Scream (1996) - 10/10

Scream is by far my favorite horror movie of all time and I can still remember the anticipation I had when I first tried to watch it back in Montana when I was just figuring out my love for film and postmodern cinema. I wanted to watch this again to listen to the commentary by Director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson who have a great deal of intersting info to say about the casting, locations, and battles with the MPAA over the violence. What really impresses me about Scream is how Wes Craven talks about not only putting the rules of scary movies and references throughtout but then turns it on it's head to reinvent the genre by doing the opposite the audience expects. Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Rose McGowen, Liev Schrieber, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Kennedy, the cast is just so realistic and each character has their money line to really bring this sort of twisted comedy into the setting of this serial killer. Craven and Williamson talk about little hidden messages throughout like the use of cell phones, knives and showing you the killer so obviously that it makes you think it can't possibly be him. I love the way they got to keep a lot of the gore in the movie yet also kept it full of jokes about other horror movies and even go so far to say, this isn't a movie, this is real life. Overall, the structure and surprise ending of the movie proves that this story was in a genre of it's own, creating a self relflexive horror movie that brought every trick in the book and then pulled the rug out from under you to expose the terrific writing and unconventional aspect of how all horror movies should be. I love and respect this movie for thinking outside the box and becoming something that knows what it is and then is the better for it.