‘What’s your favourite scary movie?’ Classic horror film Scream turns 20 this week
IT was the film that quickly became a smash hit and rejuvenated the horror genre, but the cast didn’t think much of it at the time.
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“WHAT’S your favourite scary movie?” the Ghostface killer asks a doomed Drew Barrymore in the memorable opening to Scream. Twenty years after the film premiered, many fans would now cite Wes Craven’s postmodern slasher itself.
But at the time, none of the cast and crew of the $15 million film had any idea it would become a commercial and critical hit.
“It was a tiny, little horror movie that’s gonna mean nothing,” Matthew Lillard, who played Stu, said this week. “That was my mindset. This is not a big moment. This is not an important film. This is not anything special.”
Released on December 18, 1996 Scream ended up revitalising a moribund horror genre, which had almost been destroyed by endless sequels and direct to video releases. It turned into a franchise of four films in total worth more than $600 million, and a TV series now entering its third season.
“Horror films had died a little bit before Scream came out. That was one of the reasons I wrote it,” explained screenwriter Kevin Williamson earlier this year. “No one (was) watching those movies. That was my whole goal and it paid off. I feel like it’s never stopped. There’s never been another lull.”
Set in the fictional town of Woodsboro, where a masked serial killer is picking off residents one by one, Williamson’s brilliant idea was in making the lead characters horror fans themselves.
This meant the film was able to send up horror movie cliches, while still working effectively as an edge-of-your-seat thriller. Those films released in its wake, including I Know What You Did Last Summer, Final Destination and Urban Legend became known as ‘Post Scream’ films because the audience became too knowing to accept cliches like never having sex or drinking/doing drugs and never saying ‘I’ll be right back’ lest you become the next victim. (All cliches Scream broke incidentally).
The film also sends itself up. Lead character Sidney (Neve Campbell) tells her boyfriend that horror films are 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”. Moments later Sidney is herself chased up the stairs by Ghostface. And who can interpret the layers of meaning behind having the baddie killed by a television screening the classic slasher film Halloween?
RECASTING HORROR
Written off as a failure in its first week when it took just $6 million (A$8,150,000) in the US, strong word of mouth resulted in Scream going on to make more than 10 times its budget worldwide — US $170 million (A$231 million) in 1996 dollars — its profitability such that the sequel was greenlit while the original film was still in cinemas.
It’s the highest grossing slasher film ever and has become a cult favourite. However plans to complete a new trilogy following Scream 4 in 2011 were shelved after the film underperformed (it still took US$97 million (A$132 million) however).
Ironically, considering Scream mocked the debate over whether people were inspired to kill by horror films, Scream was itself implicated in a murder two years after it was released.
Two teenagers murdered a woman to fund a killing spree, which they planned to carry out in Ghostface masks and using a voice changer. During their trial, psychologist, Madeline Levine said: “Did the movie provide a blueprint? Absolutely.”
Another stabbing in 1999 was also said to inspired by the film.
Williamson, then in his late 20s, was inspired by the real life Gainsville Ripper murders. After watching a program on the subject, he freaked out when he discovered an open window in his empty house and it sparked the idea for an 18 page treatment.
Originally entitled Scary Movie, the screenplay (and two outlines for sequels) ended up in a bidding war, with the Weinstein company edging out Oliver Stone to secure it for $400,000 A$543,000).
Drew Barrymore was originally down to play the lead — a rare thing as horror movies were generally populated by unknowns at that time — and her involvement helped convince Nightmare On Elm Street director Wes Craven and the other names in the cast to sign on.
Barrymore had chased the part: “I loved that it actually got tongue and cheeky but it was still scary and it was this great game that sort of described genres and revived them at the same time and redefined them all in one script,” she said in 2011.
Scream is an evolution of the post modern slasher style Craven had experimented with in New Nightmare two years earlier. But it was Williamson who knew the film had to hit the exact right tone. “(Craven) didn’t see the script as a horror film. He saw it as satirical,” Williamson said. “I said ‘no, no, it’s got to be scary. If it’s not scary it’s not going to work … He was like ‘That I can do’.
When Barrymore dropped out of the lead due to scheduling problems, Party Of Five star Neve Campbell signed on. Mirroring Psycho, in which the star Janet Leigh was killed early on, Barrymore doesn’t make it out of the opening sequence alive.
“The opening sequence, where you’re killing Drew Barrymore, who is a huge star, that sets the bar and you don’t know what the hell is gonna happen next,” recalled Lillard of audience’s shock at the move.
“WE WERE ALL NO-NAMES”
Friends star Courteney Cox lobbied hard for the role of TV reporter Gale Weathers, eager to shake off her nice girl image from the sitcom by playing a ‘b*tch’ character.
David Arquette completely transformed the character of Deputy Dewey into a bumbling comedic character (he was described as ‘hunky’ in the script) and went on to marry Cox in 1999. Craven cast Skeet Ulrich for his resemblance to Johnny Depp, who he’d discovered for the first Nightmare On Elm Street.
“We had no idea (it’d be a classic)” Campbell said recently. “We knew it was a good script and we knew Wes Craven was amazing but when we started we were shooting in Santa Rosa — none of us really had names yet. None of us were famous except Drew Barrymore.”
Although Scream’s influence has now dissipated — slasher films have all but disappeared and postmodernism has been overtaken by identity politics in current intellectual fashion — it’s spiritual successors can be seen in films like It Follows and Cabin In The Woods.
And of course, the small screen version produced for MTV with an all new cast, has been renewed for a third season which will premiere in 2017.
Lillard believes the reason the movie has endured to become a classic, is because many of those who watched it in their youth have now come of age.
“With horror, you create a memory. When people see it early in life, it becomes a memory,” Lillard said. “I think that’s why they hold on to it. Because, ya know, it just gets tied into your DNA.”
THE CAST:
Neve Campbell — A star of the small screen in Party Of Five, Campbell appeared in three Scream sequels as well as films Wild Things and The Company. She had a starring role in the most recent season of House Of Cards.
Courteney Cox — a star on Friends for two years before Scream, the sitcom ended up lasting 10 seasons in total. She created a production company with former husband David Arquette and starred in the sitcom Cougar Town until last year.
David Arquette — the member of the famed acting dynasty appeared in all of the Scream sequels and one season of comedy In Case Of Emergency. His brief stint as WCW World Heavyweight Champion was cited as helping bring about the demise of WCW. He has a range of films in various stages of production including recently filmed comedy Going Under with Bruce Willis.
Skeet Ulrich — Ulrich starred in two seasons of the post apocalyptic series Jericho and in 14 episodes of Law and Order: LA.
Matthew Lillard — Went on to memorably play Shaggy in the Scooby-doo! franchise and has recently popped up in Halt and Catch Fire. He will appear in Twin Peaks.
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