chris alton’s review published on Letterboxd:
The other Wes Craven movie that revolutionized the horror genre. I know it's a little strange but I had never seen Scream front to back. Watching it now I know that I had seen almost everything the movie had to offer, just never in sequential order. Scream is most obviously known for its loving satire of the slasher genre. It begins with a fake out protagonist à la Hitchcock's Psycho or Craven's own Nightmare on Elm St., countless references to Halloween and the "rules" of horror. Unfortunately Scream's shtick wears a little thin for me. I feel as though Scream never pushes past its self-referential humor. It doesn't really try to subvert any tropes that it lays out for its audience (though there is a great sequence that involves a 30 second delay on a camera). Scream came at a perfect time of slasher fatigue so it makes sense that it's remembered as fondly as it is.
The opening scene with Drew Barrymore is spectacular. The best part of the movie to me. Purely a showcase of how great a director Craven was. Fantastic staging and precise, floaty camera movements that subtly evoke Carpenter's Halloween from the get-go. The off-kilter dutch angles and the smoke from the burnt popcorn establish an eerie atmosphere that just isn't present in the rest of the movie.
Two random thoughts: Twin Peaks: The Return gave me a new found admiration for Matthew Lillard.
and
Kind of cool that yesterday I watched Frankenstein and it plays on a TV at one point in this.
