Aside from the in-jokes, Craven ensures we scream alongside his characters at the indestructible killer in the Halloween who taunts down the phone.

| Nov 18, 2024

Scream is a howling great time.

| Oct 17, 2024

Scream succeeds through its ability to elicit both shrieks of horror and hilarity, as every bad horror movie moment becomes a target for ironic deconstruction and campy send-up.

| Oct 16, 2024

Craven does a better job exploring -- and exploding -- stereotypes.

| Oct 12, 2024

The result is a popular movie not afraid to be witty, although its formulaic shocks remain just that: formulaic.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 11, 2024

Scream raises the cheesy formula of the stalk-and-slash movie to an unexpected level of intelligence and valid suspense, propelled by believable characters and true-to-life response to extravagant threats.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 11, 2024

It's the ultimate game of gotcha.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 11, 2024

A slasher movie so self-referential it disappears up it own He's-behind-you.

| Oct 11, 2024

It's edgy and fun, but not brilliant. And it's no better than it would have been as just a straight horror film.

| Oct 11, 2024

It can be scary, even when it's mocking the genre's clichéd ways of scaring you. That Scream can get away with doing this is due to the deft touch of horrormeister Craven.

| Oct 10, 2024

Scream is not the reinvention of the slasher flick. It's a reinvention of the marketing of a slasher flick.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 10, 2024

You probably have to be a horror-freak to really understand the immense ingenuity of this movie, but in every department -- direction, acting, sound design -- it is a stunner.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 10, 2024

The real miracle of Scream may be that for all its footnotes and cleverness, it plays as a film its Randy the Nerd would love.

| Jun 8, 2023

No one will ever consider Wes Craven's Scream Oscar fodder, but this funny and scary little experiment in terror from the man who invented "Nightmare on Elm Street" puts some fun back into a very tired genre.

| Dec 7, 2018

By the time Scream arrives at its final twist, Craven has done too many contortions of his own to give the finale much shock value.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 6, 2013

The picture is so full of cross-references, self-mockery and movies within movies (including a stalking that's recorded on video) that it can't help turning into a precious two-hour in-joke.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 6, 2013

Scream builds to a splattering finale that should leave genre fans highly satisfied. Here's one of the year's better thrillers.

| Oct 6, 2013

Scream may be a cut above the gore fests that line the dimly lit back wall at your video store, but it is a far cry from genre classics like Halloween or Craven's own Nightmare On Elm Street.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 6, 2013

Remains a highly polished piece of meta-slasher mayhem.

| Original Score: B+ | May 20, 2011

The pic's chills are top-notch, but its underlying mockish tone won't please die-hard fans.

| Sep 21, 2007