SCREAM (1996) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Wes Craven
Neve Campbell, Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard,
David Arquette, Courtney Cox, Drew Barrymore
In the serene suburban community of Woodsboro, where apparently only white people live, a mad stalker in a mask inspired by Edvard Munch is practicing a ghoulish form of population control - terrorizing high-school kids on the telephone before carving them up with a butcher knife. A bloody, tongue-in-cheek slasher movie that takes most of its cues and references from other slasher movies. You don't expect logic or restraint in a picture like this, and you don't get it. (Well, okay, the nudity is restrained - there isn't any - though in a couple of scenes maybe there should be.) What you do get is an accomplished piece of work by one of the genre's original masters, a movie that can tell you point blank what's coming up next, as a joke, and then scare you with it anyway. Followed by a sequel. And another. And another.
Wes Craven
(1939-2015)
