Scream

Directed by Wes Craven, Scream follows Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) as she and her friends are stalked by a mask-wearing psychopath known only as Ghostface. There’s little doubt that Craven, working from Kevin Williamson’s screenplay, does a superb job of grabbing the viewer’s attention right from the get-go, as the movie opens with a striking and thoroughly captivating stand-alone sequence revolving around the pursuit and murder of a high schooler (Drew Barrymore’s Casey). It’s an engrossing scene that ultimately stands as a high point within the proceedings, which ensures that the film subsequently has its work cut out for it in terms of matching that level of intensity (and although Craven does come awfully close, the thirteen-minute prologue is, in the final analysis, far more effective than anything that follows). The central storyline, once it kicks in, comes off as a purposefully familiar affair that pokes fun at the slasher genre’s various clichés and conventions, as Williamson does a nice job of blending the traditional (yet consistently compelling) narrative with self-referential bursts of dialogue (ie Jamie Kennedy’s scene-stealing character outlines the three rules one needs to obey to survive a horror flick). Adding to the agreeable atmosphere are the tense kill sequences and uniformly engaging performances, with the end result a fun, well-paced slasher that remains one of the best modern examples of its kind.

*** out of ****