Chewable screams (Scream (DVD))

Member Name: ryanando

Product:	Scream (DVD)
Date:	07/01/09 (114 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The best place to start a trilogy.

Disadvantages: Cheesy horror and bad extras.

---Now Chewable---

Another day, another box set. I love horror movies and though I've seen them all before, I felt compelled to buy this one (mostly due to the fact it was rather cheap at £10 for the whole set) to add to my collection. Who needs a life when you have box sets!? I have been kind (and sneakily greedy at the same time) by splitting what was going to be a mammoth review of all three movies down into Three easy to chew chunks. The unlucky ones on Ciao had to get it as one hard to swallow lump. Mwa ha ha.

And, don't worry, I've checked. The Discs you get in the box set are the exact same as the ones you'd get if you bought it on its own.

Here's a run down of this weekends festivities (minus the drunken and filthy bits in between).

===SCREAM 1===

---The Cast- Or so says the front of the box---

Neve Campbell

Campbell plays Sydney Prescott, the main character round which things just seem to go tits up. If anyone of this ilk ever becomes your friend, start wearing bullet proof clothing and don't EVER invite Angela Langsbury round for tea. It's bound to end up messy.

David Arquette

A fairly Minor character to start with and yet he gets his name on the box! Deputy Dewy, The idiot cop who is probably about as skilled as a cop as the actor is. He does however get hot (ish) in years to come, so we can forgive him.

Courntey Cox

Gale Weathers, a bit of a bitch. But she's a bitch with a camera-man. Weathers is a news reporter who likes to get in the way to get the story first. She has past connections with Sydney which become apparent a little later in the film and are built upon as the trilogy goes on

Skeet Ulrich

Hello man candy! Billy Loomis, Sydney's boyfriend, little bit movie obsessed, very cute with it with rather scary eyes. Yes that's about as deep as the characters get at the moment.

Drew Barrymore

Why?? WHY?!?! Barrymore is featured for the first five or so minutes of the film. She's not a big character. In fact she's only there to play the part of the first victim (Casey Becker). Take no notice of her name on the front of the box. It lies. She may as well not be in the film!

---The Cast who AREN'T on the box---

Rose McGowan

Tatum, or as I call her, Tits-on-legs. McGowan plays Sydney's best buddy and girlfriend to the total goof off, Stuart. Her point in the film is to wear very tight tops and have nipples that could not only cut glass, but make it run off screaming at the sight of them. As you may expect, she ends up dead, but serves as a heap of gratuitous boobage and is therefore worth a mention (Due to the time spent in the film of course, I'm totally against gratuitous exploitation of females. There are PLENTY hot guys to exploit!)

Jamie Kennedy

Kennedy plays Randy. He's a small character, but is used to introduce the "rules of the slice and dice" elements into the film (and later the trilogy) He too gets hotter with age. Woot for him!

Matthew Lillard

Not surprisingly, Lillard plays the fore-mentioned goof off. I can't stand the guy myself and would be quite happy if he were given some sort of horse tranquilliser in the opening credits and left for dead till the trilogy had run its course.

===The Film===

We open on a cheery blonde American (that being her first mistake) alone in the house (that being her second) played by Drew Barrymore (and there's the clincher). After getting a phone call from a stranger and (instead of hanging up on him like normal people do) having a good ole chat on ye olde telegraph machine (no really, the phones in this film are ANCIENT...they have wires and everything!!) she discovers the person on the other end is actually outside the house, dressed in a freaky costume, gutting her boyfriend alive. She later joins him (the boyfriend, not the killer) and ends up hanging from a tree in a magnificently terrifying opener. That is as long as you can ignore things like the fact no one leaves something on the hob when it is smoking no matter who's telling you that you are going to die and that the killer managed to gut and hang Barrymore in double quick time.

The film its self focuses on Neve Campbell's character Sydney and her small group of friends. After kids start dying, this amazingly moneyed bunch of "teenagers" (see 20 something year olds) decide the best thing to do would be to throw a party. As you can imagine, people then die. A lot. How rude.

This one is mostly your pretty basic slice and dice film, giving teenagers what they deserve, but it also has a little bit more to it. Firstly it brought about the brilliant idea of the "Rules of Horror Movies"

We all know them, but this was the first film to mention them. For example:

Large boobs + Blonde hair = dead
Running Upstairs and not out the front door = dead
Creepy guy who has dead children hanging from his belt = not ACTUALLY the killer.

As well as "the rules" it also sets up a pretty good back story. Sydney played the part in wrongly imprisoning some poor guy who already had the misfortune of being named Cotton Weary for the rape and murder of her mother and we get a bit love/ hate thing going on between Courtney Cox (Gale Weathers, another crapola name!) and Campbell's character. Ok so it's a tad more of a Hate/ Hate thing going on.

Either way, the film is a must have for any horror buff, certainly a break through in the horror genre that pays homage to a lot of horror movies that came before. Any horror buff will love this even just for the references to other films (some of them hilarious) Not as full of cute guys as you would expect from a teen slasher these days, but Ulrich will do for now.


===The Extras===

---Audio Commentary with Wes Craven, Cast and Crew.---

You can choose to enjoy your movie with this bunch of people wittering over all the good bits. Or you can be sensible and tell them to shut up and stop kicking your chair. I don't really enjoy commentaries, so that's as much as I'll be saying on this.

---Production Featurette---

This feature includes interviews with Cast and crew and repeats a LOT of footage used throughout the extras. It's even all in the same bloody order. It gets annoying. The interviews dispersed throughout make it a little more interesting, though there's only so much one can say about a horror movie. On the plus side, Skeet Ulrich is looking uber hot as usual. Well done guys!

---Behind the scenes---

This option is split into two sub-categories as follows:

---On the Scream Set---

Thank god, all that footage they like to reuse has been pretty much kept out of this. Instead it starts by linking together some rather pointless behind the scenes footage of the actors not looking at the camera over a little very light pop rock. In fact...it not only STARTS with this... it pretty much keeps it up the whole way through. A bit of a pointless extra really.

---Drew Barrymore---

Now don't get me wrong, I like Drew Barrymore. But why, oh god why has she been given a whole section to herself?? SHE WAS IN THE MOVIE FOR FIVE BLOODY MINUTES. Yeah' she's cool and everything... but for the love of all things pink, at least give me an interview with Neve Campbell, ya know, the main actress!??! Actually, I'd settle just for an interview of some sorts. Another pointless bunch of clips that don't really involve you, the person who spent their hard earned cash on these extras.

---Q&A with Cast and Crew---

This isn't so much a Q&A...more a "here's two questions, answer them please"

No really. So varied are the questions they both have their own button which will start up footage of the cast and crew giving their answers. Almost inevitably, the first question is "What's your favourite scary movie?" echoing the Scream killers weird fascination. The answers tend just to give you a list of what the actors like rather than any real insight to them as a person with some lovely lists thrown at us from people we have never heard of (also known as the crew).

Question number two? Why are people fascinated with horror movies? A little more depth to this question, but still the same predictable responses from, oh, almost everyone. The only thing that saved this extra for me was Campbell's response to the question. It made me smile, but, of course, I wont tell you what she said. Down with this extra I say!

---Special Effects gallery---

This picture gallery reminds you that someone out there actually needs to think of what all the blood and guts are going to look like first. This includes sketches of key moments in the film and some photos of a very creepy Drew Barrymore dummy. It also includes some sketches of what I can only assume were original ideas for the mask the killer would wear, however, since it doesn't come with any explanation, I could be totally wrong.

---Cast and Crew Profiles---

Roll up, roll up, another disappointing extra. Getting myself all hyped up for what should have been some really cool interviews with the cast and crew....nope. Instead we get a short list, in writing, of what the actor / actress has done with their time on this planet. Given that the film is also a good 10 (possibly more) years old, it's a tad out of date too.

---Did You Know (trivia Information)---
Some more random bits of info are thrown at us in text form in this extra. I don't know about you, but I want my extras to say the words for me at least. I don't want to have to READ. If I wanted that, I'd pick up a book. I want television. Moving pictures and all that new fangled jazz. Some of the facts are interesting, others should be followed with the words "Well DUR!" or "...You know I'm not 5 right?"

---2 theatrical trailers---

One trailer I get. Two is just overkill. Maybe if they were slightly different...but they aren't. They are both the same voice-over on the same bunch of random clips. One has a few other clips in between. It really doesn't warrant them both being on the DVD. Even more annoying, most of it is the footage used in the other extras.

===Overview===

Over all, the film is quite good (and on its own will cost only £4) but not really something to sink your intellectual side into. It does what it says on the tin. A few jumps (assuming you haven't seen it already) and, with the previous assumptions still in place, a few suspenseful moments. Trying to figure out who the killer is will only serve to have you evicted from the planet as everyone knows who it is by now.

The extras were incredibly disappointing on this disc, so not much more than the film to keep you entertained. Now for scream 2....

Summary: The first scream