Sidney Prescott, played by Neve Campbell, is the final girl and star of the classic horror movie “Scream.” While she portrays some moments that have you yelling at the screen for her to run the other direction, she eventually turns into a hardcore star for the audience to love. There are a lot of other lovable characters, but my personal favorite is Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy). His ironic quips of comedy and extensive knowledge of horror movie rules makes the film the work of art that it is.
“Scream” does an amazing job of keeping the audience on their toes and guessing what is going to happen next. You watch the movie intently, trying to figure out who has the motive to kill. You can either rely on your intuition or try to piece together a character’s background. After you place your guess on who you think it might be, you watch to see if your hypothesis is really correct or see if you can clear them somehow.
After many murders and attacks, we move into the final bloodbath. The scene is set at a house party hosted by one of Sidney’s close friends, Stu (Matthew Lillard). As the party dies down, the suspense starts to heat up. All of the main characters are alone in the house together and there is still the underlying question: Where is Sidney’s father?
After multiple stabbings and a few deaths, it is finally revealed who the killer is. So, was Sidney’s father the killer all along or did one of her close friends turn psycho? The movie does an amazing job of keeping the identity of the killer hidden until the last 20 minutes.
The first time I watched it, I had multiple people that I thought could be the killer, but then every time, I kept finding reasons why it couldn’t have been them. For instance, Billy (Skeet Ulrich) was in jail when Sidney got another phone call at her best friend, Tatum’s (Rose McGowan), house. That rules him out as the killer, right? While this movie is not part of what I would call, “The Big 3” classic horror movie franchises, I think it deserves an honorable mention as it has shaped the horror realm entirely across its five installments.
