How ”Scream” Brought the Slasher Genre Back From The Dead

Warning - Contains Spoilers 

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”)