Maria’s review published on Letterboxd:
You’re getting ready to watch a scary movie… but what if you realize you’re living one? That’s the question that Scream explores, taking all the clichés of scary movies to make a movie within a movie, a parody and a loving tribute to the stupidity and the sensationalism of slashers. A masked killer begins terrorizing the teenagers of a quiet small town. He makes his entrance with innocent phone calls that devolve into deadly games. Movie trivia is his weapon of choice and his victims – some more knowledgeable than others – fall right into his trap. Mass hysteria ensues before it settles into unnerving ignorance and even carelessness, and Scream ticks all the boxes it can tick, knowingly and commenting on itself. If a character runs to their death, it’s because they run in the footsteps of so many characters before them. If a twist appears shockingly obvious, it’s because so many twists before it have been shockingly obvious. Scream dances with conventions that would make us roll our eyes, but it recognizes that it’s these conventions that make scary movies fun. By the end, there’s nothing but love for every cliché it tackles, and we too can fall in love with scary movies, for the first time or all over again.
