Scream (1996)

What's your favourite scary movie? It's not this one. And honestly, I think that's a completely fair answer, even if it feels like horror heresy to say it out loud.

By the mid-90s, the slasher genre was running on fumes. Freddy had been milked dry, Jason was a punchline, and the whole thing felt like it had nowhere left to go. Then Wes Craven showed up and stuck a knife in the genre's chest, and somehow that brought it back to life. Scream is a revival, a deconstruction and a love letter to horror all rolled into one film, and the fact that it pulled all three of those things off at once is genuinely impressive. For a newer entry into the slasher canon, its impact was enormous. Ghostface went from being the new kid to standing shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Freddy Krueger (and I've written about where Freddy started over in my review of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)), Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. That is not a small achievement. That is legendary status, earned fast.

The film knows exactly what it is, and it wears that knowledge proudly. The characters talk about horror rules, about sequels, about what gets you killed. It's clever without being smug, most of the time, and the scares still land even when you see them coming. There's a real craft to the tension-building, a genuine sense of dread underneath all the winking self-awareness. Craven knew how to frighten people, and that instinct never left him even when he was busy being postmodern about the whole thing.

But here's the thing I can't get past, the bit of baggage that comes with watching Scream now. Scary Movie happened. And I don't mean that as a straightforward criticism of this film, more as an observation about how pop culture can quietly colonise something. You cannot hear Ghostface pick up the phone without "Wasssup" creeping into the back of your brain. The parody did its job so thoroughly that it's become part of how we experience the original. Whether that's fair or not is beside the point. It's just the reality of watching Scream in the decades since.

And look, Scary Movie probably did just as much for Scream's cultural footprint as Scream did for itself. There's an argument that the parody kept Ghostface relevant in a weird, roundabout way. But it also means you're never quite watching the film clean. There's always that static in the background.

What I keep coming back to, though, is that even with all of that noise, the film works. The opening sequence alone earns it serious respect. It's tense, it's brutal, and it sets up everything the film wants to do without giving the game away. The cast are clearly having a good time, and that energy is infectious. It moves well, it's funny when it wants to be, and it knows when to drop the meta commentary and just be frightening.

Is it perfect? No. Some of the self-awareness tips into self-satisfaction, and there are moments where the cleverness gets in the way of the scares rather than sharpening them. But imperfect and iconic aren't mutually exclusive, and Scream is absolutely the latter.

Three and a half stars.

Rating: ★★★½  | Year: 1996  | Watched: 2025-04-02

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Where to watch

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Wes Craven: The Hills Have Eyes (1977) · A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
More from the 1990s: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · Blue (1993) · Cemetery Man (1994)
More crime: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Angst (1983) · Stolen Face (1952) · Cairo Station (1958)
More horror: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Viy (1967) · Nightmare City (1980) · Angst (1983)