{"id":7316,"date":"2025-08-01T01:34:49","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T05:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=7316"},"modified":"2026-06-24T10:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:26:08","slug":"scream-1996","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=7316","title":{"rendered":"Scream-1996"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scream-1996<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Wes Craven<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring\u00a0 Neve Campbell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Top 250 Films #161<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Top 40 Horror Films #25<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #710<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed January 5, 2018<\/p>\n

Grade: A-<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wes Craven’s 1996 film Scream is a film that greatly helped bring the horror genre back into relevance after a long drought in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when horror films suffered from both oversaturation and clich\u00e9d messes.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Scream, creativity and plot twists and turns returned to the forefront of good horror films, and a clever film was born.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to 2018, and the film does suffer a bit from a dated 1990s look, but it is still great fun to watch and a treat for all classic horror buffs, with references to classic greats galore.<\/p>\n

The film is sectioned off nicely and gets underway quickly (in the best sequence of the film) as Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) receives a flirtatious phone call from a man asking her to name her favorite horror film while making popcorn.<\/p>\n

The friendly game quickly turns vicious as the caller threatens to kill her boyfriend should she answer a question incorrectly.<\/p>\n

In a clever twist (think 1960s Psycho!) Casey and her boyfriend meet deadly fates as the opening credits roll.<\/p>\n

Given Barrymore’s huge star in 1996, this twist was all the more shocking and attention-grabbing.<\/p>\n

The remainder of the film centers around Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a popular California high school student, as she is pursued by an attacker known only as “Ghostface”, who dons a creepy costume and terrorizes victims via phone calls.<\/p>\n

The small town, led by police officer Dewey Riley (David Arquette) and bitchy newswoman Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), is determined to unmask the killer and understand their motivations.<\/p>\n

Sidney’s boyfriend, Billy (Skeet Ulrich), and other friends are along for the ride as a possible connected sub-plot involving Sidney’s deceased mother is introduced.<\/p>\n

A romance between Dewey and Gale is also broached.<\/p>\n

Scream is an enormous treat for fans of the horror genre, with numerous references (and film clips!) to classics such as 1978’s Halloween throughout.<\/p>\n

Other references to Friday the 13th, Prom Night, and A Nightmare on Elm Street appear during the film.<\/p>\n

Writer Kevin Williamson, a horror enthusiast, must have had a ball writing the screenplay that would become Scream.<\/p>\n

In 1996, the mega-success of the film not only jump-started the entire genre but also introduced younger fans of Scream to classics from their parents’ generation, sparking their interest in the films.<\/p>\n

Classic horror films are not only referenced during the film but also explained,\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>mostly by the supporting character of Jamie, the nerdy kid who works at the video store and adores horror films.<\/p>\n

A sequence in which he explains several “rules” of the horror genre is superlative, creative, and just great fun. He tells the teenagers at a party that anyone who drinks, has sex, or says “I will be right back” is doomed to suffer a violent fate.<\/p>\n

This clever writing makes Scream enormous fun to watch.<\/p>\n

The climax of Scream is quite surprising in itself, and the “great reveal” of the murderer (s) is also intelligent writing and quite the surprise.<\/p>\n

Several red herrings are produced along the way, casting suspicion on other characters who may or may not be the killers.<\/p>\n

A small gripe of the writing is the motivations of the murderers- when the explanation is given for their killing spree, the reasoning is a bit convoluted and hard to fathom, but this is horror. Suspension of disbelief is always a necessity.<\/p>\n

Scream is best remembered for giving the horror genre a good, hard kick in the seat of the pants and shaking up the elements a bit while preserving the core ideals of a good slasher film (suspense, a whodunit, and good, solid kills).<\/p>\n

Scream (1996) was followed by several sequels, some of which achieved greater success than others.<\/p>\n

In 2018, the film may not be quite as fresh as it once was, but it is still a solid watch and memorable for relaunching a genre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scream-1996 Director Wes Craven Starring\u00a0 Neve Campbell Top 250 Films #161 Top 40 Horror Films #25 Scott’s Review #710 Reviewed January 5, 2018 Grade: A- Wes Craven’s 1996 film Scream is a film that greatly helped bring the horror genre back into relevance after a long drought in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when … Continue reading Scream-1996<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274,11712,13,310,7464,7536],"tags":[7819,7569,1849,1910,1182,5598,1915,11628,1914,1005,5072,1911,2765,1912,1913,933],"class_list":["post-7316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1996-movie-reviews","category-90s-horror","category-horror-films","category-slasher-films","category-top-250-films","category-top-40-horror-films","tag-161-favorite-film","tag-25-favorite-horror-film","tag-courtney-cox","tag-david-arquette","tag-drew-barrymore","tag-frances-lee-mccain","tag-henry-winkler","tag-jamie-kennedy","tag-liev-schreiber","tag-linda-blair","tag-matthew-lillard","tag-neve-campbell","tag-patrick-lussier","tag-rose-mcgowan","tag-skeet-ulrich","tag-wes-craven"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7316"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23382,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7316\/revisions\/23382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}