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Scream
USA 1996
produced by Cathy Konrad, Cary Woods, Marianne Maddalena (executive), Bob Weinstein (executive), Harvey Weinstein (executive) for Woods Entertainment/Dimension Films
directed by Wes Craven
starring Neve Campbell, Skeet Ulrich, Lawrence Hecht, Courteney Cox, W. Earl Brown, Rose McGowan, Lois Saunders, David Arquette, Joseph Whipp, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Kennedy, Drew Barrymore, Roger Jackson, Kevin Patrick Walls, David Booth, Carla Hatley, Lisa Beach, Tony Kilbert, C.W. Morgan, Frances Lee McCain, Liev Schreiber, Troy Bishop, Ryan Kennedy, Leonora Scelfo, Nancy Anne Ridder, Lisa Canning, Bonnie Wood, Aurora Draper, Kenny Kwong, Justin Sullivan, Kurtis Bedford, Angela Miller, Linda Blair, Lucille Bliss, Wes Craven, Henry Winkler
written by Kevin Williamson, music by Marco Beltrami, special makeup effects by Howard Berger, Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero/K.N.B. EFX Group
Scream
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Young Casey (Drew Barrymore) receives a phonecall from a mysterious
caller (voiced by Roger Jackson) who first seems to flirt with her, but
soon gets very dark and threatening, something that's only augmented when
he reveals he has gotten hold of her boyfriend (Kevin Patrick Walls), and
then kills him before her very eyes. Then he chases after her, dressed up
in a cheap Halloween costume based on Edvard Munch's painting The
Scream and brutally kills her, right before her parents (David Booth,
Carla Hatley) arrive back home. Now her murder understandably traumatizes
the whole local high school she went to, but especially Sidney (Neve
Campbell), whose mother had been murdered only a year ago and who still
hasn't come over it - much to the dismay of her sexually frustrated
boyfriend Billy (Skeet Ulrich). Then that night, Sidney is attacked by the
Scream-killer - dubbed Ghostface for some reason - but can somehow
ward him off. But when Billy shows up only moments later at her place, she
suspects him of being the killer and he's temporarily arrested and only
released when it's revealed that the phonecalls preceeding Casey's murder
and the attack of Sidney did not come from his phone ... but from the
phone of Sidney's dad, who's supposed to be on a business trip but has
never arrived wherever it is. After the attack on Sidney, the school's
shut down for the time being by its principal (Henry Winkler) - who soon
enough is brutally murdered by Ghostface - and Sidney finds abode with her
best friend Tatum (Rose McGowan) and Tatum's brother Deputy Dewey (David
Arquette). Of course, with school out, all the youngsters soon have a
party at horror nerd Randy's (Jamie Kennedy), where the killer soon
strikes, killing Tatum - and right while Sidney finally gives up her
virginity to Billy. Pretty much right after this, Sidney's chased around
the house by Ghostface, who's eventually revealed to be not one but two
men, Billy and Tatum's boyfriend Stuart (Matthew Lillard), the former
because Sidney's mother had an affair with his father, causing his mother
to abandon them, the latter because he's straight-out cuckoo. Now Sidney
sure proves her worth as a fighter, but it's ultimately obnoxious reporter
Gale (Courteney Cox) who saves her life. By the mid-1990s, the
slasher genre had pretty much run its course, with even the most prominent
series gone on hiatus ... when Kevin Williamson did something almost
revolutionary, pulling back the curtain and letting the casual audience in
on genre mechanics, having the characters actually comment on-screen on
the formula the movie's following. Now as good as the idea was, it led to
pretty much every slasher thereafter making a self-ironic remark on its
formula, while later disappointingly middle-of-the-road horror flicks
scripted by Williamson proved that apart from this one-off he was a rather
run-of-the-mill writer. Oh, and as for Scream, even though despite
it seemed a bit like a one-trick pony, it spawned so far five sequels and
a three-season TV spin-off. But back to the film in question: Of course
its main attraction was its self-referential and self-ironic approach, but
what makes it work is that its director Wes Craven is deeply rooted in the
horror genre and knows how to deliver the blows, making sure that the film
won't just become a travesty, and thus most of the cast play it straight,
there's plenty of suspense, the killings are gruesome (if not overly
gory), and despite us being constantly reminded of the formula, there are
a few surprises even - including a sight gag where Craven himself plays a
school janitor in a Freddy
Krueger sweater. The end-result is a surprisingly fresh
slasher and a deserved classic - even if one could have done without the
wave of second generation slashers this movie has spawned.
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