I haven’t watched this movie in a long time, but I’ve always counted it among my faves: it’s one of the first Brian De Palma movies I saw. On this viewing, part of the time I found myself wondering exactly what it was that grabbed me so much all those years ago, but I still recognised the brilliant shots and ideas which have been endlessly mimicked by filmmakers since. The whole thing is typically De Palma-ish: a huge homage to Hitchcock, yet wholly original.

So the end of the movie approached, I was enjoying it immensely, but I still couldn’t figure why I’d loved it so much before. Then the ending hit and it blew me away completely. In one shot John Travolta betters anything he has done or ever will do, when he reacts to the scream on the screen before him, and delivers the line, “It’s a good scream… it’s a good scream…” over and over. It’s one of those moments that makes a movie perfect to me. The rest of the movie is perfectly entertaining, but to me, it wouldn’t even matter if the rest of the movie completely sucked... that moment is one of the greatest moments in cinema.

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