“What’s your favorite scary movie?”
It is hard to wrap my head around the fact that a quarter-century has passed since Scream was released in 1996. Partly, because it is such a great film. It is a simple story. A masked killer stalks and kills multiple people in a sleepy idyllic town where nothing of note ever happens. It is in this simplicity that the other reason that Scream is so great shines through: It is smart, sexy, quotable, and hilariously self-aware.
I am not here to give a play-by-play of the plot. That’s boring and frankly, nowhere near as fun as watching the film itself. What I am more interested in are the reasons I keep going back to this movie again and again. And there are quite a few of them.
In the world of streaming today, there are so many films at our disposal. It is easy to forget a time where you had to go out and get the good stuff. Not only that. You had to roll the dice on quality at the cinema, especially if it was a horror picture.
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It is one thing to add another scary movie to an existing genre; it is something else to twist the worn-out slasher premise into something new and fresh. That is exactly what Scream did. The film’s anonymous killer in a white scary mask, draped in black robes, stalking and killing, brought something innovative into the fold. There was banter, wit, and humor underpinned in the crimes committed. There was a relationship built between this killer and the victims.
Scream’s staying power on the horror landscape cannot be disputed. It has since become a franchise that has boasted four films, grossing over half a billion at the box office. The eponymous debut became the highest-grossing slasher at the time. We even got a short-lived television series. A fifth film is set to be released in early 2022. But where did this horror machine come from?
The heyday of 1980s slasher cinema, bringing in big money with cheap utility, was all but dead once the 1990s came around. Box office powerhouses like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and Michael Myers had seemingly run their course as audiences started putting their money and time elsewhere.
The tired slasher genre was ostensibly buried. The fire had gone out.
But then a resurrection took place in the middle of the decade. Inspired by the Gainesville Ripper in 1990, writer Kevin Williamson presented a revised take on previously known territory, adding humor, sexiness, and self-awareness to the slasher repertoire.
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He turned in a script titled Scary Movie, later changed to Scream. With A Nightmare on Elm Street creator Wes Craven directing, Williamson’s screenplay revitalized the genre. Instead of brainless blade-wielding weirdos silently stalking babysitters and cheerleaders, the killer in Scream is more intimate with his victims. He toys with them, asking them horror trivia and having them guess his location. But more importantly, as we come to find out, the killer knows his victims.
This is also a mystery movie as much as it is a slasher flick. The costume the killer wears can be bought by anyone. As the character Randy (Jamie Kennedy) points out, “Everybody’s a suspect!” This pulls at another fun thread not often seen in horror. Instead of the common catch-and-run between killer and victim, there’s an engrossing element of whodunit.
This one-two punch of mystery and violence is perfectly executed – no pun intended – in the cold open where Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) and her boyfriend Steve (Kevin Patrick Walls) are murdered rather gruesomely in an almost punishingly heinous way. This bloody but crafty sequence was a subtle homage to Psycho, where Hollywood superstar Janet Leigh’s Marion Crane is shockingly murdered in the first act. Barrymore – America’s sweetheart and arguably the most bankable name in the cast at the time – is killed in the opening minutes. No one was safe.
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Scream’s cast was a perfect storm, populating the screen with wisdom and energy. Both established and up-and-coming talent was cast in the film. Instead of unknown actors, familiar faces such as Barrymore, Henry Winkler, and Courteney Cox were joined with rising television stars Rose McGowan and Neve Campbell. Campbell would go on to play the heroine Sidney Prescott throughout the Scream franchise. Skeet Ulrich plays Sidney’s brooding boyfriend, Billy Loomis. Matthew Lillard and Jamie Kennedy would round out the cast as Stu and Randy, Sidney’s high school classmates. Finally, David Arquette plays the dopey-eyed and naïve deputy Dewey.
Technology was another raw fear explored in Scream. Particularly, the cellular phone. Looking at Scream now, it might be easy to laugh at what is now considered a primitive device. But not everyone was carrying phones in their pockets in 1996. Except for murder suspects, maybe. This tech was truly the main weapon utilized in Scream, allowing the killer to be anywhere and everywhere.
The last reason I’m going to touch on is arguably the most important. The villain in Scream is a ’90s killer, caught in the trappings of an outdated misogynistic view. This position is rooted in the ’80s slasher flicks that came before. The 1990s were a tenuous time for women, but also a groundbreaking one. Historically, blame has been placed on women for breaking “the rules.” This very well carried over into the ’90s without exception. In the public sphere, Monica Lewinksy was blamed for Bill Clinton’s infidelity. Princess Diana’s death was caused by her bucking the royal rules and divorcing herself from them. Popular culture still made strides in what has now become regarded as the third wave of feminism. Television heroes like Xena, Buffy, and Captain Janeway embodied “girl power” while the Spice Girls sang about it.
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Campbell’s Sidney Prescott is smarter and stronger than the dynasty of Final Girls from the past. Though passively conservative and cautious, Sidney does not strictly adhere to the “rules” that Randy famously quotes leading into Scream’s third act. She parties and has sex with her boyfriend Billy. Despite this behavior, she still survives the film. This flies in the face of the rules –- both on and off-screen –- for women.
But to say slasher films have been unkind to women would be a gross understatement. Guided by antiquated ethics from an era where women didn’t matter, horror films taught generations that virtuous women live, and promiscuous women are punished. You don’t need to dig too deep to see this in horror cinema. Women who show independence or have fun are seen as not taking their traditional roles of mother and homemaker seriously. This disrupts family values by bucking against the image of the conservative nuclear family.
How does this relate to Scream? Simply, both Sidney and Billy are recovering from trauma. Sidney is dealing with the death of her mother. Billy is boiling with maternal abandonment.
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Spoiler warning. Billy turns out to be the killer, sharing murdering duties with his partner, the submissive but charming Stu. It is clear what Billy’s motive for killing is derived from. He even says it himself. Sidney’s mother Maureen (Lynn McRee) turned out to be the town tramp, sleeping with various married men, including Billy’s father, prompting Billy’s mother to walk out. The impetus for Maureen’s behavior that is only ever explored through dialogue is given further context in Scream 3. I won’t dive into all that here. Suffice it to say, her behavior reinforces the position that women have been victims for decades well before the first slasher flick was ever made.
Despite the reason, Billy embodies the dated women-should-know-their-place mantra of the patriarchy, seeking to punish the transgressors. His displacement for his abandonment issues is imprinted onto Sidney. By Sidney breaking the rules and sleeping with Billy, she has turned into her mother. Thankfully, Scream is such a great film that Sidney takes the power back. Not only for her character but for her gender. Her victory is bigger than she realizes.
“Not in my movie.”
When writing this reflection, I thought about listing the fun trivia and facts about Scream, celebrating its fun kills (and there are plenty), or speculating about the upcoming sequel. However, there is a fair amount of YouTube videos and articles doing those things just fine already. I chose to ruminate on the deeper implications of social progression this film has made. There are plenty of those as well.
After 25 years, this simple, but smart, slasher still says so much.
