On September 8th, 1960, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho premiered. Sixty-four years later, it's regarded as the first slasher film, and thanks to a legendary shower stabbing scene, slasher films cemented themselves as an important part of our culture. However, the genre wouldn't stay the same for long, and like all things in our society, it has been reinvented over and over again, most memorably by horror masters like John Carpenter (Halloween) and Sean S. Cunningham (Friday the 13th.)
But the slasher film had to reinvent itself again when we moved into the 90s. While every decade has its new ideas and innovations, the 90s seemed to move at an advanced pace. We were now in a generation of slasher films where characters had easy access to television, the internet, and cell phones. Plus, for better or for worse, MTV was moving away from primarily music videos and into the brand new world of reality television, with The Real World premiering in 1992. When Wes Craven's Scream premiered in 1996, it was truly a slasher film for the MTV generation.
"Movies don't create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative,"-Billy Loomis, Scream.
It was clever, it was humorous in a way slasher films hadn't been before (I don't think anyone was necessarily laughing during the premiere of Psycho), and it was self-aware, referencing earlier slasher films and mocking them for some of their tropes. Maybe it was because Scream premiered during the internet age that there is so much lore around the film, but Scream has a massive, dedicated fanbase, and every time there's a new Scream film out, fans of all ages show up to the theater in masses to see who's gonna die, who's gonna live, and which psychopath has put on the Ghostface mask this time.
Even though it's been almost 30 years since Scream premiered, it still feels trendy in a way Prom Night or other 70s and 80s slasher films don't. While there's a lot about Scream that permanently traps it in the year 1996, like the excessive use of house phones, there are also elements that make it timeless, which is why it's been able to produce successful and beloved sequels time and time again. I've recently been seeing people posting about Scream a lot on social media, which inspired me to finally discuss its brilliance on Movie Mondays.
The Reinvention Of The Final Girl
I remember the first time I watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and I could not believe the portrayal of its final girl, Sally Hardesty. She basically just ran around screaming the entire time, barely making it out alive. It reminded me a lot of when Stephen King called Wendy from Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining "one of the most misogynistic characters ever put on film, she's basically just there to scream and be stupid." However, in 1996, Scream reinvented the final girl.
The final girl is a popular slasher film trope in which one sole female character manages to escape the killer after all of the other characters are brutally murdered. The character typically has certain characteristics; if we're talking The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, she looks like the all-American girl. She's more wholesome and girl next doorish than the type of female characters that end up dead. To put it simply, she's a "good girl."
"You should never say 'Who's there?' Don't you watch scary movies? It's a death wish. You might as well just come out here to investigate a strange noise or something,"-Ghostface, Scream.
But Scream's Sidney Prescott is not your mother's final girl. You know how, in the 90s, Disney had to reinvent its princesses because it was no longer socially acceptable to have a woman clean the basement all day and night until a prince showed up to rescue her? That's what slasher films had to do with their final girls. Sidney is so iconic, in fact, that when Hollywood remade The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003, Jessica Biel's version of Sally, now named Erin, was much more of a badass.
Sidney is not a goody two shoes, and she's inherently tainted due to the trauma of her mother's murder. Sidney's mother was revealed to have been having an affair before her death, tarnishing Sidney's reputation and making it impossible for her to meet the criteria for the stereotypical final girl. However, Sidney's trauma doesn't make her weak; it makes her complex, which is why all these years later, she's still a fan favorite final girl. One of my favorite scenes in Scream comes toward the end when Sidney jumps out of the closet wearing the Ghostface costume in order to catch Billy. This is crucial to her character because it proves she's not afraid to be seen as the villain, and for a film genre that once prided itself on the innocence of its final girls, this was a major risk.
Challenging Horror Movie Tropes
The one thing Scream does flawlessly is take everything the audience thinks it knows about horror/slasher films and flip it on its head. As I mentioned earlier, the franchise is incredibly self-aware as it mocks the many slasher films that came before it. One of its finest elements is its iconic opening scene, which all six movies in the franchise have, though the first one will always be the best, in my opinion. As Ghostface torments Casey Becker before murdering her and her boyfriend Steve Orth, we initially believe she is the main character of the film, and we will be watching her fight off the killer throughout the movie. This isn't the case, as Scream is only setting us up to believe this before introducing us to Sidney soon after Casey's death.
The first time Sidney gets a call from Ghostface, she tells him she doesn't watch scary movies and mocks the characters for running up the stairs away from the killer instead of out of the house. Not long after, Ghostface attacks Sidney, and after failing to unlock her front door, she has no choice but to run upstairs away from the killer. Another clever choice Scream makes is to feed us the killers throughout the film. (SPOILER ALERT: It's Billy Loomis and Stu Matcher behind the Ghostface costume.) While most horror movies try to avoid making the killer too obvious, hoping not to ruin the big reveal for fans, Scream basically tells us from the start that Billy is the ring leader and Stu is his right-hand man.
"Oh, you wanna play psycho killer? Can I be the helpless victim? Okay, let's see: No, please don't kill me, Mr. Ghostface. I wanna be in the sequel."-Tatum, Scream.
There are countless examples, but I find some more clever than others. One is when Billy drops Sidney's father's stolen cell phone on the floor. In the shot, we also see Billy's boots. Later, we see the same boots on Ghostface's feet when he attacks Sidney in the bathroom at school. For Stu, he gives himself away when he's talking to his friends about Casey's murder and knows way too much about how Casey and Steve's bodies were gutted for someone who had nothing to do with their murders. Of course, Scream also challenges tropes with the character Randy, his movie knowledge, and his infamous rules on how to survive a horror film.
Sure, these rules were true in past horror films, but the Scream films are rule-breakers. Randy's first rule is broken when Sidney and Billy have sex upstairs during Randy's party, and ultimately, Sidney survives Billy and Stu's attempt to murder her. The next rule is broken when everyone at the party who was drinking goes home and lives to tell the tale of the Woodsboro Ghostface murders. The last one, however, is a little more complicated. Stu mocks Randy and says this line anyway. Because he knows he and Billy are the killers, he doesn't believe he will actually die. However, Stu does end up dying. Billy stabs him so when the police show up, he'll look like a victim. Instead, Billy cuts too deep, and Stu bleeds to death.
Scream also challenges the way a majority of slasher films only have one survivor. Instead of one final girl, Scream technically has two. While Gale is not the main character, she survives the killings and lives to broadcast the story on her news network and later writes a book about it. Randy and Dewey also survive, which is a lot more surviving characters than the typical slasher film. Also, Scream challenges slasher films' need for their killers to have a motive. Billy mentions that Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter were never really given a motive, and while he later reveals his motive was actually because Sidney's mother was having an affair with his father, which tore his family apart, Stu was never given a motive. He says he simply went along with Billy due to peer pressure.
Horror Movie References
Because Scream is so self-aware, it references several horror films throughout its 1 hour and 51-minute runtime. Scream name drops Halloween, A Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday the 13th, The Exorcist, Basic Instinct, Evil Dead, Hellraiser, The Fog, Terror Train, Prom Night, Silence of the Lambs, Psycho, and Carrie. However, there are also some more subtle nods to horror films.
My favorite is when Casey is talking to Ghostface about A Nightmare On Elm Street, and she mentions that the sequels weren't good. Wes Craven is the director behind both Scream and A Nightmare On Elm Street, and he's mocking the public's less-than-positive reaction to the sequels (many of which he did not direct.) The director actually later makes an appearance in Scream as the janitor, wearing a sweater that looks far too much like Freddy Krueger's to be a coincidence.
"It's all a movie. It's all one great big movie. Only you can't pick your genre."-Billy Loomis, Scream.
In another scene, Sidney is talking to her friend Tatum about the Ghostface murderers when Tatum tells her, "You're starting to sound like some Wes Carpenter flick," an obvious reference to both Wes Craven and John Carpenter. Though, the most popular references are linked to Billy. Billy's last name is Loomis, taken from Dr. Sam Loomis, Michael Myers' psychiatrist in Halloween. In Scream 5 and Scream 6, characters Sam and Tara Carpenter take their last name from the Halloween director.
At the end of Scream, right as Ghostface is revealed, Billy, who faked his death, comes back to life covered in fake blood, shoots Randy, and says, "We all go a little mad sometimes," revealing himself as the killer through a quote from Norman Bates. He then tells Sidney he used corn syrup for fake blood because it's the same thing they used for pig's blood in Carrie.
The Satire & Comedy Of Scream
There is something so comical about Scream, where funny moments are present even when Ghostface is on a murder spree. Scream mocks not only other horror films in a humorous way but also society and the media. Gale Weathers exists basically to get on everyone's nerves, even though she ultimately does help Sidney defeat Billy and Stu. As a news reporter, she cares more about getting a good news story and writing a best-selling book about the Ghostface murders than she does about actually helping anyone.
Of course, her character is an exaggeration of real-life news reporters and journalists, but our society does tend to become transfixed with murder stories in a way that isn't necessarily helpful to the victims. Just look at all the documentaries on Hulu and Netflix about murders and serial killers. When we are watching these, are we necessarily thinking about how horrible the experiences were for the victims, or are we so entertained we forget that someone actually had to go through this and live with the trauma?
"Everybody dies but us. We get to carry on and plan the sequel because, let's face it, these days you gotta have a sequel."-Stu Macher, Scream.
Of course, Matthew Lillard's genius acting as airhead Stu Matcher only adds to the comedy, like when he realizes how mad his parents are going to be at him when they find out he was the one killing teens in Woodboro. And casting Henry Winkler as the high school principal makes it impossible for the film not to be funny since he's such a brilliant comedic actor.
Scream drew an entirely new generation into the slasher film genre, and while its many improvements–like the updated final girl and defiance of film tropes–made it more desirable than older films, it also brought new appreciation to those movies. For me, Scream is the one slasher film franchise that can keep going and going and never get stale. Maybe it's the anticipation of finding out which character is behind the Ghostface mask this time or maybe it's the knowledge that we can always count on Sidney, or Sam and Tara, to put Ghostface in his place.
I wish the newer movies could capture even half the magic of the original Scream.