A classic slasher film to watch this Halloween
Confession time. I am not a fan of horror movies, as in I have mostly avoided all horror movies with a ten-foot pole my entire life. I am already quite high-strung, so combine that with a jump scare, and I’ll hit the ceiling nearly every time. Over the past couple of years, however, I began an attempt to ease into the genre and push my limits.
I recently watched Scream (1996) for the first time to test my horror film boundaries and get into the spooky season. I must say, I loved it. I figured Scream was a good gateway film into the genre since it’s known for being more of a ‘fun’ scary movie than a ‘cover-your-eyes’ terrifying horror flick. I watched this movie with a few friends, and, as they said, it’s great for those who appreciate the Halloween spirit but don’t actually want to be left scared out of their minds.
Scream is a slasher film within the horror genre, directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson. The film features a roster of 1990s stars, including Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, Matthew Lillard, and Drew Barrymore, sporting peak ‘90s fashion. The plot follows a high school student, Sidney Prescott (played by Campbell), as Ghostface—a killer dressed in a ghost Halloween costume—targets Sidney and her friends. While it features a healthy dose of grisly murders, par for the course in any slasher, Scream also satirizes the clichés of the genre popularized by Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), among others. The characters often discuss the “rules” of horror movies and the predictability of the plots, like the long outdated “virgins survive” trope. There are many times when the tension is broken by a gag or comical pratfall by Ghostface, allowing Scream to deliver horror movie thrills while not taking itself too seriously.
The film still follows through on those heart-racing chase scenes you expect and is certainly not all fun and games (we’re dealing with a serial killer, after all). You’ll often yell at the character on screen to go the other way, and that just adds to the fun. Simply put, Scream achieves what it set out to do: offer a scary movie spooky enough to fit the season, but light-hearted enough for the more timid fans to enjoy. As an added plus, the film is an excellent period piece of the late ‘90s, full of dated references to “cellulars,” “video stores,” and “VHS.”
(Confession time again: I may or may not have been walking a bit faster on my way home in the dark, and I *may* have checked over my shoulder occasionally to ensure a ghost-faced killer wasn’t lurking behind me.)
Editor’s Note: Harry Myles is a member of the Law Film Society (LFS). The LFS’s next screening is The Visitor on November 14, 2022.
