by Louis Sachar (1998)
2025 reads, 18/25:
2025 reads, 19/25:
"What's your favorite scary movie?"
Scream may be my favorite horror franchise. It's scary and serious, but cheesy and fun at the same time. I love it all: the breakdown of the horror meta in each movie, the mystery "whodunit" aspect, the tension mixed with comedy. The original was a perfect balance of horror and realism at a time when horror movies were saturated with sequels, franchises, and reboots dragging on (is the Scream franchise here now? more on that later...). And if the original trilogy was a commentary on 20th-century horror movies and the "rules" of classic horror like Halloween and Friday the 13th, the later films in the franchise have continued this paradigm with references to the current horror meta (slow horror, online discourse, legacy characters in franchises, even Letterboxd accounts!).
The tropes were well-worn: The girl who does the dumbest thing possible in response to a threat, the clumsy victim who keeps falling down while running away, the characters so devoid of personality or development that there's no reason not to root for the killer.
I do wish there was more information on the firing of Melissa Barrera and the leaving of Jenna Ortega and Chris Landon. It was a huge development for Scream 7, and while I agree that Kevin Williamson is going to be a great director (having written the original trilogy and all), this whole debacle left a bad taste in my mouth. I still don't know if I'll be watching this in theaters upon release. I don't know, maybe I was expecting something to make me feel better about the whole thing. But this is a book written about a movie franchise, and in order to get access and permission to interviews with the actors and directors, it's needed to have to paint said franchise in a positive light, and I understand that.
Despite that, this was still a great read, as long as you realize there is bias. Clearly, a lot of research was done, especially regarding the original trilogy. If you like the Scream franchise and want to learn more behind-the-scenes stories, check this out (spoilers for all the Scream movies... obviously). And, I recommend listening to the audiobook of this one, which was narrated by Roger L. Jackson, the voice of Ghostface (no, he didn't do that voice the whole time), which added to the immersion a bit.
It's not exactly the kind of story you want to discover while alone in a strange house - especially when you've got the imagination of a prolific screenwriter.