Ryan Conde’s review published on Letterboxd:
It's about time I finally watched Scream. I guess with the new Scream movie coming out very soon and the fact that it was leaving Paramount+ it would only make sense to watch it now. Also, it's the film's 25th anniversary today and with the other two things, I mentioned I just figured it was the right time to watch Scream and I'll just say that I am so glad that I did. This movie is just amazing in nearly every single way. It's not perfect but I had such a blast watching this. The story is simple but also pretty clever, the cinematography is fantastic, the musical score is good, the direction and editing are great, the pacing is amazing and not once was I ever bored, the characters are all obviously cliches of past horror movie characters but they're entertaining and funny to watch, the humor gets some good laughs, the atmosphere creates many suspenseful moments that have such a good payoff, the scares are solid as well as the kills and each of them is just insane, bloody and brutal as hell but in a great way, the satire of all the popular cliches in past horror films are not only clever but made the film feel pretty unique compared to most horror films, and the performances are really good. Neve Campell really steals this entire movie as well as many of the other teen actors. I also have to give props to Drew Barrymore and that entire opening sequence with her. She was fucking amazing in that sequence and that entire opening is one of the most intense and creepy moments that I've ever seen in a horror film. Seriously that is one sequence that I will never forget for the life of me. However, the film does have a couple of little problems. First is that the story itself is predictable as you can predict how it would end especially knowing all the sequels that came out after this one and some of the performances from the teen actors can sometimes be not that great. Maybe that was done intentionally to satirize how kind of bad some teen actors are in horror films but I just felt it went a little overboard with that sometimes. Also, I would be lying if I said that the last third of the film did feel kind of long considering it goes on for more than 40 minutes. Honestly though because I was enjoying that act of the film so much as with the rest of the film I could really care less. I was really worried that the film would kind of start to slow down after the second act but once the last 40 minutes start it is just an entire bloodbath of craziness and I absolutely loved that. Overall, Scream is a fantastic horror movie. It's not my favorite horror movie but there is no denying that it is popular for a really good reason. It's funny, scary, intense, silly, clever, shocking, and insane and it all blends together to create a horror film that I'm sure I will revisit plenty of times in the future. Absolutely watch this movie if you haven't yet. Happy 25th Anniversary Scream and thanks for giving us such an insane and scary experience that has long stayed with us for 25 years and will probably stay with us even longer.
