- Directed by Wes Craven
- Written by Kevin williamson
- Stars Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 51 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWmmkbdpCA
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Even a second watching after knowing all the spoilers, it was still a fun movie. Great script, good acting, top-notch special effects. If you’re lucky enough to have your mind untainted by spoilers at this point, by all means, check it out.
Synopsis
Casey answers the phone and tells the guy that he has the wrong number. Then he calls back and she tells him to call a 900 number. Are those still a thing? He calls back again and says she’s about to watch a scary movie. They talk about Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street as she walks through the house. Then the call takes a turn for the creepy. She locks the doors. The voice on the phone has her boyfriend Steve tied up outside. They play movie trivia over the phone, and Steve pays the price for wrong answers. She sneaks out the back door and makes a run for it, but he catches her– and kills her.
We cut to Sidney who gets a scare from friend Billy. They make out for a bit, and it’s clear that he’s a big movie fan. The next morning, the reporters and police are all over the school because of what happened to Casey and Steve. Reporter Gale Weathers is reporting live on campus. Sidney’s friend Tatum tells Sidney what happened last night. Meanwhile, Sheriff Burke and Deputy Dewey talk to Mr. Himbry, the school’s principal. Sidney, Billy, Tatum, Randy, and Stuart talk about the murder after school.
Sidney goes home and we get a few scenes that look like something scary might be happening, but it isn’t. We hear on the news that Sidney’s mother was raped and murdered in the same toen just last year.
Sidney’s phone rings, and it’s the same voice that Casey dealt with last night. “Do you like scary movies, Sifney? What’s your favorite scary movie?” The masked man attacks her inside the house, but he’s interrupted when Billy climbs into her window again. After a minute, she looks at Billy funny and runs away from him. She runs downstairs and finds Dewey, who has found the killer’s mask outside. Billy is arrested.
We soon see that Sidney doesn’t like Gale much when she punches her in the face. Gale’s writing a book about Sidney’s mother’s murder. Sidney goes home with Tatum and gets a call from the killer there. Maybe it wasn’t Billy. Sidney and Gale argue over Cotton Weary, who was found guilty of killing Sidney’s mother. Various students at school the next day wear the killer’s costume, which is easily available all over town.
School gets canceled, so Stuart throws a party that night. Principal Himbry gets a little creepy with the mask and some scissors, but we soon find out that he couldn’t be the killer– but he could be the next victim.
Stuart and Randy argue over the rules of horror and movie formulas at the video store. They talk about Sidney’s father, who can’t be found and isn’t where he said he would be. Randy asks, “Will someone find his body in the second reel?” Billy shows up, and the three talk about motives and how they’re all suspects. The sheriff is also leaning toward Sidney’s father being the killer.
That night, everyone goes to Stuart’s party. Everyone shows up, including the killer, who goes after Tatum first. She calls him “Ghostface” and mostly beats the crap out of him until she gets stuck in the garage door and dies. Gale smuggles in a camera and films the party.
Billy arrives and he and Sidney make up and have sex. Downstairs, Randy explains the rules of horror movies: only the virgins survive a horror movie. Outside, Dewey and Gale go for a walk to check out a car reported in a ditch, which turns out to belong to Sidney’s father. The party breaks up when they get a call that the principal’s body has been found.
Sidney and Billy continue to talk about “what if” Billy was the killer. “What do I have to do to prove to you that I’m not the killer?” he asks. Then the killer walks in and stabs Billy. Ghostface then chases Sidney around the now-empty house. The chase continues out into the yard as Gale and Dewey return and find bodies.
Dewey gets stabbed in the back while Gale crashes the news van. Stuart and Randy run up screaming; they’ve found bodies. They accuse each other of being the killer while Sidney goes inside and locks them out. Billy staggers in, not quite dead yet. Sidney hands him the gun, and he shoots Randy with it. Yeah, it was him all along, faking his wound. She runs and finds Stuart, and it turns out he’s in on it too. There are two of them.
Billy gloats that they framed Cotton Weary and killed Sidney’s mother. They continue that there was no motive; it was just fun. They pull out Sidney’s father and plant the cell phone and voice changer on him; they’re going to frame him for all the murders. Stuart and Billy then stab each other to make it look like they’re victims too. They argue about the movies as they stab each other some more.
Gale comes in with Dewey’s gun. The gun safety is on, so they take care of her. The distraction is enough for Sidney and her father to run away. Finally Sidney puts on the costume and stabs Billy with an umbrella. She then finishes off Stuart. Gale comes in and finally shoots Billy.
As the sun rises, Gale finally gets to report on a breaking news story.
Commentary
Just about all the major characters eventually went on to have big careers, but most of them had only done a few things here and there prior to this. Probably the most famous person in the cast (at the time) was Drew Barrymore, who died in the opening scene.
It’s been said a million times in a million reviews before this one that the big thing with this film series is that it plays on the well-established tropes of the horror genre, and often subverts them to surprise us. This kind of “meta” film, full of references to other films, has been done many times since, but this was the first big one to do so. There’s nothing supernatural, no monsters other than the human kind. That doesn’t make it any less tense and unsettling.
It’s got an element of whodunit to it, as most of the characters accuse each other at some point, and there are a few red herrings thrown in, but we aren’t really sure until the end if it’s anyone we know at all , much less whether it’s a known character.
The franchise got a little repetitive as the series went on, but the first one was excellent.