Movie Reviews from
By John Ruch
© 1996 CM Media, Inc.
Scream (1996)
Just because you’re a B-movie director doesn’t mean you’re a moron.
Wes Craven, creator of “A Nightmare on “Elm Street,” “The Last House on the Left” and other dubious works, came to a great realization a couple years ago: Slasher flicks like his just weren’t scaring people anymore. Ten-year-olds were wearing Freddy Krueger costumes on Halloween. Gore was still gross, but just a cinematic joke. And “Silence of the Lambs” had stolen all the thunder with its more real-world terror.
Not one to give up (what else is he going to do for a living?), Craven found something of a solution. Clearly slasher terror had to be made real again. Today’s kids knew it was all just a movie—they had distance on it all. Craven decided to acknowledge that distance, and to make a horror movie about horror movies.
He
reclaimed the “Nightmare on
Still, the self-reflexive movie-about-movies route seems an inevitable development in this postmodern age (and indeed has been done in many genres). Craven decided to take another crack at it with “Scream,” and succeeds because he’s found his missing link: a screenwriter who’s one of his own fans.
“New Nightmare” failed because of Craven’s point of view—it was a joke about making horror movies. “Scream” writer Kevin Williamson grew up scared to death by films like “Halloween,” and he knows how to write from the fan’s p.o.v.—about the content of horror movies.
Together, Williamson and Craven have made both a classic slasher flick and a smart genre commentary/parody that’s funny, witty and sometimes very scary.
It’s about a serial killer who’s inspired by serial-killer movies—not really copying them, but borrowing their general rules and principles to plan and execute his crimes. His main target is a high school girl already known for accusing innocent people of crimes, and there’s an old murder mystery thrown in for spice.
The first 10 minutes, featuring Drew Barrymore as a prospective victim, are genuinely chilling, even distressing. To paraphrase Noel Coward, it’s strange how potent cheap masks can be.
The rest of the two-hour film doesn’t have such great pacing, but it gives the local kids plenty of time to consider the mounting body count. Like most everybody in the late 20th century, they do their thinking in cinematic terms.
That’s when the in-jokes begin. There’s light banter about Craven’s own “Nightmare” series: “Well, the first one was (scary) but the rest sucked.” They discuss slasher flick “rules”—“virgins never die”—and wryly note the genre’s formulas: “If it gets too complicated you lose your target audience.”
Then there’s the film quote of the year: “Movies don’t create psychos; movies make psychos more creative!” That one’s uttered during the disappointingly preposterous ending.
I won’t say that “Scream” is deeply insightful—it is a slasher movie, after all—but its teen angst is authentic, its parody dead-on, and the social message responsible enough (the real villains of the piece are the girl’s empathy-less peers who see all violence as entertainment).
After
stunted misfires like “Saturday the 14th” and “April Fool’s Day,”
this is the sort of wit slasher fans have long
deserved. Think of it as “This Is Spinal Tap”—with the title meant literally.