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100Wes Craven continues to explore (and blur) the lines between reelity and reality with his latest, and perhaps best, cinematic slice of horror.
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91A deft, funny, shrewdly unsettling tribute to such slasher-exploitation thrillers as "Terror Train," "New Year's Evil," and Craven's own "A Nightmare on Elm Street."
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90A meta-horror film that hilariously parodies the genre's clichés with smarts to spare. It's also the scariest fucking movie Craven has made since the first "A Nightmare on Elm Street."
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90Finely crafted, tense, scary thriller from start to finish.
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90Craven's other accomplishment here, besides resuscitating the genre, is the way he keeps things scary even when they're at their funniest. The grand finale, while thoroughly bloody and tense, has some genuinely hilarious shtick.
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90It's sensational in both senses of the word: a bravura, provocative sendup of horror pictures that's also scary and gruesome yet too swift-moving to lapse into morbidity.
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80Craven creates his savviest and most frightening movie since the original "A Nightmare on Elm Street" by spoofing the horror cliches and simultaneously reinventing them to scare you all over again.
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Deftly mixes irony, self-reference and wry social commentary with chills and blood spills.
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78Craven is obviously having a ball here, and it's impossible not to sit back and go grinning into this dark, gory ride.
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75What did I think about this movie? As a film critic, I liked it. I liked the in-jokes and the self-aware characters. At the same time, I was aware of the incredible level of gore in this film. It is really violent.
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Builds to a splattering finale that should leave genre fans highly satisfied.
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75Scream is a rarity: a horror movie spoof that succeeds almost as well at provoking scares as laughs.
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70Compared with most of what passes for scary movies these days, this is golden: It's not stupid, it's not wussy and it pulls off a couple of pretty nasty jolts.
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63Pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. [20 December 1996, Friday, p.J]
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63While Scream has its frights, it feels more like one of those solve-the-mystery jigsaw puzzles than a real movie.
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63May not be the most scary or the grossest horror film you've ever seen, but it has one distinct feature: it actually talks up to the audience. By the conclusion, you won't be shaking in your seat, but you may enjoy the status of someone who has earned a Master's in Slashology.
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50Wicked fun with flickers of intelligence.
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50Just another basketcase with a blade.
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50Doesn't know when to stop with the jokes about other horror movies and settle down to tell a coherent story.
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50Wes Craven (of the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' films) is in the mood for parody.
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50Though the material is more intelligent than the norm and has an unusual third-act twist, it also employs some very clunky stereotypes.
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50Tiresome, blood-filled comedy.
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40An idiot-savant movie, knowing but not smart.
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An artificial and hypocritical effort to escape the artistic limitations of teenage slasher flicks.
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25Indeed, Scream is better than the average slasher film, as its advertisers insist. And, indeed, it is probably Wes Craven's best film, as they also insist. But that is a little like saying the pimple on the left side of your nose is "better" than the pimple on the right side.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 28 out of 32
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Mixed: 2 out of 32
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Negative: 2 out of 32
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The godfather movie of teenage horror movies, directed by Wes Craven. Simply a enjoyable gore thriller accompanied with popcorn and cola.
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PatrickD.2