Scream

‘no please don’t kill me mr. ghostface! i wanna be in the sequel’ scream is just an unbelievable slasher flick, and it honestly may be my favourite of all time. the early 90s to me is honestly the dark age of slasher, too much cgi and not enough gore or originality. scream single handedly saved the slasher subgenre period, you can see a clear switch up from pre scream to post scream, and i wonder without this flick would the late 90s be as good.. or would it suffer with the same problems as the late 80s/early 90s. screams brings a fresh take on the horror genre as a whole, and it’s so nice considering a lot of the stuff people were putting out was done a million times already. another thing i absolutely adored about this film is it just feels like a love letter to hardcore horror fans, it is almost like a parody of slashers, it uses interesting and clever dialogue to make fun of horror cliches and tropes, such as the virgin always lives, or sex = death. i loved how randy was constantly referencing horror flicks, the howling, prom night, halloween. majority of horror franchises were mentioned at least once in this film. it wasn’t that big of a detail but i just love how informative the writing crew clearly was, and i love when there’s a movie in a movie, i loved how the characters were watching halloween it was just great. one thing which is just perfect is this is the film which popularises and perfects ‘the opening kill’ i believe slashers are just missing something when there’s not a kill at the very beginning, this trope was used before the existence of this film but never to the extent. the beginning scene alone deserves 10 oscars. we meet casey becker (performed by the amazing drew barrymore) and she gets a call from this dude with a really deep voice, he begins asking her questions and everything is relatively normal until he says he’s outside her house. this scene alone brings so many iconic pieces of dialogue, i think of ‘what’s your favourite scary movie’ like every single day. the stakes increase as casey starts stressing, her boyfriends tied up and her popcorns exploded. she is chased around until she’s then brutally slashed. this scene is perfectly acted out and remains one of the most iconic pieces of horror media, i could rewatch the opening kill every day if i could. now, my favourite part of this slasher is by far the chaeacters, i’ve never seen a horror not only having a stacked cast but also so many iconic characters blended in one. first off, sidney prescott is honestly maybe my favourite final girl, sidney is very witty and she’s perfectly developed through the movie, she goes through the loss of her mother the year prior and is clearly grieving and how she’s being attacked by her boyfriend, i really feel for her. in the 3rd act she was serving so much cunt!! she does a complete reverse psychology on the ghost faces as she’s the one doing the calls, and she ends up ending tv head!! also that gale  weathers punch is one of the best cinematic moments ever. gale weathers is next, and i’ve got to say she’s by far my favourite character in the entire franchise. she’s completely unlikable at the start, and almost void of soul, she mistreats her camera man and exploits murders for a pay check, while i don’t particularly condone any of that honestly it’s not like she was doing anything illegal lmao!! the thing i love about gale is not only are her outfits absolutely gorgeous, but she shows so much character development throughout the film, going from a stone hearted cold news reporter to a likeable character who saves the day in the end, i think her being in the perspective of a victim really changes her view, maybe her relationship with dewey makes her hard exterior crack a little bit, she seen genuinely worried about sid and evidently sad when kenny gets the chop, and all that mixed with some really amazing pieces of dialogue. and now the main man of the series, dewey riley. this film has to be one of my favourite dewey adaptations, he’s a new cop to woodsboro and the brother of tatum riley (their dynamic was so cute, i can’t imagine his reaction to the garage door :() but anywho his relationship with gale has to be one of the best tv romances ever, and i just love how he’s completely out of it in the last 30 minutes, because honestly real. tatum riley, dewey’s sister is next, and i’ve got to say she’s definitely the best character solely in scream 1. tatum riley is an incredible character, she’s an amazing friend to sidney and does whatever it takes to support her, and i would even say she was one of the best friends in fiction, she even has a spare bed for sidney. not only this, but she has the funniest dialogue and her death sequence may be the best scene in this film, she completely whoops ghost faces ass! beer bottles going left right centre and she completely jukes ghost face, but unfortunately the doggy door was her fatal flaw :( her death scene is the best in the film, the way it just goes up until her head explodes, and her bodies just dangling is really cool. i get why they killed her off, because they need to kill someone important besides the killer but my girl deserves to be in the sequel :((. i can’t believe how many great characters there is, because randy is just a great element to the movie, his impressive and stance knowledge of horror is enough to gain all my respect, i love how he knows all the rules and he’s definitely my favourite male in this, besides dewey, he doesn’t get a massive role in this movie but atleast he survives!! billy and stu are two incredibly iconic ghost faces, and some of the best in the series. they’re both just completely psychotic and both seduce a member of the friend group, as much as i love both these characters, they have to be the most obvious killers ever. billy is just constantly jump scaring sidney and the viewer, i think he’s sort of used as a red herring, he’s the obvious option for the killer so the viewer believes it isn’t him, and that was probably me on my first watch, besides him being a cool killer he’s one of the weaker characters, it was a complete red flag when he tells sidney to get over her mother.. yeah no. stu macher wad another great killer, and matthew lillard did an amazing job at portraying a psychotic killer, i really wonder what he was on because his biggest motive was ‘peer pressure’ … yeah right. there’s some other good characters like kenny or the other police guy, but i don’t wanna yap any more than i already have. i think maybe the main reason i enjoyed the characters so much is the actors are completely stacked, david arquette, courtney cox and neve compell all in the same film. wow. it’s either that or the amazing script they wrote, maybe both. i adore the whole masked killer trope, not only does it create a suspenseful atmosphere, but it keeps the audience guessing and adds a massive sense of mystery some slashers are really missing, it also creates a more realistic approach to the slasher genre, as serial killer are rampant even today. the kills and gore in this film are truly masterclass, and a massive contrast to the bleakness of other 90s slashers, it’s a true 90s blood bath and that’s yet another reason to give this a 5 star rating. the soundtrack is one of my favourites of all time, the dynamics between all the characters feels fleshed out and they all worn really well together. this is an endlessly iconic movie which saved horror from the deepest depths of hell, it uses new technological discoveries to enhance the experience and modernise the horror formula, this is extremely influential even for today and i would kill a quarter of the population to watch this for the first time.