Scream

Oh God! It's horrifying! It's not like he's the killer  from a
horror film or anything...   Image starstoreblog

Continuing the week's halloween/horror theme we have Wes Craven's 1997 hit Scream. A parody of slasher films, Scream combined laughs with terror and was a hit with both audiences and critics alike that revived the slasher genre (perhaps a dubious honour, given the quality of most of those). Someone ought to tell these people. I believe that I can be that someone:

"Scream" is nothing more than a teen, stupid, oversexed and horribly overrated version of "Halloween", John Carpenter's classic (It does have its similarities, yes. But. It isn't a 'version' of it. It's a completely separate, original film). More than a homage, it's a copy (No it isn't. Aside from some references made in the film, the film's set-pieces are entirely different.). Remember: "Go to the McKenzie's house, call the police" (Yes, this was a deliberate reference. Remember, this is as much a parody of slashers as it is a horror). Nothing new in this movie, nothing at all (Y'know, except most of the film. For example, I'm pretty sure Halloween didn't have 3 rules of a horror movie...). The characters are just young, very willing fans of horror movies who don't ask for nothing but getting stabbed (This sounds like the old rapist defence of 'she was asking for it'. Anything you'd care to admit to us?), and the killer's suit is grotesque (I believe that may have been the point, you simpleton), making him a mental defective (What does that even mean? Did you wander in from the 50s? We don't do lobotomies anymore by the way) - and ridiculized by the Wayans Brothers in their raving film, "Scary Movie" (Well that's hardly Craven's fault is it?). And what about him, the killer, what about his personality? (What's your complaint here? What about his personality?)

The ending is totally stupid (SPOILER ALERT. Yes, I've done what the reviewer should have done. Thoughtless bastard): all those characters who die but come back- that woman reporter who has a van crash but comes back to save Sidney just in time, that young man who gets shot in the chest, that policeman who gets stabbed in the back (Well they didn't actually die. They were just injured weren't they. It's not like any of them had been pronounced dead by Dr. McCoy. You just presumed they'd died)

 -, and guess why? ('Cause they weren't dead?) Just because they're good... (Of course. You've opened my eyes to the cruelty of Craven)(remember: "I thought you were dead", another dialog  taken from another John Carpenter's classic, "Escape from New York" (Another dialogue? You've never mention Escape From New York before! And anyway, I'm pretty sure other films have had the line 'I thought you were dead', many of them from before EFNY was even thought of) - hey, Kevin, give Big John a break!) I'm sorry, but it doesn't make sense to me. (Well it wouldn't. You do, afterall, have more teeth than brain cells)

The only positive element of this film is an astounding young actor, Skeet Ulrich (I'm sure your praise will make up for his complete lack of major awards). The rest is no new and no good. (And that's not a fucking sentence! It would be 'NOTHING new and NOTHING good'. Idiot)

Now, to be honest, I don't really know what to do with this next one. It barely hangs together as it is. It just goes all over the place:

This movie was very horrible, what a suspense ! With excellent characters and memorable plot, I mean with this fisherman who wants to kill everybody with a fish-hook. Oups ! I made a mistake it was in I will always know what you did last summer for 20 years. But it doesn't matter, this is the same kind of movie with murders of teenagers with a lot of humor (involuntary humor). This movie was perhaps marvellous (for some people) when it was released, but in 2 or 3 years, I don't think that we will know what they did last summer. Don't worry !, you could enjoy at this time Friday the 13th part 20 with a similar plot. Evil never die ! (like money-makers). This movie is very representative of the use of gratuitous violence by Hollywood for targeting people with a commercial product. Wes Craven himself said that cinema was another way for making money. I agree with him, but in that case, does it mean that cinema became useless as a medium of creativity and imagination? Teenagers are in a age where contestation is a way of asserting their personality, this is normal, but Hollywood producers are aware of that fact and insert gratuitous violence in that contestation because they can make a lot of money. This commercial process leads to movie like Scream where there is no plot, no acting, but a lot of gore and violence used as meaning of expression. The characters in that movie are very weak, are they really representative of the young generation of the United-States ? or are they only caricatures of young people trying to convince the real young people that in the USA the life of a student is so delicious and violent ? What. The. Fuck? What does any of this mean? Are you saying that because many of the slashers that came after are very similar to Scream, that Scream is crap? That seems a little unfair to me. Also, Scream is intended to be funny, presuming 'involuntary humour' (yes humour. Not humor, you're on a British site for God's sake) meant 'unintended humour'. And it's I Know What You Did Last Summer, not whatever stupidly long title you though it was. Finally, Amazon has a reviews feature, not so that you can rant about things, but so you can share your opinions on a product in a clear and rational manner to other potential buyers. Save your rants for blogs, like this we do. Oh, and learn to write.

 Well, that's your lot for today. But don't worry, there are plenty more crappy Amazon reviews to come...