Gripping. Edgy. Chilling. Wes Craven’s 1996 film “Scream” has become
one of the classics, which can be spotted on any horror movie buffs DVD shelf,
alongside the classics such as Halloween, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm
Street (Another Wes Craven classic). On the surface “Scream” is just another
slasher-teen film with a huge body count, but woven into the film Craven has
carefully placed many classic horror film references - Billy’s line “We all go
a little mad sometimes” is taken from Hitchcock’s 1960 film “Psycho” – Billy
even quotes Norman Bates who said the line originally. Craven also references
other films in a more subtle way. This resurrected the slasher genre and made
people reach for the classics – which in a way was the complete opposite of
what Craven wanted to do, he wanted to end the slasher genre and franchise for
good as the films were becoming monotonous and predictable. Has he (no pun
intended) shot himself in the foot?
Drew Barrymore stars in the opening scene as a
teenager named Casey, she is waiting for her boyfriend to arrive when she receives
an anonymous phone call, its innocent at first but soon spirals out of control
when she winds up being stabbed. This scene is one of the best throughout the
whole movie, the music and dialogue build up the tension perfectly creating a
gripping, edge-of-your-seat style feel for the audience. Barrymore’s amazing
performance with her mass hysterics was improved by Craven, as he kept talking
to her about animal cruelty (she was a keen animal lover) this helped her
performance become more realistic. The audience was shocked that Barrymore was
killed off in the first scene as she is a well-established actor; Craven said
he “killed her off because he wanted the audience to feel a sense that anything
could happen"– no one was safe. This was a technique used by Hitchcock in
“Psycho” when he kills off Janet Leigh in the famous shower scene- no body
expected it. The “twist” is often the most thrilling aspect in the horror
genre.
The ghost-face mask used as a significant prop to
hide the identity of the killer…or killers, was already a generic Halloween
mask. Having such a common mask made the audience think that the killer could
be almost anyone. Originally Ghostfaces iconic black robe was meant to be white
(to make him appear more ghost-like) but was changed to black in fear people
would compare him with the KKK.
This film is
very self aware as audiences were used to all of the usual boring horror movie
clichés; one of the characters in particular – Randy (Jamie Kennedy) actually
lists off a bunch of horror movie clichés- “1. Sex equals death 2. Never say I’ll
be right back because you wont be back”. It’s particularly effective as it
makes people look twice at horror movies and wonder if its true for the whole
genre. Craven also makes a point of breaking the fourth wall by making the
characters almost speak to and acknowledge the audience an example of this is
when Sidney says “But this is life. This isn’t a movie” and Billy responds with
“Sure it is, Sid. It’s all a movie. Its all one great big movie.”
Another significant character is Deputy Dewey, he’s
basically a crap cop who is constantly trying to save Sidney and his sister
Tatum but ultimately fails due to the love interest of, reporter Gale Weathers
(Courtney Cox). Many people found his character annoying but lots of people had
a soft spot for the loveable character. In nearly every horror film the police
are no good at helping catch the killer and usually get killed off, Deputy
Dewey almost parodies this with how bad he is at being a cop, Craven wanted to
make a point that no one could help the victims in the movie. However despite
Dewey being an extremely amateur cop and getting shot he returns in the next
three sequels of “Scream”, becoming a much loved character. Originally Dewy was meant to be killed off
but after the test screening and the audience response, Craven added the last
scene of Dewy being carried into the ambulance.
On the
subject of the villains of the film, this was a huge element as the audience was constantly
guessing throughout who Ghostface could be, with constant hints and red
herrings to different characters, it was almost impossible to guess. The mystery aspect keeps the audience engaged
and on their toes as they are constantly looking for clues and hints. The
killers are later to be reviled to be Billy – Sidney’s boyfriend and Stu –
Tatum’s boyfriend, all Craven’s references to other horror films become more
obvious in the last scene, as Billy says “Horror films make psychos more
creative”. This tells the audience that like Craven, Billy is an extreme horror
movie fan but uses this passion in a deadly way. Stu on the other hand just
tags along for the ride with no real motive other than to impress his best
friend.
Throughout
Craven’s film career he has directed many iconic horror films such as “The
Hills Have Eyes” (1977) and “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984). “Scream” (1996)
was going to be one of his last films but because of its enormous popularity
(and grossing over six million dollars in its opening weekend) he stayed on to
direct “Scream 2” only a year after, and then “Scream 3” In 2000. These sequels
contained characters from the original (Sadly Tatum was not in any of these
despite asking Ghostface himself not to kill her because she wanted to be in
the sequel!) but also some new fresh faces who were mainly just there to add to
the body count.
After
these films Craven didn’t do much in the way of directing but was writing many
horror films and scripts, he even helped write the script for the re-make of
his film “The Hills Have Eyes” in 2006 then followed with the script for
another re-make of one of his classics “The Last House On The Left” in 2009.
So
Craven, at this point, finds himself as a very well established horror film
director and writer, but was “Scream” going to make a comeback like “A Nightmare
on Elm Street” did in 2010? Even though Craven had nothing to do with this
re-make his character “Freddy Krueger” was still very popular in the horror
genre.
As a matter of fact Ghostface did come back in
“Scream 4” in 2011, in contrast with “A Nightmare on Elm Street” Craven
actually came back to direct this film but instead of it being a re-make it was
simply another sequel. In “Scream 4” we see a few familiar faces such as Neve
Campbell (Sidney), Courtney Cox (Gale Weathers) and David Arquette (Dewey).
However this was fairly disappointing, apart from a small handful of the
original characters the majority of the cast were “Big breasted girls who cant
act running up the stairs when they should be running out the front door” –
(Sidney “Scream”) this seems to be the final installment of the series as in
comparison to the original it only made two million in its opening weekend… lets just say “Don’t fuck with the original” –
(Sidney “Scream 4”)
