i can say that i can see both sides of this issue ..
I personally thought Scream was clever and didnt get smug until the second and third when what started as a homage/parody backfired.

An i agree that it cant be blamed for the limp new wave of teenage slasher films.

I've said it before and i'll keep saying it until its on every relevant thread : blame the fucking audience !
Its people who support these films .. they are bankable because of all the people supporting these films.

If a movie isnt liked it's pooched after the first week.
If it makes money then there were millions of people who thought it was still a good movie.
How do you blame a filmmaker for making films the majority want to see ?

Just appreciate more the ones willing to take risks for the real fans of the genre. The guys who obviously care as much as we do.

Well, being new, I should probably not admit this. But I like all 3 Scream movies for what they are. I don't think they are serious horror by any stretch, and I like the smugness. In fact, I'll go so far as to call Scream 1 genius. Using Halloween in the background was extremely clever on Cravens part. And yes, Scream created inferior clones ad-nauseum. But at the very least, it brought back horror as a bankable option which can only help us get more horror movies, good and bad. The bottom line is, many of these new horror movies, and even the better independant ones, would have never existed had Wes Craven not exploded the genre with Scream.

3.....2......1......prepare to be lambasted...

I think I have seen this movie before, but I'm not to sure:confused:

only liked the first two

yeah the only good thing about scream 3 was the jay and silent bob cameo :)

The first few moments in the orginal were good. It contained a lot of the elements of a good Horror film, suspense, suprise, sympathy, participation, and loathing, with some gore. All of this with the lights on too. After that so-so.

It's called "selling out"; those who want unpretentious, affecting horror are in the minority - and we appreciate the guys who can give us this. We don't like it when they sell out.

Scream "clever"?

How? For telling the audience how to celebrate horror films, by way of attempting to deconstruct scary movies and cheapen their effect with knowingness and parody?

Straight horror spoofs such as Saturday the 14th and Scary Movie are fine - they set out to poke fun at what we usually find tense and horrifying and do not pretend to be anything else; Scream on the other hand is asking us to admire its hipness and understanding of the horror movie... and as if this is not grating enough, discovering the director is Wes Craven (yes that Wes Craven of Last House, Nightmare, The Hills Have Eyes...) we then need to admire how good ole Wes has obviously become so experienced in and jaded of the genre he is qualified enough to pastiche it and show us what he "knows" we like. Wink wink. Throw in a few well crafted sequences, and the film is a roaring success with kids flocking to see and "get" it.

You could call Memento, Irreversible and Pulp Fiction clever for their unusual construction - but Scream?

Only smug - and responsible for the taming and safety of American horror which has increased since its ghastly release.

Don't blame the original. Blame the countless clones, that were inferior , I might add. Scream is a good movie. Blaming Scream for studio head honchos deciding to bring garbage horror to the screen is akin to blaming Halloween for the onslaught of crappy slasher films in the 80's. That shouldn't diminish the original. In fact, it should elevate it.

If you are seduced by Scream's informed cleverness enough to enjoy the experience more than hate the smug backbone running through it then that's fair enough.

But you must understand that since it undeniably brought the horror (particularly, teen-in-peril slasher) film back to a new generation of previously Summer Romantic Comedy Blockbuster-fed teens, it has opened the floodgates and the genre has been drenched in carefully marketed safe/ironic horror movies aimed at the same audience. True horror films have now been pushed even further underground. Challenging, uncompromising ideas are a rarity, and seen by these "new" horror fans as too harsh, nasty and pointless like those dreadful 70s/80s exploiters they saw clips of once.

Can't blame Scream for inferior imitators? So instead we stand back and admire Craven's audacity at telling us all about horror movies, then lap it up and dodge the fallout.

As I said earlier this is cheapening, insulting and insufferably pretentious from the (now much richer) Craven - I wonder if he can make another successful movie without resorting to the film-within-a-film stupidity of New Nightmare or the masterful glib ironies of Scream?

Doubt it - I'm off to watch Shocker again...

Why blame Wes Craven for his "audacity"? Why not blame Kevin Williamson, the guy who wrote the damn things? He is more to blame than anyone. (Writers never get our due....)

What do you expect from a guy who looks like Michael McKean's boyfreind from Best in Show and wrote Dawson's Creek? Consider the source here. He doesnt write regular, good old fashioned "Twilight Zone" irony, he does self-observant, sarcastic, jaded irony. Its a reflection of the people it is written for.

Craven wanted to make another horror movie. A smart one that made fun of a genre he helped bring to the forefront came across his desk. It would have been stupid not too.

The problem is that producers didnt say "How cute and clever, where is the next idea?" They said "Wow! those stupid kids ate that shit up! Get the staff writers to make more of these!"

Go tomy site:
http://ScaredYet.Net

Let me know if you think i have what it takes to make good horror. I think i do, and want to make movies someday. I happen to like the classic "scare the shit out of you" approach, where the characters and not the script are smart asses, but that is just my approach.


Wait, wasnt this thread about a voodoo movies?