Scream

Scream must be every horror buff's dream of a film, for it is full of references to other horror films. It thrives on being metafiction, which has been seen before but is exploited to the full by Wes Craven. You almost expect to see scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis in a supporting role. The film also has comedic traits because of its meta-cinematic style, but even though I was amused and often reminded that this was just a film, it was impossible not to get caught up in the horrors.

Scream has an opening that can certainly shred your nerves. Drew Barrymore has the small role of Casey, a perfectly ordinary teenager in a small provincial town. One evening, when she is home alone in her parents' remote house, she is terrorised over the phone by a psychopathic killer who likes to slit his victims open just as in the splatter films. Casey and her boyfriend pay the price.

Great commotion follows in the small town, which has seen nothing like it since Mrs Campbell was brutally murdered years ago. Who will the killer pick as his next victim? Mrs Campbell's teenage daughter Sidney, of course... Fortunately she has more brains than the average horror heroine and doesn't settle for running away screaming from the killer. The finale is pretty exciting, for despite Sidney's deft performance (perhaps even precisely because of it?) you doubt whether she will survive. The killer's identity is a rather good invention that I couldn't quite guess.