It became an immediate favourite of mine and when it was next on Sky Movies, I taped it and then rewatched that tape many, many times over the coming years. I loved the witty dialogue and subtle references and self-mockery. I loved the music. I loved the meta. So much so that it didn't even matter that I knew very little about the films or the genres it was mocking. There was a time when I could quote long passages of dialogue although my memory seems to be foggy as I can only seem to remember, Fuck you. / We already played that game. You lost., which I thought was hilarious when I was 15 and even incorporated it into one of my novels. And back then, I also thought Skeet Ulrich was sex on legs.
I probably last saw Scream about seven years ago when my tape of the film and my TV-with-video-player were last in the same room. My video collection was all life laundered a few years ago for being obsolete but I'm going to have to re-acquire a copy of Scream as I just (finally) watched Psycho and it feels wrong to have watched Scream so many years before Psycho. Worst of all was that in parts, I was able to finish the Psycho characters' sentences because they had been quoted or paraphrased in Scream. As soon as I heard the line, "She just goes a little mad sometimes," I knew it would be followed by, "we all go a little mad sometimes," which was quoted in Scream.
Since then, as well as the more directly relevant Psycho I've seen a lot more films and although I would hardly consider myself a connoisseur, I think I would get a lot of enjoyment out of a rewatching of Scream (although certainly not either of its sequels, which were OK but no better). It will be interesting to see which of the lines I still laugh at and which jokes and in-jokes I now get. I'm almost twice as old as I was when I first saw Scream so I hope that my tastes will have matured: Liev Schreiber, if anyone, is probably the most lust-worthy actor and will I like Courtney Cox's pushy, bitchy roving reporter character so much now that Friends is no longer my favourite TV show? Will I be able to hear the line (addressed to Billy, a 17-year-old guy), "What are you doing with a cellular telephone, son?" without laughing? Will I still appreciate Kevin Williamson's writing now that I don't watch Dawson's Creek?
Most importantly, can I possibly take Wes Craven seriously having seen Cursed?
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