One year after the brutal murder of Maureen Prescott, her daughter Sydney is the target of a new killer, one with a ghostly mask and a penchant for horror. It’s clear that a lot of care went into making Scream. From script to screen, everything carries a feeling of purpose, and that feeling is right. Even casting Drew Barrymore as the cold open kill (a sequence so chilling and thorough in what it does that it could be its own short) was intentional. It’s a fun slasher full of dark humor, brutal kills, and plenty of homage. But more than just a story, Scream is also a pop culture commentary, a critique of the meta details, tropes and archetypes that make it what it is. At its core, Scream is a cinematic self-vivisection, a horror movie about people who watch horror movies, and a love letter to the genre.
