Scream

Wes Craven, USA 1996, 111 minutes

A small California town is shocked by the murder of two high school students. It seems a maniac is on the loose and out to kill as many teens, and anyone else who gets in the way, as he can. How high will the body count be before he is stopped?

The latest film from horror maestro Wes Craven is a selfreflective examination of the stalk and slash movie (the subgenre inaugurated by Carpenter's brilliant Halloween (1978) and then swiftly dragged down by Friday the 13th (1980) and myriad other gory imitations). Craven himself, having had early successes with Last House on the Left (1972) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977), made little contribution to the slasher cycle. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1985) came at the tail end of the movement, when it was desperately in need of the new, more fantastical direction that Freddy Kruger provided.

The approach Craven takes in Scream is similar to that of Wes Craven's New Nightmare, where he deconstructed the mythology of The Nightmare on Elm Street series.

Craven, aided by Kevin Williamson's clever script, is able to deliver the suspense, thrills and chills expected from a slasher film. It neatly side-steps the usual problems which beset the genre (moronic characters who act in a manner designed to get them killed off; dire cliches like the maniac who always gets up one last time (just when it all seemed to be over) and a general taint of misogyny.

About the only cliché which doesn't get deconstructed along the way is the naming of Scream's heroine as Sidney: her masculine sounding name marks her out as what theorist Carol J Clover calls the "final girl", the one who will make it to the final credits.

Scream's other major asset, besides the script and direction, is the cast (including a rather mature-looking Courtney Cox, as a tabloid TV reporter). Rather than being just so many anonymous bodies awaiting their fates, the teenagers (including Neve Campbell, from TV's Party of Five and Matthew Lillard from Serial Mom) come across as real people whom the spectator is able to actually care about - a rare feat for this sort of film.

Indeed, if there's a problem with Scream it is that its very success dooms it to spawn a wave of cash-in imitations, few of which will exhibit their predecessors skill and intelligence.

Review by Keith H Brown
Taken from EUFS Programme 1997-98