The '90s weren't a great age for horror movies. The "Big Ones" especially took some rather painful ball shots during the first half of the decade with Michael taking a box office wedgie with Curse of Michael Myers , Freddy getting a craptacular "recreation" with New Nightmare , Pamela Voorhees' baby boy being fatally fucked over with Jason Goes To Hell , Leatherface brutally beaten by The Next Generation and Pinhead forever reduced to direct-to-video limbo after the gastro-intestinal release of Bloodlines would forever damn the series to a lower tax bracket. People were tired of the same old slashers and their continued mistreatment by the creators and studios molesting their fates. It was in this time that Wes Craven fealt it was the perfect opportunity for a second coming of slashers to grab the attention of the new generation of teen consumers throwing away mommy and daddy's money.
This age (which many old skoolers like myself would come to revile as the dark days of "Neo-Slasher" cinema) was headed by Craven's Scream, which was originally intended to be a parody of the slasher movies on which the man had helped give life and had made his fortune. But, what was meant to be a parody instead became the genesis for a whole genre of teeny-bopper bullshit garbage the likes of which was unseen for every decade before it. The first great generation of themed slashers gave birth to names like Kevin Bacon, Johnny Depp and Jamie Lee Curtis, while the Neo-Slashers cashed in on recognizable pop culture throw away talking heads like Neve Campbell, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ryan Phillipe, David Boreanaz and anybody else who had lines on a teen drama on the WB in the mid-90s.
A masked killer is running around laying waste to the bubbly-headed moron festival that is the high school population of a sleepy little town. Same old formula. The twist? The killer's actually two guys masquerading as one. Kinda interesting idea. Another kinda interesting idea? These guys didn't have a motive, they were just killing. They were thrill seekers who knew they could get away with it because they didn't have a motive... except that Skeet Ulrich apparently has a motive after all, so this whole "almost appealing" element kinda farts out. My biggest complaint? David Arquette and Courtney Cox not only lived, but went on to do both sequels and became a couple as a result of this movie... which I'm sure is in some way responsible for making Arquette the WCW Heavyweight champion a few years later, but I'll go into that rant at another time.
Am I biased against Scream because it was made as an attempt to bring a new audience into the genre I wanted to keep the idiots and assholes out of? Because I wanted to be able to cruise the gore whore section at Video King without having to bump into bimbos, jocks, preppies and cheerleaders when doing it? Hey, I'm not too lost in my self-imposed exile to think I'm not at least a little snobbish. What right do I have to determine who can and can't enjoy horror movies? Who cares. All I know is that the term "scary movie" had sent me into more than one blind homicidal rage because of Wes Craven and his quest for more money, and I hope the grieving families affected by these needless deaths weigh on the man's conscience.
If you're looking for a flick that pokes fun at horror movie conventions without all of the so-called "personalities", do yourself a flavor favor and seek out There's Nothing Out There. Sure, it won't be as easy to come by, you might actually have to go somewhere other than Whoreywood or Cockbuster to find a copy, but at least you'll be spared the "talents" of people like Jamie Kennedy.
