Scream (1996)

Now let's be honest. Who didn't guess right from the outset what was going on in the sleepy Californian town of "Woodsboro"? Perhaps I'd just watched too many editions of "Scooby Do" as a child to be left in the dark for very long, but it's really the execution of this darkly comedic horror that made it an enjoyable watch. Drew Barrymore valiantly steps up to the plate as the opening "Casey" who rather unwillingly introduces us to the menacing "Ghost Face" whilst reminding us of a few "Janet & John" tips on how not to react when you get a series of…

Scream delivered a breath of fresh air into the slasher franchise and holds up rather well nearly 30 years later. The plot of this film follows a cookie-cutter structure that models nearly all of the great slasher franchises of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but that is entirely the point. Scream is completely aware of the tropes of horror movies and utilizes them in a creative way by adding commentary and subtle comedy delivered by the characters throughout the film. It is not a full-fledged comedy by any means; there is no forced humor or jokes, but…

Scream was the first of its kind that redefined horror with new rules, a meta plot, and rebellious unexpected twists. Scream followed all the rules and simultaneously broke them in a brilliant self-aware genre reinvention that leveraged every horror movie trope to set up and subvert every expectation. Scream is a love ballad to horror movie fans that intimately knows and zealously honors the legacy of terror-filled films that came before while creating something new, innovative, bold, and surprising. Scream’s dark humor and admiration of overused…