Originally titled, "Scary Movie" (listen to umpteen references in the open sequence), SCREAM is the late nineties answer to a horror afficionados wet dream, or is that nightmare.

For a first-time writer, Kevin Williamson has come up highly original, yet cliched screenplay that successfully blends two genres that usually result in a confusing mess of a film. But not SCREAM....This horror/comedy works beautifully, as it portrays itself as a horror film from word go and contains many sprinklings of comedic touches rather than drowning you in it. Taking a somewhat cynical, self mocking approach, SCREAM stands above the usual horror flick with it's constant reminders of the do's & don'ts, and its endless references to what must be nearly every horror film ever made (except Hellraiser :-)) and while it pokes fun a lot of these films for following these rules, still uses them in some manner itself.

Director Wes Craven, a master of horror (gotta love Freddy), has certainly proven that reputation with this film. He has managed to pull excellent and believable performances out of the entire cast, especially Drew Barrymore, who has never been better, featured in the opening sequence that is one of the most intense scenes to grace to silver screen since the 20 year old "When a Stranger Calls Back", which this closely resembles yet remains quite original in comparison to. Craven is in top form here and seems to have learnt from some of his past mistakes to bring one hell of a scarefest.

Accompanying this horrorfest is a beautifully haunting music score by another first timer, Marco Beltrami. This is one time the neighbours will excuse you for continually increasing the volume to try an extract every single note out of the excellent soundtrack. (I'm so sure!!!!)

So How does this Transfer Hold up?

Miramax's parent company, Buena Vista, who digitally mastered this Widescreen transfer, have delivered a very good looking disc. While the Theatre release was presented in a 2.35:1 format this NON 16:9 enhanced version seems to be about 2.2:1. However, I did notice that on several scenes the edges of the film looked to be squeezed in to show more information. The transfer looks extremely clean, is mostly artifact free, and very sharp. The contrast and tint are a bit off though but after a slight adjustment here, the picture looked a lot better, some thing just looked a tiny bit too red, but I prefer this to a green tinge, i did notice that there was some jittering of the image, partically in moving shots, but this seems more related to the actual filming, not the encoding here, as i recall seeing some of this at the cinema . The soundtrack is featured in Dolby Digital 5.1, and is very nicely done. The music is very enveloping and there are some great uses of the rears for sound effects, I found listening to this at home even better than at the cinemas where I heard in Dolby Digital a couple of times as the rear channel information seemed more obvious. I didn't find there to be a great deal of gut wrenching bass that one has come to expect for the latest Multi-channel tracks, but there was definitely activity in the .1 channel, it just wasn't overly dominant, even in the music which seemed like very natural sounding bass (if that's at all possible).

There's not a great deal of extras on this disc. But there is a fabulous commentary from Director Wes Craven and Writer Kevin Williamson (it's a must listen), and also a theatrical trailer. The menu is rather ho-hum, and all you get is a measly 16 chapters for a near two hour movie.

DVDExpress are selling this for $23.95 and I suppose it's not bad value, and seeing as this was a friend's copy I'll hold off buying it until it's released as an Unrated Director's cut in 16:9, but hey, that's just me, it really is a great movie, if you don't object to viewing heavily censored material.

*** Features ****

Screen Format : Widescreen (2.2:1)

Audio Tracks : English DD 5.1, Running Commentary with a soundtrack

Subtitles : None

Region Code : 1

Chapters : 16

Running Time : 111 minutes

MPAA Rating : R

PICTURE QUALITY (4/5...just not ripe enough and it's NOT 16:9)

SOUND QUALITY (4.5/5...beautiful music score is a plus)

Review Equipment: TV: Mitsubishi DIVA 68cm TV, DVD: Samsung DVD905, Receiver: Marantz SR870, Speakers: Front - B&W 602's, Rears - Jamo, Subby - M&K V125 (grumble- growl-BOOM). Cinema Chairs (Gilberton Recliners....okay so there not REALLY cinema chairs but they're very comfy..)