10 Most Overrated Horror Films Of The Past 20 Years
2. Scream
What The Critics Said: “A deft, funny, shrewdly unsettling tribute to such slasher-exploitation thrillers as Terror Train, New Year’s Evil and Wes Craven’s own A Nightmare On Elm Street.” (Entertainment Weekly)
Why They’re Wrong: Scream came along at just the right moment – after years of films like Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday and Hellraiser: Bloodline, it looked like the Citizen Kane of slasher movies. Now that the dust has settled, we can see that it wasn’t. The film more closely resembled Scooby Doo, and it works on exactly that level.
Consider the formula: pretty teens, scary monster, several confrontations and a chase climax. Following the climactic unmasking, the villain gives a lengthy speech explaining his diabolical scheme, then chases the damsel in distress through the house. Along the way, there’s a comic relief character, a bumbling cop and, most tellingly, Matthew Lillard, who played Shaggy in the live-action Scooby Doo movie.