In comments that may come as a shock to hardcore fans of the Scream franchise, actor Matthew Lillard - who played one half of the Ghostface killers in the original film, Stu Macher - has said that the middle of the movie could use some work.
Speaking with Vulture, he commented: “It is not a perfect film! ... I think the opening sequence is incredible. It sets the tone for everything else, and the middle of the movie sort of gets bogged down. Then the end sequence, the last 20 minutes, is incredible. You earn so much street cred in those first 20 minutes that the rest of the movie, it sort of tanks! And then it comes screaming up to finish strong.”
Lillard is unlikely to score any points with fans of the series with these comments. Late director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson have been renowned ever since the movie’s release back in 1996, as one of the best creative duos that the horror genre has ever seen.
Only giving props to a total of 40 minutes, in a film that almost totals two hours, isn’t exactly high praise!
Despite this, he does say that the opening scene is an “incredible” one, and that’s a comment that would be hard to argue with.
Drew Barrymore, who many at the time assumed would be the ‘final girl’ and main star of the movie, plays Casey Becker, but is killed off in shockingly-brutal fashion, in one of the best horror set-pieces the world has ever seen.
So beloved was the first Scream film, that two sequels followed in quick succession, before a fourth dropped back in 2011 and, a reboot-meets-sequel hit the big screen this year.
That fifth instalment is doing incredibly well with both critics and audiences, raking in the big bucks at the box office and posing the question, will we see more from Ghostface and the legendary but deadly town of Woodsboro in the near future?
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