How ‘Scream’ Became the Most Lucrative Slasher Film of All Time

“What’s your favourite scary movie?” The question which began a self-referential deconstruction of slasher movies that revamped the entire horror genre is one we’ve all heard before, I’m sure. Debuting in US theatres on December 20, 1996, Scream has been credited by many as the saviour of horror; revitalizing a class of film that seemed to have been crawling towards inevitable death. Despite its less-than-revolutionary plot, Scream is, to date, the most lucrative slasher film of all time; with its initial two sequels taking out second and third place in that line-up.

Partially inspired by the real-life horror of The Gainesville Ripper, Kevin Williamson – an unknown screenwriter at the time – drafted an 18-page treatment for a script about a phone-call killer in a mask who harasses a young woman alone in a house. Eventually, when the bills were piling high, Williamson locked himself away for three days in Palm Springs and wrote the full-length script about his masked murderer that sparked a bidding war in Hollywood. The script, which was initially titled Scary Movie, was bought for $400,000 by Dimension Films and given a 14-million-dollar production budget with Wes Craven taking the helm as director.

For any of you who have missed out on this unique mix of humour, death, and pop-culture references, Scream follows the story of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a high school student who lives in the small town of Woodsboro, California, and whose mother was murdered the previous year. With the bodies of two Woodsboro high students, Casey Becker and Steve Orth, showing up, gutted, just days before the one-year anniversary of Maureen Prescott’s death, the town of Woodsboro is plunged into a media feeding frenzy that introduces us to the steely, ambitious tabloid journalist, Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox). As the body count slowly rises, the film flip-flops back and forth between presenting us with as many suspects as possible and flat-out telling us who is hiding behind the mask.

The whodunit aspect of Scream isn’t exactly ground-breaking, and masked killers are a dime a dozen in the slasher genre, but the nature in which the film explores and even admits to its own clichés is what sets it apart from the movies that it parodies. Scream is a completely self-aware horror film, and its characters are also aware of the genre’s fundamental conventions.

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Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy), the residential horror film fanatic, even preaches about the rules laid out by horror movies of the past in a speech designed to point out these rules to the audience directly and have them watch as the characters break them and are punished for their sins:

Randy: That’s why she always outsmarted the killer in the big chase scene at the end. Only virgins can do that. Don’t you know the rules?

Stu: What rules?

Randy: Jesus Christ! You don’t know the rules?

Stu: Have an aneurysm, why don’t you?

Randy: There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie. For instance, number one: you can never have sex. Big no-no. Sex equals death, okay? Number 2: you can never drink or do drugs. No, the sin factor. It’s the sin. It’s an extension of number one. And number 3: never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, say, “I’ll be right back,” ‘cause you won’t be back.

Not only is there a plethora of horror classics mentioned by name throughout the course of the film, but there is also a range of clever visual and audio inserts that directly reference these films and sometimes even their makers; like a fun little in-joke between Scream and its audience.

A few of the more obvious ones include:

• Wes Craven’s cameo as Fred, the Woodsboro High janitor. Wearing a red and green striped sweater and sporting a fedora, Fred the janitor is probably the most blatant visual reference in the film, but he’s not the only reference to Freddy Krueger and the A Nightmare on Elm Street.
• “You’re starting to sound like some Wes Carpenter flick or something.” Tatum’s response to Sidney’s speculation about her mother’s murderer is a reference to Wes Craven’s joking about how people always confuse him with Halloween director John Carpenter.
• Billy Loomis actually calls out one of his own references directly after shooting Randy near the end of the film; “We all go a little mad sometimes…Anthony Perkins, Psycho.”
• At the beginning of Scream, Casey Becker’s father tells his wife to drive to the McKenzies’ house and call the police; an instruction that Laurie Strode gives to Lindsay and Tommy in Halloween.
• Tatum Riley wears a cropped shirt with the number 10 on it, just like Johnny Depp’s character Glen Lantz does in A Nightmare on Elm Street.
• Linda Blair, who Wes Craven directed in Stranger in Our House and who we all know as Reagan from The Exorcist, makes a small guest appearance as one of the TV reporters chasing after Sidney after she arrives at school.
• Billy Loomis’ last name is shared by Michael Myers’ psychiatrist in Halloween and Marion Crane’s boyfriend in Psycho; both of whom are called Samuel Loomis.
• Joseph Whipp, who plays Sheriff Burke in Scream, also portrays a police officer, Sergeant Parker, in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Scream truly was a turning point for horror. Since its initial release twenty years ago, it spawned not only three sequels but also a spin-off series on MTV that was just recently greenlit for a third season.

Mixing comedy with horror, Scream manages to make fun of the movies we love whilst also honouring them. It’s funny, clever, and one of the most subversive films ever made. If you’ve somehow managed to miss out on all the thrills Scream has to offer, then I’d suggest having yourself a little horror movie marathon soon.