Scream

First of all, this movie should only be seen by die hard slasher fans. And I mean, those who can stand almost 90 minutes of mediocrity, terrible cinematography, boring plot, and stupid characters. Yes, there is a "mysterious" killer but that isn't enough.

The plot deals with a bunch of teen rafters that get lost in a Ghost Town. You don't need to know more because before we can understand what's going on; the characters start to get killed one by one in off-screen scenes! So don't expect a serious slasher flick.

The locations weren't that bad, and actually, looked creepy at some points but the horrible cinematography ruins it all.

I found a VHS copy of this crap some time ago and I can only say that it serves for historic purposes only. Otherwise, I don't see the point of watching it.

I have to agree with the other reviews. And I LIKE bad horror. I especially get a kick out of bad 70's and 80's horror. I will take The Mutilator, Slaughterhouse Rock, or Don't Go In the House any day! Ever seen Inn of the Damned? Yeah, it's a piece of dung, but nowhere near as bad as this. This movie has no plot, little dialogue, awful pacing, just boring as hell. The whole movie is like a power-outage, all dark and lanterns, and NOT scary. I don't need things spoon-fed to me, but the movie does not explain anything! Where did any of the characters come from? Where is this set? Why is everyone a useless wuss... oh wait, I guess that applies to most horror. But seriously, I was eagerly awaiting all these folks to die just so it would be over. One of the most infuriatingly inane movies I have ever seen. Don't do it.

This movie was AWFUL! The summary on the back of the cover was much more entertaining reading than watching the movie itself. This movie is about a bunch of rafters that end up stranded in an old "ghost town" that looks to me like more of a set of a cheap western than a haunted ghost town. One by one the lame characters are killed off by an unseen killer. The only characters other than the helpless rafters are two bikers and an old man riding on his horse with his dog that claims to have been a sailer from the year 1890 something. This movie is just plain awful and I do not recommend that anyone should rent this movie. It has lame killings, low gore and stupid pathetic acting and on top of all that a horrible ending!

Long before Wes Craven used the title "Scream" to launch his successful horror trilogy, little-known director Byron Quisenberry made this "Scream". An inept, boring, badly acted and totally unconvincing slasher movie that many deem to be the worst of its type. Indeed, this film makes the whole Friday the 13th series look like a work of genius.

You know with these movies that the plot is going to be unoriginal, but the film makers usually have enough about them to wring out some shocks. Yes, The Burning is a bad film but it occasionally makes you jump. Just Before Dawn isn't anything special, but it is punctuated by the odd jolt here and there. Amazingly, Scream manages to miss every single opportunity for a shock. It takes an overused but reliable formula, and proceeds to muck-up the potential for terror in every conceivable way. Anyone studying how not to make a film might find this an ideal guide.

Heading the cast is Pepper Martin (he was the guy in Superman II who beat up the weakened Clark Kent in a diner, only to be beaten up in return by the rejuvenated Superman at the end of the film). It's a good indication of how unambitious this film is that someone who had such a miniscule role in Superman II can be entrusted with the leading man label here. Woody Strode is also in the film, but his character is undone by bizarre scripting.

Martin and his fellow vacationers are rafting down the Rio Grande when they pull in for the night at an isolated ghost town. One by one they are picked off by a lurking psychopath. They try various things, like setting traps, but the killer seems to evade them every time. A strange stagecoach driver turns up and starts mumbling on about an old sea captain that got the town up-and-running many years earlier. By the end, it looks as if the violent ghost of the old sea captain may be the killer (it's not clear if this is so, as the ending is dreadfully muddled).

It's hard to imagine how bad Scream is without experiencing it for yourself. The plot could be made serviceable. Some of the cast members are well-known. Even if the film isn't very good, it should have enough mileage to be tolerably bad. But no... this film is something beyond bad. It reaches such depths that you begin to think that everyone involved must be trying deliberately to make the worst film possible. It feels almost as if Quisenberry's intention is to win the worst film of all-time contest. The end result is a truly awful horror movie and, therefore, one of the most irresistible films that a collector of bad films could ever hope to find.

The best and only real good thing about Scream is the creepy ghost town setting. Even with a very familiar concept, Scream could have been promising but was spoiled by terrible execution to the extent that important components were almost non-existent. The movie is very badly made from a visual standpoint, you can't enjoy the setting properly because the photography ranges between haphazard and indulgent the entire time and the movie is far too darkly lit that you cannot see what is going on properly or work out who's who and who's been killed. The music had its atmospheric moments, but that is a big emphasis on moments, much of it is pretty much one speed and mood which is ponderous and over-bearingly monotonous, doing nothing to enhance what's happening. The dialogue makes next to no sense and sounds very random and improvisatory, almost like an incomplete rough draft, while the execution of the story is most likely the worst thing about Scream, it starts bizarrely in an opening sequence so strange and almost irrelevant it makes the jaw drop. It's also completely predictable and moves at just one pace which is excruciatingly dull, it doesn't explain anything(the ending can't even be called an ending for reasons that have been covered in previous reviews who explain the movie's problems very well), there's no suspense, scares or fun whatsoever, and for a slasher the deaths and the gore are incredibly tame in a way that it doesn't feel like a horror in any way. The characters are underdeveloped ciphers and some of them, especially Lou, are irritating too(the most rootable is actually the unseen and never revealed killer), while the direction is barely competent and the acting is atrocious, the annoying Joe Allaine being the biggest offender, making the most bored-looking zombies imaginable seem more animated. Woody Strode is the least bad and has a decent introduction but that's not saying a lot, his character is far too weakly written for him to count as a saving grace. In conclusion, a real clunker, whether it's the worst slasher is debatable but it's down there. Not to be confused with the 1996 film of the same name which actually is a great film. 2/10 and that is only for the setting. Bethany Cox