It’s been a long time since I saw this. I probably saw it once after it came out on video, but ever since then…
This movie should be a love letter to people like me. It’s packed with references to horror movies. It talks a lot about how horror movies are structured. It has a great reputation, and it revitalized the horror genre for the late 90s.
Sorry, but I just hate it. There are some very well-handled scenes. The opening kill is still wonderfully done, and it sets a great tone for the movie. But after that, the movie feels dated, and derivative. I know that Kevin Williamson was praised for this script, but what sets the script apart is packing it with references to other horror properties. It’s easy to toss references in. I’d rather that the references weren’t as obvious. If the movie relied less on referencing other work, and instead worked at creating something more interesting…
I’ve realized that most of the fun of the movie comes from trying to figure out who’s doing the killing. After the first viewing, you’ve learned it. Once you know it, there’s nothing new to appreciate in the story. There’s no real subtext.
All of the tension building that happens is a mix of good and bad. There are loads of terrible jump scares, and most of them are cheap ones. There’s one useful development that happens in the story, and it’s a later one - when the boyfriend is killed. That’s a very clever dashing of expectations.
But the dialogue really rubs me the wrong way. It’s a bunch of post-college age kids acting like they’re in high school, and the script gives everyone constantly witty lines. The characters have specific traits that they hammer home. If this were unknown, I might think that it was fairly clever, at least plot-wise. But the dialogue feels as dated as Clueless.
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