Great summary, I also went back to re-watch some of the most Scream slasher stuff and it def does not hold up as well as the Scream series did. Although I still hold a soft-spot for Urban Legend and I Know What You Did Last Summer. I think it took Final Destination to get a twist on slashers being interesting again.
NB: I think that Scream 2 and 4 weren't as smug as you say, but I concede that 3 really got up itself and aged hilariously badly... Courtney Cox's bangs and the Jay and Silent bob cameo(!) especially, presumably because they lost Williamson as a writer.
I had forgotten many things about this movie since 1997, but I will never forget my screening of it. I saw it with my grad-school friends at CocoWalk in Miami. Sold out show. Down the row from us, a thirtysomething guy was seeing the film alone in the aisle seat. With every scare or jump scale, he would shriek in terror. And it wasn't some troll, either. It was his genuine reaction. Then, if you'll recall, the film ends in a huge jump scare before the credits roll: He shrieks one last time, stands up immediately and vacates the theater—all in one motion. It was incredible.
Similarly, over many of the details of the film I'll always remember my dopey friend, who saw it before I did, blurting out a spoiler to me for committing the high crime of asking him if he liked it or not.
"It's SO stupid! Like, when they hit the guy with the car at the beginning, his face is allllllll mangled up. But when he turns out to be alive at the end, his face looks normal!"
"It’s all very simple: The dead man they thought they killed was actually the boyfriend of the daughter of the victim. The victim had killed the boyfriend that same night, because he blamed the boyfriend for his daughter’s death in an earlier accident."
Scream was such a formative movie for me in my early teens, definitely a horror gateway. I remember making my dad take me to see a bunch of horror from this period (thanks, Dad!) including the sequels and The Faculty, another written by Williamson. We also went to see I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and **SPOILERS** immediately upon introduction of the Will Benson character thinking "Will, Ben's son... that's not actually gonna be a thing, is it?"
I watched I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer before revisiting I Still Know... recently and, boy howdy, does I Still Know... look like a feat of formal cinematic rigor compared to the third one. One could say I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer makes I Still Know What You Did Last Summer look like I Know What You Did Last Summer.
One could argue that although the film lets the characters off the moral (but again, not literal) hook with the final revelation that they non-fatally hit Ben Willis instead of whatshisname, there's still a layered irony in that if they had listened to Julie at the beginning and called the police, there's a decent-ish chance their examination & questioning of Willis MIGHT have led to the revelation that he'd just murdered his poor whatshisname, and sent him to jail. It almost certainly would have saved half the group (and a couple of their antagonistic relations) from being murdered, since Willis wouldn't have had nearly as much to be vengeful about.
Great summary, I also went back to re-watch some of the most Scream slasher stuff and it def does not hold up as well as the Scream series did. Although I still hold a soft-spot for Urban Legend and I Know What You Did Last Summer. I think it took Final Destination to get a twist on slashers being interesting again.
NB: I think that Scream 2 and 4 weren't as smug as you say, but I concede that 3 really got up itself and aged hilariously badly... Courtney Cox's bangs and the Jay and Silent bob cameo(!) especially, presumably because they lost Williamson as a writer.
I had forgotten many things about this movie since 1997, but I will never forget my screening of it. I saw it with my grad-school friends at CocoWalk in Miami. Sold out show. Down the row from us, a thirtysomething guy was seeing the film alone in the aisle seat. With every scare or jump scale, he would shriek in terror. And it wasn't some troll, either. It was his genuine reaction. Then, if you'll recall, the film ends in a huge jump scare before the credits roll: He shrieks one last time, stands up immediately and vacates the theater—all in one motion. It was incredible.
Similarly, over many of the details of the film I'll always remember my dopey friend, who saw it before I did, blurting out a spoiler to me for committing the high crime of asking him if he liked it or not.
"It's SO stupid! Like, when they hit the guy with the car at the beginning, his face is allllllll mangled up. But when he turns out to be alive at the end, his face looks normal!"
"It’s all very simple: The dead man they thought they killed was actually the boyfriend of the daughter of the victim. The victim had killed the boyfriend that same night, because he blamed the boyfriend for his daughter’s death in an earlier accident."
clear as mud
Scream was such a formative movie for me in my early teens, definitely a horror gateway. I remember making my dad take me to see a bunch of horror from this period (thanks, Dad!) including the sequels and The Faculty, another written by Williamson. We also went to see I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and **SPOILERS** immediately upon introduction of the Will Benson character thinking "Will, Ben's son... that's not actually gonna be a thing, is it?"
I watched I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer before revisiting I Still Know... recently and, boy howdy, does I Still Know... look like a feat of formal cinematic rigor compared to the third one. One could say I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer makes I Still Know What You Did Last Summer look like I Know What You Did Last Summer.
One could argue that although the film lets the characters off the moral (but again, not literal) hook with the final revelation that they non-fatally hit Ben Willis instead of whatshisname, there's still a layered irony in that if they had listened to Julie at the beginning and called the police, there's a decent-ish chance their examination & questioning of Willis MIGHT have led to the revelation that he'd just murdered his poor whatshisname, and sent him to jail. It almost certainly would have saved half the group (and a couple of their antagonistic relations) from being murdered, since Willis wouldn't have had nearly as much to be vengeful about.