A year after a high school girl’s mother is killed, a psycho killer in a Scream mask begins killing. The students attempt to remain safe by relying on horror film clichés.
Quick Review: It isn’t as if there have been many original slasher films since Psycho, but by the mid-90s, the well was completely dry. How many times can you have an insane killer stalk high school students? Scream gives up; since there’s nothing new, why not just acknowledge that? It’s better to have your characters point out the flaws in the sub-genre than to have the audience do it. So, in Scream, everyone has watched horror films and read the magazines. They all know that the virgins die and you never say “I’ll be right back.” The entire film is an in-joke for anyone who has watched several dozen Slasher films. And it almost works. As a comedy, with Freddy as the janitor and the video clerk reciting the rules, it’s pretty funny. The violence and gore are adequate. But, strangely, Director Wes Craven takes it all seriously in long, ungainly segments. Neve Campbell acts like she’s in a Shakespearian tragedy and we end up with whining and what is supposed to be real, emotional pain. It’s no surprise that fails, and it is distracting in such a fluff piece, particularly when everyone else is giving us wacky, comic characters. This was never going to be a great film, but it could have been good. It managed OK.