Scream (1996)

Probably the last real "touchstone" film in the genre before the entire category folded in on itself. I still have a lot of fun with it, and I still remember how the mixing of dark, real terror and self-reference was fresh and exciting.

Exactly right. I think it's unfairly condemned not for what it is, but for the horde of self-aware, meta and mocking movies that attempted (and mostly failed) to follow in its footsteps.

I have a hard time not enjoying any movie in which I get to see Rose Mcgowan.

Fact.

Exactly right. I think it's unfairly condemned not for what it is, but for the horde of self-aware, meta and mocking movies that attempted (and mostly failed) to follow in its footsteps.

Including its own sequels. I really enjoyed the first film (though I've not had any desire to revisit it) and I agree that it's unfairly maligned, but by the time Scream 2 came out, the movement, if you could call it that, was over and done with.

Maybe it does get more dated as time goes on, but the opening sequence is still a stunner. It's an absolutely brilliant concoction of direction, acting (Barrymore does more in ten minutes than Neve Campbell does in three movies), editing and scoring, right down to the long wind-up before the mom's scream when she sees Casey hanging from the tree.

Also have to second Ripoll's comment on the music. The "Don't Fear the Reaper" redux is one of the best (and mercifully subtle) meta references in the whole thing.

Agreed. I don't think a horror film was able to successfully replicate the Scream formula until Behind the Mask and, to a lesser extent, Feast came along.

I may have been a naive college kid, but the twist surprised me.

SPOILER!!!

"Well it can't be him... or him. Holy shit, it's him AND him???

Scream 2 came out only a year later. What "movement" came and went during those few months?

I'm always amused at how unforgiving my generation is toward these sequels and inevitable rip-offs when so many of the haters own box sets of Ft13th, Halloween, Elm Street, etc. All of them quality sequels that advanced the genre with each installment.

No love for Feast?

But it's got Henry Rollins in pink sweatpants....PINK SWEATPANTS!

The thing that killed me about the Scream sequels (besides how bad they were) is how hard they tried to not be labeled "horror". I can remember the word "thriller" being thrown around a lot when Scream 2 and 3 hit. Call me crazy, but I still think the first film is more brutal than either of the sequels.

"THIS IS BULLSHHIIIIIITTTTTT!!!!!!"

I've got lots and lots of boner induced love for Feast. Certainly didn't re-invent the wheel but the flick is a hell of a lot of fun.

Check out Wrong Turn 2 for a proper Rollins fix.

All of the Scream movies were first and foremost modern american giallos. The sequels especially.

Yes. Profane piss, yes. Merciful Lucifer, yes.

Seriously, while I agree that Feast isn't the finest shot film, it's a whole hell of a lot of fun, especially in its ability to play within the conceits of a horror siege movie and turn some conventions on their heads. And maybe it's because I just watched Sleepaway Camp, but I don't recall the acting in Feast being particularly terrible.

Or maybe it's just my love for the freeze-frame survivor stats sprinkled throughout clouding my judgment (a love I fully expect to see put to good use in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World).

And, BobClark, as always, I amplify the Rollins-Wrong Turn 2 love.

I Know What You Did Last Summer came two months before, the trend started up, "slasher film rebirth" talk was happening, and even then I remember thinking that the whole thing was going to go downhill quickly, then I saw Scream 2 and was bored to tears by it. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend came out in '98, and I skipped both of them, I was over it.

I've thought about my affection for 80's slashers and my disdain for the late 90's films. I believe the answer lies in the way I was exposed to them, as a kid, on home video. It's not so much about quality (if that was the case I probably wouldn't like shit like Final Terror and Don't Go Into The Woods...Alone) as it is about being older and fully cognizant of cynical trends and market glut, and simply having an aesthetic preference that the 90's films didn't meet. It's the same reason I prefer gialli made in the 70's as opposed to the 80's.

And I actually don't own any of the box sets.

Rollins was great in WT2. Feast, like others have said, is one fun fucking film. Is it great? No. But it's definitely fun to watch with others.

I love the first Scream, remember nothing about the 2nd one except that Jackie from Roseanne was the killer and the 3rd one sucked.

Scream 3 is about one step away from being one of the Scary Movie installments. Besides all the "wink-wink" horror nods with Lance Henrikson and Roger Corman, once I got to the Jay and Silent Bob cameo I knew it was time to check out.

I watched Scream last year for the first time in probably 6 or 7 years and I was amazed at how well it holds up. Even though he's produced a lot of shit since, Williamson's script is fantastic.

shit

You make Severed-Monster-Cock cry.

Opens with one of the best horror sequences ever, then immediately hits a decline that apparently (skipped the third) never stops throughout the series.

Any flick that has a biker gal getting face-fucked by a monster is okay in my book.

Maybe Patrick hasn't seen Troll 2?

In that case neither have I. Netflix awaits...

He certainly has and adores it.

As a horror film or a comedy?

Because Troll 2 is fucking hilarious ( I really want to go to the Troll 2 convention, it would be glorious) but fails on all counts.

Feast at least tries and is no where close to being the worst horror film ever.

Can't remember (and apologies for the massive derail), but I remember he owns it on VHS for emergency purposes.

Opens with a fairly decent horror sequence and immediately goes into the toilet with unlikable characters and not-nearly-as-clever-as-it-thinks dialogue that does, in fact, get even worse throughout the series.

I can't argue, but I don't think the haters are damning the ides of sequels and rip-offs so much as sequels and rip-offs of this particular niche of horror, which owes more to Dawson's Creek than it does to any of those other films. That doesn't make SCREAM and its progeny any more or less dated (gotta love those jheri curl victims from FRIDAY), but I think there's a key distinction when you're talking about something that was of its time versus something that was about its time.

Of course, H20 sort of fucks up my whole post.

SCREAM was definitely a good movie, though it always felt like a soft punch.

I dunno. It was (or seemed) more gory than BEHIND THE MASK.

I'm starting to feel a little woozy!

And yet he has seen GONE FISHIN.

Scream 2 exists to prove that Wes Craven could direct a better shitty cash-in sequel than The Hills Have Eyes 2. Had Scream 2 been about twenty minutes shorter, it might have been pretty good. But it's two hours long. For fuck's sake.

Oh, absolutely! I guess I was around 12 when Scream came out, and I was really not into serious horror movies at the time and in fact was a pretty big chicken when it came to 'scary' stuff. I loved sort of scary kids stuff like Beetlejuice, but I hadn't progressed to the real good stuff yet.

And that opening sequence... Fuck, I think I tried to watch the whole movie at least 3 times and never got past Casey hanging from the tree. It was absolutely traumatic at the time! It gave my little brain nightmares.

Then when I DID successfully watch the whole movie, maybe a year or two later, I was shocked to discover that the rest of it isn't scary at all, and in fact is really funny. I laughed my ass off at the climax, and I've been in love with horror ever since.

Yeah, it's an alright movie, because of the sequels most people lump hem all in the shit category.

And the fact he keeps getting stabbed to fucking hell and survives all the movies.

The opening kill was pretty brutal. Not buckets of blood, but the slow-mo unbroken shot of the knife plunging into Drew's torso was old school Craven.

The first is definitely the best so I'll echo the love for that one. But I just wanted to add that the opening for Scream 2 managed to unsettle me a bit more than the opening of the first one. Regardless of how well written/shot/paced/etc it was in comparison, something about getting stabbed to death in a crowd of people who think you're just fooling around terrifies me. It's not hidden, it's there and in your face, you're pleading for help and dying and people just think you're putting on a show. Creeeeeeepy... But maybe it's just me.

It is a scary concept, but it is stuck in a pretty lame sequel.

However, the one thing I always liked about Scream 2 was Liev Schreiber as Cotton Weary. When you stop to think that his character in the original Scream was on death row for a crime he didn't commit and how dull Neve Campbell is in these flicks, Cotton becomes a much more interesting character to root for.

The original Scream is a damn fine movie. I think A LOT of people forget about how much of a "buzz" that thing was when it first came out. I think, if memory serves, it got killed its opening weekend, making like $6 mil while Beavis and Butthead made $20-plus mil. But then...it started to climb. I was in high school at the time and, those first few weeks it was out, the word-of-mouth on Scream was unreal. It was like a secret movie everyone was talking about. Of course it went on to be a huge hit, playing for months, which an R-rated film would never do now. I think they actually brought it back out to theatres months later (i.e. re-released it) a rarity at that time (and now, actually).

Yeah, it opened Christmas weekend if I recall correctly.

Nowadays, it would get yanked immediately if it made those #s on an opening weekend. Course, horror is "in" with the movie-going crowd now, so it would probably do a bit better presently.

I hadn't seen Scream since I broke my original VHS copy of the movie back in 1997 and so I was sort of expecting the worst from the film. So surprised at how much I loved the film.

Wes Craven has directed three films I've liked, and I've had to endure a lot of his movies which I absolutely loathed, so I was really surprised at how well directed Scream is. There's a fantastic sense of energy to the thing and it gets just the right amount of horror and comedy. The film is still kind of hilarious at times, but the actual moments of violence work far better than other horror comedies (I'm looking at you Leslie Vernon).

What surprised me the most was that I actually gave a shit about the characters. Drew Barrymore's Casey was probably the first ever character I felt sorry for in a slasher film. Usually these films just assemble an array of victims and wait for you to take joy in their butchery, but Barrymore makes you care for her character and the effect is utterly horrifying when she finally gets killed.

Same thing with the ancillary characters who all have these cute little moments which actually make you kind of like them. They're all potential victims, but for once I'm actually wanting some of them to live.

I also realise now that my belief that Skeet Ulrich and Johnny Depp look alike is fueled entirely by this film (and I think they tried to get Skeet to look like Depp circa Nightmare on Elm Street). Still I'm glad that a film I loved as a teenager actually doesn't suck all that much, now onto Scream 2.