Scream (1996)

By 1996, the slasher subgenre had been all but played out. The concept of a hulking, implacable psychopath hidden beneath a mask and wielding a sharp weapon who terrorizes a group of young, unsuspecting tourists was popularized in 1974 by Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Only a short four years later did John Carpenter and Debra Hill introduce the modern trope of equating sex with death in Halloween, crafting the enigmatic, definitive cinematic boogeyman who murders three sexually active teenaged women before failing to claim the life of the single, straitlaced virgin. Recognizing that this formula was a recipe for success, Victor Miller and Sean S. Cunningham combined all three elements -- teen sexuality, isolation, and graphic violence -- into a story that gathered a group of young would-be camp counselors in the foreboding, adult-free woods of Camp Crystal Lake, left them to their own devices, and unleashed upon them the wrath of a grieving mother in Friday the 13th. Four years later, Wes Craven incorporated an ingenious supernatural twist to the subgenre by enabling a deceased child murderer to invade the nightmares of the adolescent children of the adults who burned him to death in his boiler room where he conducted his heinous misdeeds.

Throughout the entire decade of the 1980s, filmmakers figured out a way to make a fast buck by replicating the established formula and cashing in on the burgeoning demand for gratuitous bloodshed and female nudity, paying less attention to the more artistic mechanics such as an original narrative, memorable dialogue, or character development. With the well run pretty much dry, where was there left to go in this sphere? The formula was set in stone, so the premise of teenagers being picked off one by one by a masked or disfigured serial killer, human or demonic, with a kitchen knife, a machete, a chainsaw, or a glove made with razor blades in place of fingers, just isn't going to cut very deep anymore (pun somewhat intended). 

How's this for an invigorating idea? Take a masked serial killer who uses their love of horror movies as inspiration to begin a killing spree in a small, California town, give them a playfully menacing voice to taunt their victims over the phone, and set them loose on a group of eloquent high school students who likewise adore the horror genre and are therefore knowledgeable about the nightmare they're living in and the rules that must be followed to survive it. That is the brilliant premise envisioned by Kevin Williamson and brought to boundlessly energetic life by Nightmare mastermind, Wes Craven, the two geniuses revitalizing the teens-in-peril Mad Slasher movie with a thrillingly imaginative, hair-raisingly suspenseful, darkly humorous, relentlessly violent, and occasionally poignant celebration of horror cinema and a probing exploration of filmgoers' sometimes psychotically unyielding affection for it.

The opening set piece of Scream is a masterpiece in and of itself, a fast-paced, harrowing exercise in suspense-building that sets the stage for what's to follow. It's after ten o'clock at night. Seventeen-year-old Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) is alone in her home, making Jiffy Pop in preparation for a scary movie she's getting ready to watch with her eighteen-year-old boyfriend, Steven Orth (Kevin Patrick Walls), when the phone rings. The person on the other end is a deep male voice, who initially claims he dialed the wrong number. Then he calls again "to apologize". Shortly thereafter, he calls back, and the two settle into a frivolous, pleasantly meandering conversation about their shared love of horror movies, each asking the other what their favorite scary movie is. The man insinuates an interest in asking Casey on a date, the latter lying about not having a boyfriend, before shifting the mood from one of lighthearted banter to nerve-racking creepiness with his answer to one question: "Why do you wanna know my name?" asks Casey. "Because I wanna know who I'm looking at." 

Soon, Casey finds herself in a race against the clock to save not only her own life, but that of Steve, who is bound and gagged to a chair outback. All she has to do is answer the caller's questions regarding horror movie trivia correctly. Should be simple enough for a self-proclaimed horror fan such as herself, what with obvious questions like the name of the killer in Halloween. However, she falls victim to the trick question, "Name the killer in Friday the 13th", the answer to which is Pamela Voorhees, but an overconfident Casey jumps up and shouts, "Jason, Jason, it was Jason!" Because Jason didn't take his mother's place as the antagonist of the franchise until the sequel, Steve is swiftly gutted. After refusing to answer her last-chance question of which door the caller is at, Casey is chased through her backyard by an assailant clothed in a black hooded robe and a white ghost mask, who pounces on her, catches up to her as she's running toward her parents, and stabs her in the chest with a hunting knife. As her parents search desperately for their missing daughter, immediately alerted to a struggle by a fire in the kitchen, Casey is gutted and suspended from a tree in the front yard, an unforgettably grotesque sight that her parents are moments away from witnessing.

This opening scene is justifiably considered one of the all-time greatest in horror history, a master class in how to ratchet tension through little more than dialogue and an isolated setting. For my money, it's second only to The Ring. The Californian house is expertly chosen and presented, with Mark Irwin's exterior shot accenting the isolation and the sound design heightening the creak of a swing. Williamson smartly modulates his dialogue to instill a creeping sense of dread, beginning the conversation between Casey and the mysterious caller in a benign tone. At first, it just sounds like two potentially lonely individuals quickly developing a bond over their knowledge of horror. In a short amount of time, the caller's words become more sinister and intimidating as he warns Casey not to hang up on him, threatening to "gut [her] like a fish". Roger Jackson modulates his voice to match the transition in his character's attitude. Unlike in the sequels, Jackson doesn't begin his conversations as Ghostface sounding like an overt sadist with a thirst for blood. In this first installment, his voice starts off sounding casual and a bit seductive, lulling his prey into a false sense of conversational security. Once his lines grow more ominous and he starts issuing threats, Jackson's voice curdles practically imperceptibly into a deep, inhuman growl.

While there are a number of ingredients that make this cold open an inimitable masterwork in its own right, from Williamson's dialogue to Craven's breakneck pacing to Jackson's finely modulated vocal performance, it wouldn't have achieved its status as such without the phenomenally committed, physically exhausting, emotionally gutting performance of Drew Barrymore, who demonstrates in less than thirteen minutes of screen time why she is one of the most talented and underrated actresses actresses still working in Hollywood today. Hers is the first face we see in Scream, a cheerful, smiling young woman looking forward to the romantic night ahead of her. As soon as she picks up the phone whose ringing commences the movie, Barrymore provides a showcase for her uncanny ability to flesh out into a three-dimensional human being a character who will momentarily be turned into nothing more than a lifeless, hollowed-out waxwork dummy corpse. Speaking to Jackson from the other end of the phone, Barrymore instantly conveys Casey's bubbly and flirtatious personality, beaming with pleasure when asked about her interest in horror movies, overflowing with enthusiasm and confidence that she has control over the conversation. Look at the way she raises her shoulder when asking this man if he wants to take her on a date. But then the second she realizes this man may be watching her, Barrymore transitions seamlessly into a state of pure, unadulterated paranoia. Her initially sweet and perky voice suddenly becomes frustrated and uncooperative. When the phone rings once more, she freezes, whispers, "Shit", and wipes a tear from her face. The fear and fury boils quickly within. Once the dark, malicious nature of the caller's intentions rises to the surface, Barrymore descends into a puddle of hysteria, sobbing uncontrollably, grasping her stomach in apprehension, pleading for her life and the life of her boyfriend. Her powerlessness at watching Steve sit tied to a chair, knowing his life is in her hands, is utterly heartbreaking. The despair in her voice as she begs the caller to leave them alone. Her futile attempt to call out to her mother in a strained squeak, owing to having her throat gripped by two strong hands, will claw at your soul for the remainder of your existence. If there were any justice for horror at the Academy, Barrymore would've at least been nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her now legendary opening performance. In most horror movie openings, the actors are required to do little more than show up, maybe speak a few lines, let out a shriek, and play dead; Barrymore was required to truly act, to traverse a range of contrasting emotions while offering insight into the personality of her character in a limited amount of time. A heavy burden that the longtime starlet carries with aplomb.

Whether she's playing a leading role or is only in front of the camera for a single scene, Barrymore possesses the presence and emotional depth to bring a character vividly to life and make herself indispensable to the production. However, some of the credit for the blood-freezing terror Barrymore plumbs in Scream is to be shared with Wes Craven, who craftily exploited her love for animals to drain the tears from her while shooting. Before filming, Barrymore had tearfully shared a story with Wes that she had read in the newspaper about a dog being set on fire by its owner. "I'm lighting the match" became his trigger for Drew to conjure the same emotional reaction on camera. Amazingly, even her simple wardrobe in this sequence -- a blonde bob wig, white knitted sweater, and light blue skinny jeans -- managed to attach itself to the memories of all those who viewed it. In all of the countless parodies that have been made in its wake, whether in the openings of the cinematic spoofs, Scary Movie and Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th, or fan-made skits on YouTube, the actors playing Casey have been meticulous enough to pay tribute to those three aforementioned features, or at least the wig and sweater. Superficial costume details aside, had it not been for the raw, poignant, vulnerable acting of Barrymore, this would've fallen flat as another run-of-the-mill, cat-and-mouse, chase-and-stab scene.

Williamson shrewdly added another unique ingredient to set his opener apart from those of Halloween, Friday the 13th, or their many imitators: the inclusion of the parents of one of the victims. In a more generic, less emotionally involved version of Scream, the screen would have faded to black the second Ghostface's elevated knife plunged into Casey's body. Instead, Williamson and Craven extend the sequence to consider the emotions of confusion, concern, and panic felt by Casey's mother (Carla Hatley) and father (David Booth) when they walk through their front door and find the windows smashed and smoke filling the kitchen. Mr. Becker runs upstairs calling his daughter's name, while Mrs. Becker puts out the fire and frantically dials the police, only to hear the gasps for breath and groans of agony from Casey on the opposite end. Hatley's reactions are especially poignant, capturing the incomprehensible terror and heartbreak of a mother who knows her child is being harmed and is powerless to do anything about it. The piercing scream she emits after laying eyes on Casey's body echoes with emotional accuracy. It's a judicious, sensitive tactic that adds an extra layer of poignancy to what could have otherwise been written off as a stock splatter flick situation.

At the time of Scream's release, Drew Barrymore was the most famous participant in the cast, which, combined with her prominence on the theatrical poster, deceived audiences into believing she would be playing a primary character. Though she was originally offered the starring role, Barrymore graciously allowed herself to be relegated to that of the opening victim, shrewd enough to recognize what the audience's reaction would be: if this movie has the guts to not only stab but disembowel its most well-known actor in the first thirteen minutes, then literally anything can happen. It was a risky endeavor that broke a major rule in cinema that had been followed beforehand (Do you really think the star is going to die?), albeit one that paid off in spades.

Following the showstopper of an introduction, we are promptly introduced to our actual protagonist, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a student at Woodsboro High School who sits (or rather, sat) next to Casey in English class. Living in the small town of Woodsboro, California with her widower father, Neil (Lawrence Hecht), and still traumatized by the untimely death of her mother, Maureen (Lynn McRee, featured posthumously in photographs), who was viciously raped and butchered in their home almost one year prior, Sidney struggles to make herself emotionally and especially physically available for her boyfriend, Billy Loomis (Johnny Depp-lookalike Skeet Ulrich). On the night of Casey and Steve's double homicide, Billy sneaks through Sidney's bedroom window after watching The Exorcist on TV and realizing a symmetry between the edited cut of the movie and their relationship ("All the good stuff was cut out"). The couple begins to make out on Sidney's bed, but once Billy slides his hand up her nightdress, she quickly pushes it back out and jovially asks him to leave. As lovers in a state of repressed sexual tension, Campbell and Ulrich are powerfully convincing, evincing a red-hot chemistry hamstrung only by Sidney's unprocessed trauma. The glee that Campbell conveys in making Billy wait, and the blue balls Ulrich carries as he makes his way out the window, create a nearly visible steam that permeates the atmosphere.

The following morning, Sidney arrives at Woodsboro High to find a swarm of police, reporters, and journalists crowding the building. Her best friend, Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan), informs her that Casey and Steve were murdered the previous night in horrific fashion, and that the police are clueless as to who the perpetrator could be. One of the journalists on the scene is Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), a ruthlessly determined, self-interested television personality who wrote a scandalous book about the court case of Maureen Prescott, in which she accused Sidney of falsely identifying Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber) as the culprit and Maureen of seducing him on the night of her murder. Because of Sidney's testimony, Cotton is sitting in jail awaiting an appeal against the death penalty. Because of Gale's accusation, Maureen's name has been tarnished, earning the loathing of loathing of Sidney.

Meanwhile, Tatum's twenty-five-year-old brother, Dewey (David Arquette), the bighearted but endearingly bumbling deputy of Woodsboro, is working closely with Sheriff Burke (Joseph Whipp) to keep the residents of their town safe, unmask the identity of this costumed serial killer, and locate the whereabouts of Neil Prescott, who left town for the weekend on a business trip but hasn't been identified at the Hilton airport where he claimed he would be staying.

Rounding out the players in Sidney's social clique are Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard), Tatum's high-spirited, loudmouth boyfriend, and the single, Horror Movie Ph.D. Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy), who works at a video store and is well informed about the three primary rules of how to survive a horror movie: #1: never have premarital sex, #2: never drink or use drugs, and #3: never, under any circumstances, say, "I'll be right back," because you simply won't be.

Returning from school to her lavish, spacious home, in which she's alone with everything except a sign around her neck offering to be the killer's next target, Sidney packs her bags and waits for Tatum to pick her up so she can spend the weekend with her and Dewey. Later that night after waking from a nap, Sidney is called by the killer, who toys with her the same way he did Casey before breaking into her home and attacking her. Sidney manages to fight him off and runs upstairs into her bedroom, where she reaches out to the police on the internet, the phone line having been severed. Shortly after the killer disappears, Billy appears at the window, and Sidney rushes into his arms. As he comforts her, assuring that whoever was there is now gone, a cellphone falls out of his pocket, convincing that Sidney that he is the killer. She runs downstairs and opens the front door, where Dewey is ridiculously holding the ghost mask in front of his face, causing Sidney to scream, which, in turn, frightens Dewey into screaming. (One of Williamson and Craven's greatest assets is their ability to sprinkle a light supply of comic relief over some of the terrifying horror moments.) Billy is immediately arrested, despite his earnest assertions that he's innocent, and Sidney is more devastated, confused, and withdrawn than ever. While spending the night at the Rileys', Sidney is phoned once again by the killer, who taunts her for having "fingered the wrong guy... again."

And so begins a compelling whodunit mystery chock-full of chills, thrills, blood spills, and a signature undercurrent of witty, tongue-in-cheek humor to alleviate the sometimes unbearable levels of tension. Part of what makes Scream such a delectably gory blast is that the identity of the killer(s) is legitimately unpredictable. Williamson presents us with a gallery of credible suspects and encourages us to play detective all the way up until the magnificently staged and viscerally gratifying climax. Could it really be the soft-spoken, mysterious boyfriend who's fed up with waiting for his girlfriend to overcome her grief and put out already? Or is it the movie-obsessed Randy whose grasp on reality has cracked? He admits to Stu about harboring a crush on Sidney. Perhaps his jealousy over her love for Billy has finally reached its breaking point. Or how about the missing Neil? After all, the anniversary of his wife's murder is approaching. Maybe his grief over her death has been superseded by a homicidal rage, and what better way to rule himself out as a suspect than by telling his daughter he's leaving town for a couple days? And let's not forget about the sweet, sexy Tatum, who insists to her sexist boyfriend that "The killer could easily be female. Basic Instinct?"

As good as the first three Wes Craven-directed sequels overall are, for all the pleasures each one of them delivers in their own right (I can't yet comment on the latest two installments directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and written by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick), there's one crucial ingredient that makes the original a horror/comedy masterpiece which none of them have succeeded in recapturing: fully developed supporting characters. While the three central protagonists of the Scream franchise -- Sidney, Dewey, and Gale -- have reappeared and evolved tremendously over the course of the first four films, less time has been spent fleshing out the supporting members of the casts. Sure, we've gotten the compassionate, understanding (and non-homicidal) boyfriend, Derek Feldman, the exuberantly unhinged grieving mother, Debbie Loomis, and the role that turned me into a diehard fan of Emma Roberts, the lethally jealous and heartlessly entitled cousin, Jill Roberts. But there's something about the original group of characters that simply cannot be matched or surpassed, no matter how game the casts of the first three follow-ups undeniably are. A natural charm, an unforced wit, a warmth, a sense of believability. Of course, there are two elements that bequeathed those necessary qualities to the characters: the flawless casting of Ulrich, McGowan, Lillard, and Kennedy, and the sharp-witted, quotable, engrossing, self-referential dialogue supplied to them by Williamson. Even Roger Jackson was given the most original and heart-stopping lines as the voice of Ghostface to rival anything spoken by Freddy Krueger -- "If you hang up on me, you'll die, just like your mother! Do you wanna die, Sidney? Your mother sure didn't." -- before they grew a little more stale and repetitive as the series went on.

Tatum fits the role of the archetypal best friend of the protagonist, but thanks to Williamson's keen ear for teen-girl speech and a delightfully calibrated mix of scathing sarcasm and scintillating sexiness provided by McGowan, she stands out as one of the strongest sidekicks in horror. Almost like an amalgamation of the cynical Annie and lighthearted Lynda from Halloween, but enriched with greater attitude and ferocity, Tatum oozes sass, charm, and authority. She's extremely affectionate toward and protective of Sidney, running to her side and consoling her when she discovers that she was nearly killed, praising her for punching Gale Weathers in the face, endearingly calling her a "super bitch", and reassuring her that "Billy and his penis don't deserve [her]". To her brother, on the other hand, Tatum behaves like a typical little sister, undermining him in front of his colleagues, calling him a doofus, and waving him away when he tries to impart brotherly advice. Whether she's dispensing a comforting pat on Sidney's back or shooting Dewey a withering glare and smile, McGowan earns the audience's affection and admiration. She's the loyal, badass best friend we all wish we had in our lives. And when the moment comes when she commits the fatal horror faux pas of isolating herself from a large group of her peers at a party, Tatum demonstrates a highly developed sense of self-preservation, utilizing the objects at her disposal -- in this case, filled beer bottles -- to defend herself against the killer, along with exceptional physical agility and resourcefulness. As a result, when she inevitably loses the fight and is subjected to the most claustrophobic and innovative kill in the movie, there's an accompanying sadness to the ingenuity of her death. This is no plastic cutout whose demise provokes catharsis or, even worse, apathy.

Jamie Kennedy and Matthew Lillard provide the comic relief with their characters, Randy and Stu. Their funniest interaction takes place at the video store, where they share their differing views on the validity of Billy's guilt. Stu believes he's innocent, referring to his initial arrest as "a misunderstanding", to which Randy accuses Stu of being "a little lapdog" and insists Billy "has got 'killer' printed all over his forehead." This is one of Kennedy's two standout moments, deeming the events plaguing their town as "standard horror movie stuff" and shouting with increasing, unrestrained passion and exaggerated intensity, "There's a formula to it. A very simple formula. Everybody's a suspect!" His second is the scene where he relays the rules of how to survive a horror movie to a living room of inebriated, unconcerned novices. Nonetheless, the standout of the entire supporting cast is Lillard, who seems to be channeling Jack Nicholson from The Shining with an exuberant, go-for-broke performance of extraordinary physical comedy and Charles Manson-like derangement. The scene where he converses with Kennedy in the video store showcases the humor he can bring to a role with little more than bulging eyes, a goofy voice, and a mocking cackle.

Spoiler Alert: Despite the fact that Scream was released 27 years ago and has gained the status of a horror classic, I still feel it's only ethical to disclose the following paragraph will contain spoilers. Anyone who's seen the movie already knows the identity of Ghostface in this first installment, but in case you haven't seen it, consider yourself warned.

In the final act, which takes place at Stu's farmhouse, the killers are revealed to be Billy and Stu. Cornering Sidney in the kitchen, Billy reveals that Sidney's mother was having an affair with his father, which resulted in his parents getting a divorce and his mother abandoning him. Now that his energetic personality has been uncovered as a mask for a darker, twisted psyche, Lillard holds nothing back in his portrayal of a deranged psychopath blindly following the orders of a domineering, manipulative bully. Grinning manically from ear to ear, spewing salvia from his mouth as he utters lines in a high-pitched voice, and holding his arms out like Frankenstein's monster while walking backward, Lillard is a comical revelation having the time of his life, a sentiment communicated to and shared by the viewers on the opposite side of the screen.

With his mysterious, intense eyes and quietly soothing voice, Skeet Ulrich generates a sense of ambiguity from his first scene. It's not far-fetched to consider him a suspect, although once he's sitting in a police station protesting Sidney's accusation and staring at her through a window with an expression of incredulity, betrayal, and heartbreak, we begin to lower our guard and believe in his innocence. Of course, this only increases the shock value when he slowly turns his head around, whispers the iconic Norman Bates quote, "We all go a little mad sometimes", and shoots Randy in the shoulder. From this point forward, Ulrich paints an impressively nuanced portrait of a vengeful teenager taking out their misdirected rage and sorrow on the rest of the world. Billy is a representation of the "It's always someone else's fault" mentality, butchering the woman who seduced his father and preparing to kill her offspring, but never once considering the fact that his father had a choice to not cheat on his wife. While delivering his motivation to Sidney and barking orders to Stu, Ulrich vacillates between a soft, wounded voice indicative of a lost little boy grappling with maternal abandonment, and a loud, authoritative scream that highlights the power dynamics in Billy and Stu's partnership. Like Randy said earlier, Stu behaves like a loyal dog to Billy, meekly complying with his demands even when he's not comfortable doing so. For instance, when Billy and Stu take turns stabbing each other to make themselves look like victims, Billy cuts Stu a little too deeply in the side, angering him. Billy hands Stu the knife, reminding him to stick to the side and not go too deeply. "Okay, I'll remember," Stu says, then stabs Billy deeply in retaliation. Billy asks for the knife back, and Stu refuses, knowing that Billy will use it to stab him harder than before. Seeing that Stu isn't cooperating, Billy screams, "Now!" bullying him into submission. There's also a possibility that the two are involved in a sexual tryst, hinted at by Stu resting his chin on Billy's shoulder. If this theory is accurate, it's obvious who the alpha male in the relationship is.

Of the three primary protagonists, the one who's undergone the most significant transformation over the past 27 years is Gale Weathers. By the end of the second sequel, she had left behind the opportunism and viciousness that characterized her personality in the first two installments to become a kind, low-key human being with more than ratings on her mind. In this first installment, however, Gale is at her most deliciously evil, the antichrist of television journalism, as she describes it. Courteney Cox is outstanding in the role, unafraid to present Gale as an overambitious, selfish, and callous individual driven by an insatiable hunger for fame. Whenever a disaster strikes, Gale is always at the scene of the crime alongside her cameraman, Kenny (W. Earl Brown), who she treats with contempt. Her true nature as the most parasitic form of journalist shows itself after she fails to get a statement from Sidney or Tatum, and Kenny arrives with the camera after Tatum has driven off. "Kenny, I know that you're about 50 pounds overweight. But when I say hurry, please interpret that as MOVE YOUR FAT, TUB-OF-LARD ASS NOW!" Cox delivers the line perfectly, her voice low and sincere in the beginning, then suddenly rising to an enraged scream once she gets to the insult. It's all too easy to share in Tatum's enthusiasm when Sidney punches her in the face for offering to send her a copy of her book. 

Fortunately, Cox imbues Gale with a warmer side that prevents her from devolving into a one-dimensional, thoroughly detestable, frothing-at-the-mouth lunatic. When she begins interacting with Dewey, Cox puts on a disarming smile and unearths a charming, somewhat nerdy dimension to the character. Cox and Arquette evince an incredibly convincing chemistry, both actors bringing the best out in one another every time they share the screen. Does Gale genuinely have a schoolgirl crush on this quirky, goodhearted 25-year-old deputy? Or is she merely using him to obtain information? Cox makes it difficult to say for sure.

In real life, Cox and Arquette fell in love and married, and it's clear where their attraction originated. Their cutest scene occurs while taking a walk late at night to find a car reported abandoned in the woods. As several cars driven by drunken teens speed toward them, Dewey and Gale jump down a hill, the former landing ever so conveniently atop the latter. The way they look into each other's eyes is so heartfelt and beautiful, adding a dash of heart and romance to the often grisly proceedings. Dewey removes Gale's headband, and seeing that he's too unsure to make the first move, Gale raises her head for their first kiss. David Arquette does a great job balancing his desire to be taken seriously as a police officer with the uncontrollable, childlike excitement of finding his first love. He makes Dewey a lovable, caring, and smart authority figure whose inexperience doesn't render him inept. In the scene where he enters Stu's farmhouse and extends his gun in multiple directions, you can feel his uncertainty, fear, and dedication.

In the earlier era of horror, women were not written with a lot of intelligence or strength, often screaming and fainting at the sight of anything ghastly or frightening. It was what the label, "damsel in distress", was invented for. With the emergence of characters like Rosemary Woodhouse and Nancy Thompson, the roles of women in horror were expanded to bring them into the action in a more proactive capacity. Sidney Prescott represents the best of the final girl trope. At the beginning of the narrative, Sidney is an average adolescent woman like any other. She goes to high school, she's dating a handsome stud, has a close circle of friends, and is saving herself for the right moment. She's still in mourning after the murder of her mother, which has created intimacy issues between her and Billy. While this traumatic backstory provides dramatic depth to Sidney, it doesn't define her. Neve Campbell brings her to life in all of her complexity and insecurities with a passionate performance. She conveys loads of terror and pain in her eyes in a way that only the most understated performers can. Take the scene at Woodsboro High when Sidney runs into Billy in the hallway. He's just been released earlier that morning from jail, and Sidney tries to apologize for accusing him of being her attacker. This moment could've easily descended into a soap opera in the hands of a less capable actress, but the expression of astonishment on Campbell's face when Billy brings up the death of her mother, the tears welling in her eyes, keeps it grounded in emotional reality. While Craven didn't write the character, it's fitting that he directed her portrayer, considering he created the formidable heroine of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Sidney is cut from the exact same cloth as Nancy Thompson, and Campbell develops her into an intelligent, courageous, creative, and vulnerable young woman who refuses to allow herself to be treated as a victim. She uses her grief as fuel, holding her own in confrontations with Ghostface and willing to go to great lengths, including aiming a gun at two of her closest friends, to protect herself. The role is also largely physical, with Campbell forced to climb out of a window, fall from a roof and onto a cushioned boat, break off pieces of a fence and crawl through it. Sidney's most badass moment occurs during the climax when she turns the tables on Billy and Stu in a manner that recalls Catherine Martin's ingenious strategy against Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. While her assailants are distracted by an armed Gale, Sidney sneaks out of the kitchen, dons the Ghostface costume, hides in a closet, dials the home phone, and taunts them with their voice changer. When Billy opens the closet door, taking direction from Carpenter's Halloween as it plays on TV, Sidney emerges in costume and stabs Billy in the chest with an umbrella. Nancy may have set a new standard for final girls, but Sidney more than matched it. As a bonus, Williamson subverts the rule that only a virgin can survive and outsmart the killer in the end by allowing Sidney to have sex with Billy.

Two minor roles are filled by notable actors: Linda Blair as a reporter so obnoxious and tactless she makes Gale look like a pillar of strength by comparison ("How does it feel to be almost brutally butchered?" she asks Sidney on her way to school. "People wanna know. They have a right to know.") and Henry Winkler as Principal Arthur Himbry. Despite appearing in only three scenes, the third of which is his murder, Winkler can't be accused of phoning it in. He's tender and fatherly toward Sidney when she comes in his office to be interviewed by Sheriff Burke and Dewey, understanding of her difficult personal life. And when he's enacting disciplinary action against two juvenile students for dressing up as Ghostface and running through the halls screaming, he subverts his good-guy persona with a commanding fury and revulsion that's breathtaking in its unexpected conviction. Wes Craven gives himself a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo as Fred the janitor, who just so happens to wear a red-and-green-striped sweater and dark brown fedora as he mops the floor. Talk about a full-circle moment. 

While Roger Jackson provides the iconically bone-chilling voice, the physical role of Ghostface is filled out by stuntman Dane Farwell, who was gifted the pleasure of spending the entirety of his scenes disguised beneath the black robe and haunting mask designed by Fun World costume company employee Brigitte Sleiertin. Farwell performs some incredible stunts that are not to be taken for granted, including flipping over Rose McGowan, getting hit in the face by a refrigerator door (by McGowan), kicked in the groin and back onto a floor by Campbell, and having a room door smashed into his face as well (once again by Campbell). The clumsiness and vulnerability demonstrated by the killer accomplish two tasks at once: they feeds into the humor of the tone Craven and Williamson are going for -- how many horror movie villains do you know who fall down so many times while pursuing a target? -- and it reinforces the fact that the killers in this story are not invulnerable, superhuman monsters, but rather two mentally disturbed, teenaged human beings. If they didn't fall down after being kicked in the groin and hit in the face by doors, that would cross the line of silly and plummet straight into the realm of the utterly inane. Also worth mentioning, Farwell originated the memorable touch of the killer wiping blood off his hunting knife with a gloved hand.

Williamson uses his dialogue not only to build tension but also to provide a self-reflexive critique of the subgenre he's reveling in. In one of the most pointedly humorous exchanges in the screenplay, Sidney tells Ghostface she doesn't watch horror movies because, in her opinion, "What's the point? They're all the same: some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who's always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting." The irony of that misogynistic accusation is, once Sidney finds herself in a similar situation moments later, she realizes she's locked herself in her home and is therefore obligated to commit the same exact action. While sitting in bed talking about her desire to overcome her grief to Billy, he likens her situation to Clarice Starling's, specifically how she kept having flashbacks of her dead father, to which Sidney reminds him, "But this is life. This isn't a movie." "Sure it is, Sid," says Billy. "It's all a movie. It's all one great big movie." You can practically see Williamson and Craven looking at each other and smiling with self-aware, fourth-wall-busting glee. Watching Laurie Strode discover the dead bodies of her friends in Halloween, a drunken Randy arrogantly urges her to turn around, warning her that Michael Myers is right around the corner. Thinking he's so smart and safe from the comfort of Stu's deserted living room, Randy fails to notice the actual killer is right behind him, raising his knife for the kill. In the final scene, Gale is giving a live broadcast about the bloodbath that has just taken place behind her at Stu's farmhouse, referring to the events that have plagued this quiet town as "like the plot of some scary movie."

Beyond the self-critiquing snark and drinking game-worthy references to other horror movies, Williamson and Craven have crafted an equally gruesome and heartfelt celebration of the genre that stands on its own as one of the most innovative slasher films ever produced. They have a lot of fun dissecting the cliches that fans have grown accustomed to over the years without ridiculing them for always coming back for more. Complementing the witty dialogue and colorful characterizations is Craven's propulsive, exuberant, and relentless direction. He stages action scenes with masterful precision, each move a character makes leading smoothly and quickly to the next. He doesn't stop to let you take a breath, and the near-2-hour runtime flies by because of it. 

One of the most suspenseful set pieces transpires in the school bathroom. While staring at herself in the mirror, Sidney hears a male voice whisper her name. She turns around and asks who's there, but no one responds. Patrick Lussier cuts to a close-up shot of the ventilator, suggesting it was just the air. Turning back around, she hears her name whispered again, this time more distinctly. She gets down to her knees and looks at the bottom of the seemingly empty stalls, Mark Irwin placing his camera at ground level to match her gaze. Lussier edits the moment for maximum tension, cutting back and forth between Campbell's increasingly terrified reaction and the stillness of the stalls. And then a single leg drops down from the toilet, wearing a familiar black boot on its foot. Then another leg comes down. Then the black robe unfolds over them. The lock on the door turns, and Sidney makes a run for it, just as someone dressed in the same costume as the killer emerges from the stall and lunges at her. Sidney ducks in time, causing the man to crash into a trashcan before she flees.

Unlike the sequels which would double down on the comedic aspect at the expense of the horror, Scream is the only installment that truly put in the effort to actually be scary. Williamson wisely reserves his humor for the eccentricities of his characters and the sharpness of their tongues, while Craven allows the tense scare moments to unfold slowly with an emphasis on honest human emotion. Together, this dream team manages to walk a fine line, cooking up a visceral, intellectually stimulating teen slasher that's legitimately terrifying and suspenseful without taking itself too seriously, silly and self-aware without descending into self-parody. They express their unabashed love for the magic of horror while keeping their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks. Irwin doesn't just shoot for the scare factor, either. His cinematography is genuinely stunning, capturing a beautiful shot of the California hills in the background of Sidney's backyard, and zeroing in on a picturesque orange sunset with a close-up. One shot that doesn't make sense, however, is a reflection of Ghostface stalking Sidney and Tatum in a grocery store. Wouldn't somebody notice a fully grown figure walking around in the same costume worn by the recent killer of two teenagers, and maybe, I don't know... CALL THE POLICE? As for Ghostface, apart from rendering himself susceptible to having the police called on him, what does he have to gain by stalking his targets in a grocery store? The crucial knowledge that they're... shopping for groceries for Stu's party? Or the juicy details about Sidney's intimacy issues?        

The scene that truly encapsulates the beauty of Scream, though, isn't any of the killings, chase sequences, or clever in-jokes. Rather, it's during Stu's party, before anything bad happens. A large group of men and women are gathered together in the living room watching Halloween on TV. The scene the movie is up to is Bob Simms' surprise attack in the kitchen. As he goes to open the door, thinking his girlfriend, Lynda, is on the other side, Michael Myers grabs him by the throat and pins him against the wall, provoking screams of shock by the onscreen audience. Everyone has a different reaction: one guy criticizes the predictability of the moment, another questions how their friends can "watch this shit over and over", Stu just wants to see Jamie Lee's breasts, and Randy is too utterly engrossed in the movie to make any smart-alecky remarks. The feeling of camaraderie in this scene, the communal pleasure of watching a great horror movie with your friends, jumping up and screaming as one, expressing your individual opinions, is so overwhelming and relatable it doesn't even feel scripted. The only instance of sloppiness in the possible improvisation is one guy criticizing the blood as "too red"; there is no blood in the scene depicted on TV. Lussier intercuts archival footage from Halloween with shots of Billy and Sidney having sex in Stu's parents' bedroom. When Randy eagerly alerts the men about P.J. Soles' "obligatory tit shot", Lussier match cuts from Soles uncovering her breasts to Sidney removing her bra, with Irwin's camera tactfully positioned behind Ulrich to afford Campbell privacy. In the subsequent shot, the male audience erupts in a simultaneous titillated cheer. Aside from that one inaccurate throwaway line, this simple moment of downtime proves that this isn't just a horror movie that loves horror movies. It's a horror movie that loves the fun of watching horror movies. In other words, it's a scream, baby!

8.1/10