I love the Scream movies, as many fans do. I donât think Scream, as a franchise, is necessarily divisive, but I do think that both the people who do and donât like it are passionately vocal. But one of the biggest things Iâve noticed between Scream and other franchises is that sometimes I find myself agreeing with the people who donât like the series. That never happens for me with A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th or Halloween, but it happens with Scream.
The reason being, people go into Scream with immediate, preconceived notions of what it is. Many hardcore horror fans donât like it because all they can see is how inaccurate it is. It plays into genre stereotypes that are cemented by the one scene that defines the franchise in everybodyâs mind: The scene in which a drunken Randy explains the rules of how to survive a horror film. Anyone whoâs seen a handful of slashers will know that while these are certainly common threads in the genre and are typical conventions that everyone talks about, there are hundreds of features that break them. There are plenty of horror flicks in which the virgin dies, in which people drink and survive, and in which people leave the room and do, at some point, come back.
Many fans out there hate Scream and its sequels because they believe it is trying to outsmart the genre. They look at the film and think itâs looking down on everything they love. As if thereâs something about it that says âHorror films are okay, but this one is smart.â Itâs hard not to get a little flustered when you look at it through that lens, but thatâs not what the movie doing. The problem, unfortunately, is that this false idea of what Scream is also happens to be the very reason a lot of people love it.
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But if Scream wasnât conceived out of a passion for the films that came before it, it would never have had Wes Craven as the director. This picture needed a master of horror at the helm in order to work. Of course Scream is a commentary on the genre. Of course it points out trappings, conventions, and stereotypes at every opportunity. Itâs smart that these are characters in a real-world environment in which they can name-drop every horror film they can think of. But itâs even smarter than people think it is, because itâs pointing out assumptions of what people think horror is as a whole. Thatâs the most frustrating thing, I think. Both the groups that love it and hate it arenât giving it enough credit.
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Letâs take a look at the infamous rule scene given to us by Randy, a character fans could immediately trust because they could relate to him so much. Randy, by this point, is already drunk off his ass, probably his least trustworthy point in the entire film. He gives three rules for surviving a horror film: 1) you canât have sex, 2) you canât do drugs, 3) you canât ever say âIâll be right back.â You can immediately bring to mind tons of slashers that at least appear to follow these rules.
Not only are these rules constantly broken in even the biggest horror films (Alice in Friday the 13th is implied to have had sex with Steve and actress Adrienne King certainly doesnât believe the character is a virgin. Moreover, Laurie Strode smoked weed in Halloween, to provide two examples). But these rules are more importantly broken in this film itself. Sidney has sex with Billy. Randy, drunk when explaining the rules, as stated, survives. And Stu, the person who mockingly says âIâll be right backâ right after Randy says not to, is actually one of our killers.
This is one of many genius elements of Scream that goes widely overlooked. The real point of Scream, though, is actually a very simple one: Horror movies are scary, but real life is always scarier. This theme is a heavy undercurrent throughout the entire feature, from beginning to end. The opening scene is, as stated by John Landis, a master class on making a horror film. Itâs maybe the most effective opening of any horror feature, itâs so good. The trivia that Casey is subjected to is fun and inventiveâat first. But Iâve been lucky enough to see it in a theater with a huge audience and while they laughed at the first few references, they quickly went completely silent.
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That witty, fun opening turns on a dime and becomes absolutely terrifying. This poor girl is so believably terrified. The scene starts off polished and begins to feel more and more raw until we reach the end of it, which is a pure and effective punch to the gut as a mother is forced to listen to her daughterâs dying breaths over the phone.
Sidney is the only one of the main group of characters who has no taste for horror, and itâs because she is recovering from a personal tragedy, one that she gained unwanted national attention for when her motherâs death became a widely televised court case. At the start of Scream, Sidney is disinterested in horror films because sheâs already lived one. Sheâs been a survivor dating back to the very first time we saw her. The role she fills is not one sheâs chosen, but one she seems born into, leading her to constantly and reasonably wonder if this is her fate throughout the franchise.
The ending really drives the whole point home, considering that once the masks come off, Scream feels like it transitions from a slasher into a true crime movie. Billy and Stu are very believable, real-life villains. Uncomfortably so, in fact. Already unstable, they used horror films as nothing more than a point of reference. These two killers are made all the more disturbing by the fact that they predated the Columbine massacre by such a short amount of time.
As a character, Sidneyâs most prominent, obvious filmic reference comes at the very end. She hasnât been name dropping titles like her friends have been, has been adamant that this is real-life and that itâs not a movie, an almost unconscious attempt to pull Billy back into reality before she even realizes heâs the killer. But when Randy tells her what the killer is supposed to do at the end, she simply puts a bullet in Billyâs head and says âNot in my movie.â
This is one of the most important and overlooked lines in the entire feature. Itâs about someone who has been unable to get a handle on her life for a very long time finally being able to take control. But itâs also about the anarchistic nature of horror that Scream represents. People think there are rules in horror. Mainstream critics have always thought this, but itâs not true.
The rules in Scream are intentionally broken because the point isnât just that there are no rules, or that real life doesnât have rules, but that the great horror films are the ones that break the rules. Great horror movies break down the roadblocks put in front of them. Thatâs why there was never anyone better than Wes Craven to direct this, because he made this point over and over again throughout his career. The Last House on the Left broke the rules. A Nightmare on Elm Street broke the rules. And so on.
And Scream, of course, broke the rules. Whether people realize it or not, thatâs the reason weâre still talking about it. Thatâs the reason this franchise is still continuing. Scream carved out a place for itself to say things bluntly about the genre, and thatâs something weâll probably always need in some form or another. But it all comes from a place of respect.
Scream is a love letter to horror films, not a hate letter, and thatâs what many people donât seem to get.