Cadinho93’s review published on Letterboxd:
"Do you like scary movies?"
Scream is the best teenage horror-slasher film from the '90s. The film is truly a breath of fresh air, delivering a unique, inventive cinematic experience, with the production values are excellent, atmospheric photography and settings, Wes Craven's direction is to date one of his best directing jobs, the music is haunting, the sound effects unsettling and it's one of the most influential horror films ever made.
The film begins after two high school students: Steve Orth (Kevin Patrick Walls) and Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) are murdered by the serial killer Ghostface. Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) becomes next victim of intelligent serial killer, Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) a reporter and journalist is shure that serial killer is the same person who murdered Sidney's mother Maureen Prescott (Lynn McRee) one year ago and now he's terrorizing Sidney her self. Deputy Sheriff Dewey Riley (David Arquette) wants to investigate the murders by himself, but attractive Gale seduced and confused him, so it's up to Sidney to find the killer, before he kills again to find the truth, she will must kill.
Wes Craven does an excellent job in keeping the mystery aura from start to finish, elevating the suspense in every scene and the iconic mask, the one-liners, the unique self-awareness when it comes to horror clichés, which make "Scream" slick, stylish, iconic, a true original and the best part of it all is that the killer does his murders in the style of true horror films.
What I also love is that the film has an amazing cast, with Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) being perfectly cast as the main protagonist and she's well supported by Dewey Riley (David Arquette), Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard), Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan), Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy) and Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore).
Making a brilliant, original horror film is pretty hard these days, since practically everything has already been told and more than once. Using that premise, director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson came up with "Scream", whose cleverness derives from the fact that it knows every single stereotype of the genre and satirizes them.
Overall, Scream is a smart, effective horror film, which manages to amuse, as well as scare in equal measures, which makes "Scream" a wonderful film, a classic of its genre, a real scream from start to finish and a one of a kind film that I will always love.
