The Esteemed Critic Reviews Scream (1996)

 

Somehow the Critic, despite being 37 years of age, had never seen Wes Craven's Scream. I remedied this oversight last night, and I'm here to tell you what I think, as always, so that you can think the same things as I do, and we can all be the same, our collective opinion forming a great ocean of collaborative group thought (hah). Scream is a self-aware horror movie, a flick where the villains are fans of the genre to the point where they constantly reference the staples of horror. Even Drew Barrymore, who doesn't survive past the opening scene (spoiler!) opines to her future murderer "What's the point (of horror movies)? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door." Jamie Kennedy, who plays Randy Meeks, even lay outs the rules for surviving, which Neve Campbell's Sidney breaks. Scream is subversive, in that it doesn't do exactly what you expect it to, but it may be just a little too smug for its own good. It's hard to care about Sidney when she isn't exactly a character, you know? If your boyfriend is an obvious sociopath (Skeet Ulrich, who glowers with menace) then it's hard to feel sympathy when you're fooled by his obvious lies and misdirection. But Scream isn't about its characters; it's about the audience's expectations and recognition of genre cues. Scream even features a scene that describes what it's like to watch Scream. Randy Meeks, abandoned by his cronies, watches one of the Halloween movies and yells at Jamie Lee Curtis to turn around, while we, the audience, yell at Kennedy to turn around and see Scream's Ghostface, who is just about to plunge a knife into his hapless victim. Irony, man. It was big with Generation X. The problem with irony is that it often utilized as a shield to hide behind in order to avoid saying anything. I'm not accusing Scream of this; it wants you to recognize the conventions of slasher movies while still being titillated by an unconventional slash flick. But I'm not exactly sure how Scream spawned a franchise. Is the premise of a sentient slasher movie really clever enough to stretch out for five films? I dunno. I guess I'll have to watch Scream 2.