icons», but when the original movie was released, they were establishing their careers on the big screen. Casting Neve Campbell was possibly motivated due to her show, Party of Five, recently winning an Emmy in the Best TV Drama Series, propelling the actress to star in the «successful» teen-witch movie The Craft (1996). Courtney Cox, on the other hand, was having decent success with Friends. As the sequels would show, both actresses became central to the series while the rest of the cast was «unknown» and expendable.
On a strict level, Scream's core audience is the film nerd (typified in Randy's character, the video store clerk), but Williamson doesn't always alienate the rest of us, providing instead some of the dialogue exposition in the form of movie lessons for beginners. For anything else, you'll have to keep up with the references (and there are plenty to enjoy). This is where the movie shines. It is fast-paced and engaging, although sometimes comes across as "too preachy" for its own sake. In a way, it's like a movie trivia game.
But in spite of its clever writing, it falls victim of its own medicine, as some of its characters have trouble putting theory to practice, only to get sliced into pieces regardless of Film IQ. On top of that, the ghost-face killer seems smart enough for trivia games, but totally inept for muscle coordination and hunting in enclosed spaces. No wonder the future Scary Movies would make fun of that. He could be the king of back-flops using banana peels.
Scream would become a financial and critical success, spanning three sequels over the course of fifteen years. Its self-awareness of the slasher sub-genre and its nerdiness makes it appealing for a fun Saturday night, but it can't escape its clumsiness when trying to be a "genuinely" horror entry. As Susan Wloszczyna succinctly put into words in her review: "the-too-clever-for-its-own-good ending is a blood-splattered reminder that sometimes parody comes awfully close to what it is [trying to mock]".1