Scream (1996)

Film: Scream (1996)

Stars: David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich, Jamie Kennedy, Drew Barrymore, Henry Winkler

Director: Wes Craven

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

All October long, The Many Rantings of John is running a marathon dedicated to the Horror classics of the 1960's-90's that I'm seeing for the first time this month.  If you want to take a look at past titles from previous horror marathons (both this and other seasons) check out the links at the bottom of this article.

By the mid-1990's, the slasher/horror film had largely been relegated to the dustbins of the film industry.  While years before movies such as Halloween and Friday the 13th could make mountains of cash, a decade later their sequels were basically direct-to-video features, the VHS cassettes that you'd find buried in the back of your gas station (for those too young to know this, it used to be pretty much every gas station in America would rent out VHS copies of movies in the era before DVD's and Netflix).  Slasher films seemed destined to end up in the same place as musicals & westerns in the pop culture mind...until Scream came along.  It's hard to grasp that there was once a time before Scream considering its perch in the present pop culture pantheon, its knowing gaze engrained in pretty much every aspect of the self-aware genre since.

(Spoilers Ahead-Proceed with Caution) The movie, after a shocking first killing that we'll get to in a second, is about Sidney Prescott (Campbell), a popular high school girl whose mother was killed the year before and who provided testimony for the man who allegedly killed her mother to stand trial (a pre-fame Liev Schreiber).  Prescott is shaken by the killings, and the way they come so soon after her mother's death, and seems to be unable to be intimate with her boyfriend Billy (Ulrich).  When Sidney becomes the target of the killer, her narrowly escaping with her life, she becomes something of a joke, with people claiming she made up the attack for attention.  Despite a mounting body count, the townspeople seem to treat the murders as a joke, with the high schoolers wanting to watch horror movies to "solve" who the killer is using horror movie cliches, and a local tabloid reporter named Gale Weathers (Cox) intent on using the murders to advance her celebrity through a tell-all book about the film.  In the end, it is revealed that Billy, despite initially seeming to be innocent (to the point where Sidney sleeps with him), is indeed the killer, and has been working with his manic friend Stu (Lillard) to kill everyone, initially Sidney's mother because she had an affair with Billy's father, breaking up his family, and then as a way to frame Sidney's father for all of the subsequent crimes.  Sidney & Gale are able to save themselves, killing Billy & Stu, and that's where the movie ends...until the sequel, of course.

The most startling thing about Scream from the get-go is its confidence.  Even coming from Wes Craven, who had already established himself in the horror movie genre, this is an impressive feat & one that has to be commented on.  Craven borrows from many horror films in the movie, but in the opening shots he is clearly cribbing from Psycho.  According to production notes I read about the film afterward, Barrymore was originally considered for the Sidney Prescott role (she was, in 1996, the biggest name in this movie), but when scheduling conflicts got in the way, she was recast in the smaller role as Casey, the first person killed.  This works sublimely in the film, particularly if you only know from the posters that Barrymore is one of the stars, because you don't realize that the film's biggest headliner is going to die (quickly breaking one of the most important taboos of a horror movie-the biggest star has to make it until the end).

Scream's self-aware universe is so commonplace today, I worried watching it decades after-the-fact would dull that, but it totally holds up.  Craven smartly includes references to a dozen other horror movies, including his own Nightmare on Elm Street, but plays around with these cliches by saying them out-loud, keeping the audience in suspense.  When Sidney loses her virginity to Billy, we are meant to worry about her dying (because in previous movies, girls who lose their virginity will always die as a "punishment" for their "sin"), but because they said it out loud, will she die now?  Scream turns that on its head, particularly in the opening scene where we try to understand the rules of this "game"-what's real, and what do we do in a horror movie that refuses to play by some rules but sticks to others?  Particularly in killing the biggest star off in the first fifteen minutes, we understand there are no rules, and suddenly it becomes a fresh new take on the genre.  While there are things to quibble over (Lillard's acting is actively atrocious even if that's the point of the character, and it's hard to imagine that Billy would put up with him that long unless they were obviously meant to be having sex with each other...you don't need much queer-coding to understand that Billy & Stu are fucking), incredible pacing, a smart screenplay, and good work from most involved (particularly Cox & Barrymore), Scream is a modern classic for a reason.

Past Horror Month Reviews (Listed Chronologically): The Golem, The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein, Freaks, The Mummy, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, The Black Cat, The Bride of Frankenstein, Mad Love, The Raven, Werewolf of London, Dracula's Daughter, Son of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man Returns, The Mummy's Hand, The Invisible Woman, The Wolf Man, Cat People, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Invisible Agent, The Mummy's Curse, The Mummy's Tomb, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera, Son of Dracula, The House of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man's Revenge, The Mummy's Ghost, The Uninvited, House of Dracula, She-Wolf of London, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, Revenge of the Creature, The Creature Walks Among Us, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, The Blob, Village of the Damned, The Innocents, The Masque of the Red Death, Night of the Living Dead, The Wicker Man, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Carrie, Dawn of the Dead, Halloween, The Amityville Horror, When a Stranger Calls, Friday the 13th, The Evil Dead, Poltergeist, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Child's Play