28 Years Later, First Scream Movie Miserably Fails the Test of Time
Massively successful slasher hit has some controversial aspects to talk about.
Summary:
- 28 years ago, Scream was a sensational horror deconstructing the old slasher canons and since then has received an iconic status and several continuations.
- However, its pacing, suspense aspect and some holes in the screenplay can lead us to the conclusion it’s not so perfect as we remember.
Back in 1996, Wes Craven’s Scream was not only a huge commercial success (earning over $170 million on a budget of $15 million), but also a revolutionary slasher horror movie, which broke some canons of the genre, deconstructing the traditional tropes and this way surprising the tired audience. It inspired not only a number of sequels, having Scream 7 in development now, but also lots of other inventive slashers.
However, if we dive into detailed analysis, it happens to be obvious even the first Scream movie is not so elaborately built and written, here are three takes on its imperfections.
1. Scream Is Not So Scary as You Think
As it often happens in the history of the movie franchises, the first movie in them deserves much more attention than sequels. While speaking of Scream, this rule is fair enough too, and, moreover, the opening sequence of the first movie here also outperforms its following development, being the most horrifying scene of the whole franchise.
Surprisingly, the rest of the scenes of the first movie don’t manage to outdo its blood-chilling beginning, when Drew Barrymore’s character, Casey, is threatened and then relentlessly killed by a mysterious person wearing a Ghostface costume.
2. Scream Lacks Suspense and Dynamics in Its Main Part
Undoubtedly, the famous opening scene is extremely nail-biting and suspenseful, then there is also a party scene, which was filmed thoroughly for many weeks, where all masks are literally off and all action is concentrated in one particular house.
However, given the above-mentioned scenes as the most memorable ones from the film, its one-hour-long main part, which goes before the finale, presents us almost zero horror and only one death, the one of the school’s principal, which was some kind of useless in terms of people’s little attraction to this character and his fate.
3. The Ghostface’s Actions Were Not Always Reasonable
Given the name of the killer clearly revealed in the finale, Scream’s strict logic breaks in some bizarre moments when its costumed villain behaves unreasonably risky and even magically. If you rewatch the first Scream, you’ll remember that sometimes the killer appears in public places in broad daylight, and people around him seem to be blind not seeing a person with a Ghostface mask, who escaped such situations like in a fairy tale.