Scream

I wanted to give this film a hug. Sure, it's about a serial killer stalking and slashing teens to ribbons. But hey, who said lovely films could only be about marshmallow clouds and fluffy bunnies?
Scream, directed by Wes Craven, is the slasher flick that the slasher industry needed. By the time of its release, slasher flicks' popularity had gone way done, done in by stupid, mindless factory made products the studios had been pouring out throughout the 80's. Then came Scream, Craven's little horror wake-up call. Written by Kevin Williamson, the guy who penned Dawson's Creek and I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream seemingly came out of nowhere. And boy did it revolutionize the slasher sub-genre. It's a nifty little comedy about a teen girl being stalked by a masked murderer. Who would of thought such a thing would be good?
The plot concerns Sydney (Neve Campbell), your proto-typical good girl whose all white night gowns and earnest pony tails. When her slightly greasier boyfriend, Billy (Skeet Ulrich), sneaks into her bedroom window for some late-night nookie, she settles on a "PG-13" response. Meaning Billy gets to see her breasts, and ironically, we the audience, do not. Sydney's mom died in a horrible manner, you can tell by the way her friends and colleagues keep subtly half-mentioning it (do they not understand the concept of tact?). We learn that Sydney's mom was brutally raped and murdered, arguably the worst crime up to date until high schooler Casey (Drew Barrymore) and her boyfriend are gutted by our masked assailant. That brings us to the present, as the fictional town of Woodsboro, California attempts to apprehend the killer before they strike again. As you might have guessed, the town isn't terribly successful in its pursuit. It first would appear that Sydney is the apple of the murderer's eye simply because she's virginal. But there appears to be some connection between the murder of her mom and the killer's motivations. Story short: murder ensues.
Surprisingly, Scream is well-written for a slasher flick. This is, in fact, a horror-comedy, one that satirizes slasher flicks while abiding by its conventions. Williamson understands slasher flicks and he exploits their conventionality to terrific effect. When one girl meets up with the killer in the garage, believing him to be her boyfriend, she quips "No, please don't kill me, Mr. Ghostface, I wanna be in the sequel!". The teens in Scream have seen slasher flicks themselves and therefore understand "the rules" involved. One of the rules, which entails never saying "I'll being right back", is hilarious in how dead-on it is. If I could impart one piece of advice to the characters in a horror movie, it would be never to utter that doomed expression. The film's plot, though conventional, twists in interesting ways that both stick to and yet subvert slasher expectations. The film likes the possibility of being the kind of film that it makes fun of and yet also having the knowledge to set it apart.
The dialogue is clever, maybe not to the extent to which others may have hyped it up. Sydney once says "Why can't I be a Meg Ryan movie? Or even a good porno." This line is funny and knowing, successfully creating a kind of comic lining to the film. However, other moments, although smart and perceptive, are possibly a little too obvious and glib, such as "Never say 'who's there?' Don't you watch scary movies? It's a death wish. You might as well come out to investigate a strange noise or something." The line is funny and yet it betrays a weakness within the film: unreality. The film is decidedly unrealistic but its these moments that remind us of the extent to which it is. Its unreality is not necessarily a good thing.
The performances are uniformly fine, with Courtney Cox making a convincing viper-like reporter bitch. David Arquette, as the simple-minded yet big-hearted police deputy Dwight is entertaining and his performance is irresistable in this goofy, man-boy kind of way. Campbell is by no means fantastic but she's given little to work with and what she is given she orchestrates effectively. Mathew Lillard is deliciously stupid and contempt-able in turns as Stuart "Stu" Marcher, the kind of chauvinistic, obnoxious frat boy character that every slasher movie teen group is incomplete without. His performance is infused with enough manic energy to almost make us forgot that he's essentially a character-type taken right out of the slasher flick book of conventions. But it's Jamie Kennedy as the knowing, horror-movie crazy Randy, that really made the movie for me. His performance and character are funny and just so in-joke-y/awesome movie referential. He was kinda terrific.
Is the movie scary, you ask? Surprisingly, yes, for some of it. I will admit, the first 15 minutes or so are terrifying, vicious, and they set the tone for the film almost immediately. Williamson uses the killer-on-the-phone gimmick to effect that rivals 1979's When A Stranger Calls. Drew Barrymore, possibly the biggest star in the movie is killed off in a brutal and horrifying manner, in presumably what is a homage to Psycho. Other moments in the film such as when Sid meets up with the killer in the girls bathroom at school also builds dread appropriately. The ending is just all-out-insane, taking the idea of a slasher climax to the extreme. The scene in which Sid locks herself in a car only to discover the killer has the keys is suspenseful and really showed some ingenuity. Other scenes such as the garage door demise fail to be scary yet they are really playing up the comedy angle anyway. It's hard to find an appropriate balance of laughs and shrieks. Scream is amazingly adept at maintaining this balance.
Craven as director, gives the film flair and deals with the content respectfully. Jokes harkening back to his own previous slasher ventures are funny because you know the director must have found them amusing as well. A throw-away line about the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels sucking is laugh out loud funny if you know anything about horror movies or Craven as a director. His direction has always been relatively polished and that is no less evident here.
Scream perhaps isn't the scariest horror film or funniest comedy you'll ever see. In that regard, its middling entertainment. But Scream is also aware that slasher flicks were only ever middling entertainment to begin with, and so it fits the slasher oeuvre soundly and neatly. A true, blood-splattered gem.