SCREAM

Next year SCREAM will be 20 years old. Has it really been that long? Gosh, I'm getting old. It's been a few years since I've watched director Wes Craven's second most popular horror film. Watching it last night felt fresh, the movie I am happy to say still holds up! Some of the dialogue feels dated and forced, the pop culture references don't sound naturally to me now like they used to? The horror genre was having a hard time in the 90's. They killed off Freddy, everybody thought JASON GOES TO HELL sucked, and Hollywood tried to make us scared of Leprechauns. Thankfully there was some good ones like CANDYMAN and ARMY OF DARKNESS. But the slasher flick was pretty much dead.

With the death of Freddy and Jason being sent to hell, audiences for the most part we're fine with it. But for me, I was just getting started. I loved horror and couldn't get enough. The year that I started college was when I rented and watched all the mainstream (Freddy, Jason, and Michael) horror slashers. I had now seen every film in the Elm Street series and HALLOWEEN had become my favorite horror movie.

The first time I saw SCREAM was on a Friday afternoon after class. I still remember that it was me and about ten other people. Which back then was odd, even for a matinee? The movie floored me! Leaving the theater I thought I'd just witnessed the greatest horror movie ever made.

The next day at work I was telling all my co workers about it. When I got home I called my friends and dragged some of them to see it. For the rest of the 90's SCREAM and SCREAM 2 were probably my favorite films.

It was a slow start but word of mouth made SCREAM a box office smash. The slasher genre was popular once again. The 'Dead Teenager' horror film dominated the late 90's. And while I did in fact enjoy the return, one of these things wasn't quite like the other? These slasher flicks were lacking in the gore department.

SCREAM did good delivering the goods, but the copycats kept becoming more and more blood less. Thanks a lot MPAA and focus groups!

Besides the issues with gore and violence, it turns out that the movies themselves were just not that good. Every character spewing hip self referential dialogue and being to smart to be in a horror movie situation got old really fast. Thank goodness for the J-horror (Japanese) remake craze. But that too got stale.

I'm glad to say that SCREAM holds up! It holds up extremely well. Unlike, say I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. I loved that movie when it came out! But I kinda cringe thinking about it now. Heck, I was worried SCREAM was going to suffer the same fate!

I will consider A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET to always be Wes Craven's most notable and popular film. Fans forever will be split between it and SCREAM. But as much as I love SCREAM, it is not my favorite of the series. That my friends, is SCREAM 2!