Horror Classics: Wes Craven’s Scream

Mid-Week Update 10/2/24: October Series: Horror Classics

It’s officially the Spookiest Month of The Year, October. For this year’s Halloween special, I’ll be rating and reviewing some all-time classic horror movies, ranging from the ancient origins of horror to modern classics. Starting this series off with a phone call and a sexy-voiced murderer, this is Scream (1996), dir. by Wes Craven.

As always with these longer reviews, I’ll have a brief, spoiler-free overview before I get into spoiler territory. Proceed with caution.

This is THE horror movie of the 90s, and it ranks as one of the most influential horror movies of all time. This absolutely shook up the game, and thats mostly down to one simple fact: the characters in this movie watch horror movies.

It’s hard to imagine now, with movies like Barbie and Deadpool filling moviegoers’ heads with self-aware, 4th-wall-breaking narratives and dialogue, but at one point that didn’t really happen. And especially in the realm of horror, films relied a lot on established rules and tropes. The slasher stereotypes popularized by films like Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Wes Craven’s own Nightmare on Elm Street were built around formulaic scares and silly character decisions. These films aren’t bad by any means, but by the time we reached 1996, audiences were very familiar with the standards and tropes of slasher movies. Stupid characters; hulking, near-superhuman villains; virginal final girls. It was pretty set in stone, and viewers knew what to expect.

Then, Scream came out and turned everything on its head.

Releasing on December 20 of 1996, Scream was an unexpected smash hit. It grossed over $173 million worldwide and brought interest surging back for the waning horror genre. It stars Neve Campbell, Drew Barrymore, Courtney Cox, Matthew Lillard, Skeet Ulrich, and David Arquette.

The plot is as basic as it comes, at least on the surface: a masked killer begins to target the people of a small California town. There’s not much I can say without getting into immediate spoilers, but I’d highly recommend this movie, especially for an October watch. When it comes to horror, this movie leans more comedy than scary, but can still get pretty violent. I enjoyed it a lot, and gave it an 80/100 overall.

Okay, past this point will contain spoilers.

You’ve been warned.

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This movie sets out to break expectations almost immediately. Drew Barrymore was a major part of this movie’s advertisement due to her popularity at the time, and as such her name and face were attached to the point that most people assumed she was the star.

She dies within the first ten minutes.

With Scream, writer Kevin Williamson set out to satirize and comment on the tropes of the declining slasher genre of horror movies. From killing off a big-name actor right at the beginning, to having his character discuss the rules of horror movies, to the twisty ending, everything about this movie perfectly captures and elaborates upon the spirit of early slasher films. It’s all there: a Final Girl protagonist, a cast of suspicious side characters, a violent masked murderer, and plenty of shocking scares. But every aspect is flipped on its head.

Take Scream’s Final Girl, Sidney Prescott. Not only does she break the rules of horror movies by having sex and surviving, she’s also far from the stereotypical scream queen archetype. She is smart and resilient, and more than willing to fight back against the killer stalking her. She is given the opportunity to symbolically exorcise the trauma of her mother’s death by bringing justice to the killers, and this central character arc drives the emotional core of the movie. Sidney is awesome, and her place as a legendary horror protagonist is cemented forever.

But how about that killer? Not only do we have the excellent twist ending where not one but two of Sidney’s friends are revealed to be Ghostface, but we also have Ghostface himself (themselves?) and the way he acts during this movie. Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees, Ghostface is not. Where previous slashers established the highly capable, physically dominant, supernaturally powerful killer, Ghostface flails and flops and talks to his targets over the phone with a sexy voice changer. He is comedic at times, but also vicious in a way only Wes Craven’s other all-timer, Freddy Krueger, matches up to. The violence Billy and Stu exact as Ghostface is brutal and hateful, and makes for an interesting juxtaposition against the otherwise comedy-heavy bent of the rest of the movie.

That comedy is huge for this movie as well. It’s genuinely funny, and its characters are smart and well-versed in the rules of their universe. They bounce of each other like real high schoolers, and the overall vibe is light enough to make the violence shocking while taking a bit of the edge off. Matthew Lillard in particular has some incredible lines, and his delivery is perfectly unhinged. Jamie Kennedy as Randy gets to be the audience surrogate, the resident horror film nerd that shares his wisdom with his doomed friends and somehow ends up surviving the movie himself. David Arquette’s Deputy Dewey is lovably goofy, and Courtney Cox’s Gale Weathers became almost as iconic as her breakout role in Friends. The characters truly drive this movie, and it’s no wonder Scream is in the unique position of having multiple recurring characters in a horror franchise. They’re just too good to kill off!

Overall, this is an incredibly solid horror flick. It’s tense, it’s funny, it completely changed the genre forever. It’s not going to change your life, but for a spooky month pick, it’s hard to do much better than this one. I’d definitely recommend this to anyone who hasn’t seen it, especially if you can watch it with friends. Scream is a solid 80/100.

As always, if you disagree or agree with any of my takes, feel free to leave a comment or reach out, and thanks so much for reading! If you enjoyed, consider sharing this, subscribing, or even pledging your support! Everything helps, and I appreciate anything you can do to help make my dream of writing for a career a reality! Until next time, take care of yourself and read/watch/listen to/jumpscare something interesting!