Scream

Scream

Released: 1996

MPAA Rating: R

Genre: Slasher

Nuts and Bolts: A mysterious murderer is killing Woodsboro teens in a fresh and invigorating new style. He’s stalking them through the use of famous horror movie clichés! Sidney Prescott must learn the ins and outs of horror movies or else she may end up as the Ghostface’s next victim!

Summary: Woodsboro High School student Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) gets a phone call at her home. At first she thinks it’s just a wrong number, but after the stranger calls her back she begins to realize that this is a mentally deranged stalker. Casey threatens to sick her boyfriend Steve Orth on him, but the stalker isn’t impressed. He’s already taken care of Steve. Casey finds his eviscerated body strapped to a chair on her patio. As Casey begins to scream, a black-garbed ghost-faced killer enters her home. Casey flees from her home the telephone still firmly gripped in her hand. The killer catches up to her and carves her up like a turkey. He then leaves her body suspended from a tree in the backyard.

Later that night, local teen heartthrob Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) sneaks into the upstairs bedroom of his girlfriend Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell). Skeet? Neve? Christ, where do they come up with these names? All we need now is an Uma, an Oprah, a Whoopi and a Keanu. Anyway, Billy talks with Sid about their apparently lackluster sex life. They make out for a bit and then Billy leaves through the window. We also find out that Sidney’s father Neil is planning on leaving town for a few days.

The next day Woodsboro High School campus is alive with police and news reporters. News of the teens’ deaths has reached all over town and the police are interviewing all students who may have known the deceased. From here we meet the rest of our cast. There is Tatum, Sidney’s ultra busty best friend played by Rose McGowan. Tatum’s brother Dewey Riley (David Arquette) is the deputy of Woodsboro. Top Story news reporter Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) stands on the steps of the High School reporting the latest developments of the crime. Sidney also seeks refuge in the arms of her friends Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy) and Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) Randy is the over-caffeinated horror movie geek while Stu is the dull witted insensitive class clown type. Tatum invites Sid to spend the night at her house that evening.

Later that night, Sidney gets a strange phone call. At first she thinks its Randy pranking on her, but once the caller makes a callous remark about Sidney’s dead mother she realizes that its not Randy. It become clear that the caller is calling from inside the house. The Ghostface killer bursts into her house and begins chasing her all about. She fights him off and races to her bedroom. The killer tries to get to her but she successfully blocks him off with the bedroom door. He gives up and leaves as Sid sends an emergency 911 email. Moments later, Billy Loomis appears in Sidney’s window. A cell phone drops from his shirt pocket onto the floor. Sidney suspects that Billy might be her attacker. The police respond to her call and Billy Loomis is arrested on suspicion of murdering Casey Becker and Steve Orth.

Sidney goes down to the police station to make a statement and this is where she meets Gale Weathers. Although they have never met until now, she has great distaste for Weathers because of her coverage of Sidney’s mother’s death a year prior. We come to find out that Sidney’s mother Maureen was raped and murdered by a man named Cotton Weary. Cotton is scheduled to get the gas chamber within the next few weeks. But after listening to the harrowing phone call she received, she begins to doubt whether or not Cotton really was the killer. Gale and she talk briefly but Gale decides to stick to her like glue.

Inside the police station, Sheriff Burke questions Billy Loomis. Burke plans on getting the phone records for Billy’s cell phone. Tatum comes by the station to pick up Sidney. The two leave and find Gale Weathers waiting for them in a back alley. Gale makes a comment and Sidney spins around and decks her across the cheek.

That night at Tatum’s, Sidney receives another phone call from the killer. Well, I guess that rules out Billy as a suspect doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?

The next day we come to find out that Billy is released from jail. He comes to the high school to try and talk to Sidney. She is still shaken up the whole affair and apologizes profusely for accusing Billy of being the killer. Meanwhile, a bunch of students run about the school dressed in Ghostface costumes. They are hauled into Principal Himbry’s (Henry Winkler) office. Himbry seems REALLY upset by the kids’ childish antics and threatens to expel both of them. He shouts at them and waves a pair of scissors about with reckless abandon. (Hmmm…seems to me as if Arthur Fonzarelli is about to lose his ‘cool’.) A short while later, the real Ghostface appears in Himbry’s office and carves him up.

While all this is going on, Gale meets up with Deputy Dipshit. She flirts with Dewey in an effort to get information from him about the attack on Sidney. Dewey falls for her charms hook line and sinker and reveals a bit more information than he really needed to be doing. (Gosh that Gale is one smooth gal isn’t she?)

Stu Macher tells Tatum and Sidney that he’s having a big party at his house that night. He later goes down to the video store where Randy works to invite him. Randy still thinks that Billy Loomis is the real killer but this is mostly because he wants to shag Sidney all for himself. Loomis just happens to be in the store however and puts a bit of a scare into Randy. (Hmmm…Billy’s looking awful suspicious again.)

That night, everyone but Billy shows up for Stu’s party. Even Dewey and Gale show up. Gale’s quite the opportunist and she inveigles a small video camera into the house. As the rest of the crowd watches Halloween on Stu’s TV, Tatum becomes the token beer wench and goes into the garage to refresh the ale supply. Ghostface appears in the garage and attacks her. She tries to get away by squeezing her ass through the doggy-exit in the garage door. She gets about halfway through when Ghostface activates the automatic opener. The door rises and Tatum’s neck is broken once her body reaches the top of the door. (What a stupid fucking way to die. How embarrassing.

Not long after this, Billy arrives to talk to Sidney. They go upstairs into Stu’s mom’s room and they settle all their differences. Sidney finally decides to give her virginity up to this dirtball and Billy goes on a one-way trip to Neve Neve Land.

Downstairs, the partiers hear the news of Principal Himbry’s death. His body was gutted and hung from the football field goal posts. Many of the partiers (including Dewey and Gale) take off to check it out leaving a drunken Randy alone watching Halloween. (Randy gets attacked later, but don’t worry. He survives)

At this point Ghostface busts up into the upstairs bedroom and stabs Billy Loomis multiple times. Sid freaks and tries to escape. She leaps from the bedroom window onto the ground below. Here she sees Tatum’s dead body still caught between the lip of the garage and the doggy door. The killer follows her outside but takes a moment to kill Gale’s cameraman Kenny who was sitting in the news van outside.

Gale and Dewey return to Stu’s place. Gal finds Kenny’s body while Dewey checks out the house. For some reason that I have yet to fathom, Sidney goes back to the house. As she approaches the steps she finds Dewey with a knife sticking out of his back. Sid grabs Dewey’s service revolver and enters the house. Miracle of miracles, Billy is still alive! He slowly drags his bloody body down the steps as Stu enters from another room.

WARNING: THE IDENTITY OF THE KILLER WILL NOW BE REVEALED!

Billy locks the front door and then stands straight up. He seems pretty healthy for a guy that just got stabbed multiple times. Billy smirks and reveals that the blood on his clothes is actually corn syrup. He wasn’t really hurt! Sid is horrified at the notion and runs into the arms of Stu. (Which was a pretty stupid thing to do all things considered. If it was all a setup than OBVIOUSLY somebody ELSE had to be in on it right?) So now Stu reveals his true colors. Not only is he one of the two Ghostfaces, but he also has kidnapped Sidney’s dad. They plan on framing him for the murders.

We come to find out that Billy’s father had an affair with Sidney’s mom over a year ago. The affair destroyed the Loomis’ marriage and his mother abandoned them. Apparently this was enough to make dirtball Billy a rampaging psychopath. He and Stu (Who has no motive other than the fact that he’s a certifiable whack-a-loon) raped and killed Maureen Prescott exactly one year ago and framed Cotton Weary for the crime. Why Billy wants to kill Sidney because of all this is anybody’s guess.

Anyway, as goofball explanations and corny motives fly about the room, Gale Weathers comes back and manages to snag Dewey’s discarded revolver. However, she neglects to take the safety off and Billy attacks her. We then go into an extended game of cat and mouse as Billy and Stu run around the house chasing Sidney. Sid kills Stu by dropping a television on his head and Gale manages to get the gun back to shoot Billy. A wounded Randy makes an appearance just in time to warn the two that the killer in horror movies always comes back for one final attack even after you think he’s dead. As predicted, Billy lurches forward and Sidney finishes him off with a shot to the head.

Police and ambulances arrive and everyone leaves the house. We learn here that Dewey actually survived being stabbed by Stu.

Acting/Dialogue: Many of the actors really over extend their roles here, but I think that actually helps to illustrate some of the tongue-in-cheek humor that director Wes Craven is trying to put forth. William Shatner himself would be proud of some of the hammy performances that we are treated to here. I liked how Wes directed his actors in such a way that each one of them could have been a feasible suspect for the role of the killer(s). Even Henry Winkler came off as a crackpot in his portrayal of principal Arthur Himbry. My only real complaint with the acting is that Skeet Ulrich tries a little TOO hard to seem like Tom Cruise. This really comes out in his final scenes as Billy Loomis displays some truly Cruisian fits of anger. Now the overacting may appear like a detriment to the integrity of the film at first, but it really helps to paint the characters as exciting and colorfully animated people.

Gore: The gore isn’t ultra vulgar in this, but it does pop up in the appropriate places. We see Steve Orth gutted and Casey Becker’s dripping corpse is hung from a tree. When Gale starts up the news van, the windshield wipers beginning smearing the blood left behind by Kenny the cameraman whose body is on top of the roof. Billy looks pretty messed up in this, but most of the blood on him is actually corn syrup. We also get a broken neck, several stabbings and a gunshot to the head. I get the feeling that a lot of the gore was toned down in order to market to a wider audience.

Guilty Pleasures: There’s no nudity but Rose McGowan is looking pretty perky in this.

The Good: I know a lot of people aren’t big fans of the Scream trilogy, but I actually like this film quite a bit. Wes Craven is one of those rare visionaries who succeeds in reinventing the horror genre with nearly every project he’s involved in. I love the satirical angle that he puts to this movie. He makes fun of not only himself but also of the slasher genre as a whole. But don’t think that this means the film is going to be silly. Although the movie is satirical, the punch line of the whole joke is wrapped inside of a very serious undercurrent of horror and suspense.

And that really brings us to the true nuts and bolts of what makes this film so popular. Scream succeeds in keeping the suspense in the forefront of our perceptions and the audience finds themselves hopping from one foot to the next trying to guess who the killer really is. With each character, Craven drops subtle (and some not-so-subtle) clues as to why and how they might be the mysterious murderer. And just when you are feeling confident that you know for certain whose face it is behind the mask, Craven dashes our expectations and we have to start back from square one.

Craven uses this film to establish the formula that is the basis for most teen slasher flicks. But within the actual storyline here, he breaks those self same rules. The character of Randy Meeks is set up not only as a suspect but also as a pseudo pedagogue. In a moment of frenetic drunkenness, he lays down the ground rules on how to successfully survive a scary movie. Is it any wonder that he actually survives?

There are also a lot of little hidden chuckles thrown throughout this film. Early one, Casey Becker shares her opinion on the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. She thought the first one was good but the rest sucked. As any horror fan worth their salt should know, Wes Craven directed the first Nightmare film. Through the character of Casey, we get a bit of insight into Wes’ feelings regarding the sequels to his cult classic film.

In a later scene we see a janitor mopping the halls of the high school. I think that it is just a tad more than a coincidence that this ugly ole sod is dressed in a dirty brown hat and a red and green sweater.

We also have a cameo made by Linda Blair (The Exorcist, The Exorcist 2: The Heretic) who portrays an extremely obnoxious reporter. Yes, even more obnoxious than Gale.

I also really liked the dynamic established between Sidney and Billy Loomis. Sidney’s mother was killed while being raped by her attacker and the trauma of this event really shines through in Sidney’s frigidly absent libido. This is just another such example of the time honored ‘sex is bad’ motif that has become the stabilizing theme behind most teen slasher movies.

I also liked the final revelation of the film. Wes breaks the rules again by revealing that Ghostface is actually two different people. Billy Loomis is set up as suspect #1 several times throughout the course of the movie, but at different stages of the game, Wes tosses us enough of a red herring so as to not make us think that its Billy any longer. And then there’s Stu. Stu truly does surprise us as being killer #2, as he plays the atypical crackpot who almost universally becomes a victim in most films of this genre. Stu has absolutely no reason for why he is in league with Billy or why is killing all these people. But as Loomis himself admits, “Motives are incidental.” I suppose many viewers really took exception to this seemingly weak climax, but I found it to be quite humorous and I don’t feel that it takes away from the intensity of the movie. In actuality, Stu becomes more believable as a killer BECAUSE he has no motive. Billy on the other hand offers us a motive that is comprehensible, but ultimately doesn’t make a great deal of sense. I’ll go into that later.

What’s fun about a movie like Scream is that when you watch it the second time around, you can pretty much figure out who the killer is in each particular scene by a simple process of elimination. Here’s the breakdown for the Ghostface appearances.

Death of Casey Becker and Steve Orth---Billy Loomis
First attack on Sidney Prescott---Stu Macher
Phone call at Tatum’s House---Stu Macher
Killer in Lady’s room---Stu Macher
Death of Principal Fonzi---Billy Loomis
Ghostface in grocery store---Billy Loomis or hallucination
Death of Tatum Riley---Billy Loomis
Attack on Billy Loomis---Stu Macher (duh!)
Second attack on Sidney Prescott---Stu Macher
Attack on Randy Meeks---Stu Macher
Death of Kenny the cameraman---Stu Macher
Dewey’s stab wound---Stu Macher
Final attack on Sidney---Billy Loomis and Stu Macher

The Bad: Scream is considered the granddaddy of the modern slasher era. As such it has spawned numerous clones as well as its own sequels; all of which have paved the way to the horror genre’s darkest era to date. After the commercial success of Scream, film audiences have been subjected to some of the most angst-ridden teen-beat heartthrob showcasing, Dawson’s creek inspired pap to hit the scene since Luke Perry quit using styling gel. Even the movie poster has become a veritable trademark as now nearly every teen slasher including the Halloween franchise boasts the exact same artistic formula of blending the cast members’ headshots into a shadowy collage beneath the title of the film.

Now in all fairness, Scream really isn’t to blame for all of this. But Wes Craven created a monster bigger and more destructive than that which was brought to life by Victor Frankenstein.

Now we come back to the motive used by killer Billy Loomis. His main bone of discontent was that Sidney’s mother caused Billy’s mother to leave them thus breaking up a happy home. (Remember, Sidney’s mum was riding herd on papa Loomis.) So we have to ask ourselves: Just how unstable WAS this kid? Maureen Prescott’s murder only took place a year prior to this film. So it’s not as if Billy was a small child when his mother abandoned him. He was probably sixteen years old. Families break up all the time and their children don’t go ape-shit and begin killing every high school student in sight! Well, except for maybe in Columbine. Either way, Billy already got his revenge on the dirty little whore who drove his family apart so what gives? Why continue to torment Sidney. It’s not about sex, because Billy stills wants to rip her up even after she finally gives it up to him. And why kill all the other kids? I know he says that motives are incidental and all that rubbish, but given as how he is a character that was designed to be taken seriously (as opposed to Stu), I think Craven and writer Kevin Williamson should have put a little bit more thought into this.

The one thing that sets the Ghostface killer apart from icons like Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees is that it is a different killer every time and the killer is always 100% completely human. No supernatural face-wearing, black-heart eating, cult of Thorne dream demons here. As such, the killer frequently finds himself working extremely hard to get his kills. This guy has been punched, kicked, flipped, rolled over, kicked in the balls, and even had a beer bottle thrown at him. It’s a good thing that the whole Ghostface gig works on shifts because I doubt that neither one of these clowns would have lasted as long if they had to do the job solo.

Great Lines:

“Movies don't create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative!” --Billy revealing himself to Sid.

“Now that Billy tried to mutilate her, do you think Sidney would go out with me?” --Randy talking to Stu in the video store.

“Did you really call the cops?”

“You bet your sorry ass I did!”

“(Crying) My mom and dad are going to be so mad at me!” --A bloodied Stu talking to Sidney.

“You make me so sick. Your entire havoc-inducing, thieving, whoring generation disgusts me!” --Principal Himbry reprimanding two students.

Overall Rating: 8 out of 10 severed heads.

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