23 Days to Halloween- 1996 Scream

Over the next 100 days, I will present one movie of significances in horror, suspense or thrillers for each year from 1919 to 2018. The next film presented here is the 1996 meta-slasher horror movie "Scream" starring Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich, Drew Barrymore and directed by Wes Craven.

Scream (1996)

Dir- Wes Craven

Well you know the routine, put in a bunch of generic teens, some big breasted bimbos, really dumb jocks, inept officers and a killer with mask and cell phone. Sounds so familiar, well this time Wes Craven deliberately makes it so to deliver a spoof that more than makes up for all those silly teen splatter flicks of the 80's. Scream is an homage to these and many other films which used buckets of corn syrup, bad jokes, and Xeroxed scripts to deliver gory splatterfests that now line our video store shelves. The film stars Neve Campbell as a virgin teen who is being stalked by a killer who may have murdered her mother a year before. Courtney Cox is the intrepid yet sleazy tabloid reporter out to make a name for herself, and Drew Barrymore is a blonde bimbo who makes a terrible mistake by not paying enough attention to those silly horror films. In the course of the movie we have Campbell facing the attention of the police, media, and her friends as her boyfriend is nabbed for the crime and may very well be as innocent as the man she pegged as her mother's murderer. Who exactly is the killer, well I'm not going to tell you!!! Craven blends plenty of blood and gore with enough clichés and cameos to make up for even his misfires of the 80's. Although the film does seem a bit confused about whether it is a spoof or a serious horror film with a few jokes put in. Scream is a rare horror gem that stands out because it is mocking the very clichés that plague films of this genre. Take note as this movie features many icons of the 70's and plenty of horror references and, of course, we can't forget the infamous Horror Movie Survival Guide.