Director: Wes Craven
Starring: Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, Skeet Ulrich, David Arquette, Rose McGowan, Matthew Lillard, Drew Barrymore, Jamie Kennedy, Liev Schreiber
31 Days of Horror continues with this review by Adam Truscott who is also involved in a big charity Twitter event. If you can help out it will be going to a very good cause. Click here for more details. Send me your horror reviews.
I remember the first time I saw Scream.
It was pre-internet, and that’s important. It meant that going in, short of what I’d read in Empire, I had no clue of what was coming.
I may have as well been queuing for The Thing, thinking I was seeing E.T.
Those days are long gone now, of course. There would be little point making a movie, which hinged on a “guess the killer” twist. The secret wouldn’t stay under wraps for long. (Good luck, Scream 4).
Want to know the twist in Sixth Sense? IMDB it. Want to know who survives The Mist? IMDB it. Want to know what the fuss is all about with Antichrist? IMDB it. (Or not).
My point is, cinemagoers have changed. Their mentality now means they have access to far more information than ever before. What if they choose to use it? Will there ever be any more secrets?
Scream is full of dark secrets. The opening, now regarded a classic, immediately throws you out of your comfort zone.
Have you seen any of the Friday 13th films? Any of the Halloweens? Then you have a taste of who makes it out alive, right?
Just don’t have pre-marital sex, and you’re good too go… right?
OK. Then how does Drew Barrymore get so terrified in the opening five minutes? Her boyfriend sliced open, guts dropping to the floor. She runs. (Never run out of the front door!) Chased by our new iconic villain (Hero?), I still think to this day that she’ll make it out. Mum and Dad get home, and she’s OK, right? It’s Drew Barrymore. She’s on the poster. No way are they going to off her in the opening five minutes. That would be ridiculous. Right?
You see, in hindsight, we can all sit here, saying we saw it coming. We knew that Sam Jackson would get bitten in two as well, right? Don’t drink, or do drugs – you’ll be fine. Follow the rules.
At the time, this was a game changer. It’s changed everything since.
Now? Now we try and guess, and second-guess. Then go back to our original guess. That leaves it open to parody – and didn’t Scary Movie make the most of that?
Scream stands the test of time though. It was ahead of its time. The rules of horror, laid out on the table. Don’t do that… the boogieman will get you!
By having a group of cine literate characters, I automatically latched on. Into films at a young age, I tried to think like a film fan when watching them. The scene where all of the characters gather to watch Halloween (“I’ll be right back”) resonates. I used to think about that a lot. About saying something like that… then never coming back.
Here? Here every one is a suspect. You can’t trust anyone. To this day, I was sure Dewey was the killer. Sure of it. Instead? Instead there is a darker secret, lying deep in the Woodsboro psyche.
When our killer(s) are revealed, I sat bolt upright. The reason, more than any other? Craven was tackling violence amongst teens. When they start cutting each other, it’s dark. It’s a horrible insight into what a damaged teen may stoop too. Too many horror movies? Absolutely.
Stu’s laugh, as he slices away at his best mate is the most frightening thing in Scream, for me. This takes it from serial killer movie, into somewhere darker. These are just kids. And they’re knifing each other. At the time, there were high school shootings. I guess there always has been. I can’t remember too many films trying to tackle it though.
Google “Scream Copy Cat Killings”. See its legacy.
Seeing it writ large on the screen – what can happen when you misinterpret a horror movie. When kids are bored, with nothing more to do. What’s scarier than that?
