SCREAM when you grasp that this purposely twisted 1996 slash-com was that year’s 13th most-attended motion picture. Shriek when you grapple with knowing that its slickly polished sadism generated a half-dozen sequels, a TV series, a video game and assorted gag paraphernalia, a tranche of torment reaping nearly a billion dollars. Squirm when you read that its screenwriter was “inspired” by the 1990 rampage of a serial killer in Florida, the “Gainesville Ripper”. Squawk when you hear that it “revitalized slasher films”, a bonus about as welcome as bringing back minstrel shows.  Screech when you are made aware that it and its icky ilk are celebrated for their “wit”, “artistic integrity” and underlying messages of “empowerment”. Squeal if you love this slaughter-as-cool stuff and think I’m being too mean. Sob when you believe there’s something seriously sad in a society when this type of “entertainment” is gleefully embraced by a sizable segment of the public. *

“Movies don’t create psychos, movies make psychos more creative.”

“Surprise!” –though we don’t salivate over this sort of sicko silliness we suck it up and salute the shrewdness of Kevin Williamson’s diabolical screenplay, the steady direction from steel-souled Wes Craven (sorry, but that showman has an s-load to answer for, though we do cop to liking Music Of The Heart and Red Eye) and the gutted gutsy work from the energized cast. Though the creep characters played by Matthew Lillard, Skeet Ulrich and Jamie Kennedy are so obnoxious they quickly become hateful, that’s the idea, so mission accomplished on their part. David Arquette and first-offed Drew Barrymore are just fine and too-hot-to-live-unkilled Rose McGowan, 22, adds expected p-tease, prepping for Grindhouse immortality. Top honors go to heroine Neve Campbell and reporter-as-bitch-fox Courteney Cox. See, even when we don’t care for the stalk & stab subgenre, we stick to that shaggy but sincere “play fair” standard.

Surrender to the void—the $14,500,000 111-minute gamble on grabbing a generation raised on gore cut the cash artery, pulsing $103,000,000 in the States and Canada, with $70,000,000 drained elsewhere. Smirk, snort or shrug that we duly acknowledge cast members W. Earl Brown, Henry Winkler (WTF?) and Joseph Whipp. Linda Blair and Liev Shreiber do blink & miss cameos.  Sigh that we’re almost done.

* SOS! —slicebergs dead ahead. The shout of distress was echoed by Scream 2 in 1997, which made $172,400,000 against a price tag of $24,000,000, the year’s 21st most popular picture; Scream 3 in 2000 ($40,000,000/$161,800,000/27th; then a decade’s pause until 2011 and Scream 4, again consuming $40,000,000  but dropping to #80 for the year; rebooted eleven years later and back to just plain Scream in 2022 ($24,000,000/$138,900,000/24th; and resuming the kill billing and cash counting with Scream VI in 2023 ($34,000,000/$169,100,000/24th. Scream 7 threatens for 2026. Masks were merchandised. Real life copycat murders were conducted: congratulations, Kevin, Wes and the brothers Weinstein. How about a line of ‘Dolls You Can Disembowel’, so the kiddies that moron parents allow to watch these movies can have torture toys to hone their acting out impulses on? Sorry…