Scream (1981)
Not to be confused with Wes Craven's 1996 film, this Scream is a very threadbare, inept and deeply confused 1980s-era slasher movie without a shred of talent in evidence anywhere. The only thing saving it from a worse rating is due to a very bizarre, out of nowhere plot incident late in the third act.
The setting for the bloodshed in Scream is an interesting one. A group of vacationers have rafted down a river, along with their guides, and then hiked up to a creepy ghost town. As expected, when the go back down to the river, their rafts are gone and they decide to wait until a search crew comes looking for them and, naturally, there's an evil, unknown presence in the town with access to a whole lot of very sharp tools. The only change from cliche is the fact this group of vacationers are not teenagers, but a group of adults of varying ages.
All of the elements were in place to make an unusually effective and creative slasher movie; unfortunately, it's pretty clear that Scream has no such ambitions. When I say 'threadbare,' I mean that the entire script probably could fit on a single cocktail napkin. The movie not only gives the (very untalented) cast nothing to say or do, it hardly gives any of them names let alone actual, fully-written dialogue.
The only characteristic these people share is that they are all stupid. Supremely stupid. For example, the first victim is killed and, sensibly, the other characters all gather in one building for safety's sake, but then one dude decides he wants a beer that's in a cooler in another building. Despite the objections of the others, he goes alone....and is the next victim. Then another decides to go do something alone...and dies too. Over and over again. Guys, there's a killer out there, remember? And what of this killer? No idea. He is never seen. He is never identified. We don't even know if he is a he. He just is.
Scream just chugs along endlessly while we watch all of the tedium unfold, but then something very weird happens. One night, while the survivors are holed up, a strange fog appears and a cowboy on a horse enters the town carrying the corpse of one of the guys who left to look for help. This guy sits with them and then tells a strange story about his being a seaman who sailed around the horn of Africa. He then leaves with the disappearing fog. What the...? Confusing the movie even more is during the final scene where the killer is about to carve up another victim, and then there is a mysterious gunshot that (injures? kills? who knows?) the slasher and we see the cowboy once more. This is followed by a final shot inside someone's house where the camera pans in on a set of broken figurines and then shows us a painting of a naval captain as we hear the cowboy's cryptic story once more.
If you can stick it out until the scenes with the cowboy, you'll see how a movie like Scream can go from catatonic to bizarrely hypnotic in a nanosecond. But is it really worth it? Well, no. Scream's only purpose seems to be to exist as a hard to find title for slasher-movie completists...like me.
The setting for the bloodshed in Scream is an interesting one. A group of vacationers have rafted down a river, along with their guides, and then hiked up to a creepy ghost town. As expected, when the go back down to the river, their rafts are gone and they decide to wait until a search crew comes looking for them and, naturally, there's an evil, unknown presence in the town with access to a whole lot of very sharp tools. The only change from cliche is the fact this group of vacationers are not teenagers, but a group of adults of varying ages.
All of the elements were in place to make an unusually effective and creative slasher movie; unfortunately, it's pretty clear that Scream has no such ambitions. When I say 'threadbare,' I mean that the entire script probably could fit on a single cocktail napkin. The movie not only gives the (very untalented) cast nothing to say or do, it hardly gives any of them names let alone actual, fully-written dialogue.
The only characteristic these people share is that they are all stupid. Supremely stupid. For example, the first victim is killed and, sensibly, the other characters all gather in one building for safety's sake, but then one dude decides he wants a beer that's in a cooler in another building. Despite the objections of the others, he goes alone....and is the next victim. Then another decides to go do something alone...and dies too. Over and over again. Guys, there's a killer out there, remember? And what of this killer? No idea. He is never seen. He is never identified. We don't even know if he is a he. He just is.
Scream just chugs along endlessly while we watch all of the tedium unfold, but then something very weird happens. One night, while the survivors are holed up, a strange fog appears and a cowboy on a horse enters the town carrying the corpse of one of the guys who left to look for help. This guy sits with them and then tells a strange story about his being a seaman who sailed around the horn of Africa. He then leaves with the disappearing fog. What the...? Confusing the movie even more is during the final scene where the killer is about to carve up another victim, and then there is a mysterious gunshot that (injures? kills? who knows?) the slasher and we see the cowboy once more. This is followed by a final shot inside someone's house where the camera pans in on a set of broken figurines and then shows us a painting of a naval captain as we hear the cowboy's cryptic story once more.
If you can stick it out until the scenes with the cowboy, you'll see how a movie like Scream can go from catatonic to bizarrely hypnotic in a nanosecond. But is it really worth it? Well, no. Scream's only purpose seems to be to exist as a hard to find title for slasher-movie completists...like me.