The Poppies of Terra #67 - Your Favorite Scary Movie

I’m inordinately fond of the Scream flicks.

It’s almost hard to fathom that with next year’s Scream 7, directed by original screenwriter Kevin Williamson, the franchise will be thirty years old and will have generated over $1 billion at the box office.

Watching the original Scream (1996) theatrically was a riveting experience. I’d never seen anything quite like it, and I was instantly hooked. The opening sequence was shocking and impossible to forget; the characters, while not being strictly realistic, were written in a charming, stylized way that avoided camp and defined its own filmic reality just a few degrees offset from our own; the pacing was excellent; the music by then-novice composer Marco Beltrami was outstanding; and the soundtrack rocked.

You could tell, based on the audience reaction in the room, that there was a special kind of energy transfer going on between creators and receivers. The film felt fresh, and it captured something unique about the moment. Indeed, it helped to revitalize commercial horror, which was starting to stultify as a genre in the mid-90s.

When it became available on home media, I watched Scream countless times, sometimes inflicting it on my friends. I kept trying to figure out how all the pieces had been assembled to make it pop with such pizzazz.

It also had a “Randy Meeks” effect on me. 

As a teen, I resolved to learn as much about horror movies as the character of Meeks knew. His enthusiasm, albeit fictional, was utterly contagious. I challenged myself to broaden my horizons. Post-Scream, Lamberto Bava’s Demons 2 (1986) was the first movie I would have otherwise skipped but now watched because of my self-imposed Meeks edict. “What would Randy think?” is still a fun question to ask after watching a scary movie.

As the years passed, I always enjoyed the chance to re-enter the world of Woodsboro and its haunted denizens, who mostly transplanted to other locations, and I attended special anniversary screenings of Scream whenever possible, eager to return to the communal experience.

A few days before Scream 6 came out in 2023, my local theater–alas, no longer extant–was kind enough to gift me their large, promotional standee, which I set up in my living room. A few days later I hosted an all-day, Scream 1-5 marathon perfectly timed to dovetail with a screening of the new movie (which everyone enjoyed) at that same theater.

Looking past my own personal attachment to these films, I think the six entries to date comprise one of the most consistent horror series of all time–perhaps the most of any series with more than four installments. Final Destination may be a close second.

Even hardcore fans of Halloween, Friday the 13th, Chucky, or the Elm Street movies acknowledge that those series have duds. When it comes to consistency of tone, cleverness of writing, and overall filmmaking execution, Scream and its sequels are hard to beat. Sure, some claim Scream 3 is too campy and convoluted, but the perceived dip in quality is not a significant one, and even that movie has its defenders (more as time goes by).  

What do I think makes this series a distinctive one?

• Unlike most horror franchises, the killer(s) is/are different each time around. Ghostface takes on many guises.

• The screenplays capitalize on the aforementioned fact by being structured as whodunnits in which we’re invited to try and guess the identity of the masked slasher(s). Kevin Williamson has acknowledged the influence of Agatha Christie on his work.

• The first four movies were all directorially shaped by one voice, Wes Craven. That strongly defined the tone and aesthetic continuity.

• The films have overt comedic and satirical elements, but they’re not horror comedies per se. The horror isn’t watered down for the gags, and the comedy isn’t a throwaway time-killer in between murders.

• They’re commentaries on storytelling, societal values, and their intersection. Whether it’s the conventions of horror films themselves, how sequels are perceived, what makes a good trilogy, how the media monetizes tragedy, toxic fandom, the unfair ways in which horror is perceived, each movie wields its own themes. (The Scream world contains within it the fictional Stab film series. If I could see any Stab movie in real life, I’d choose Stab 5: Clock of Doom. I know in-universe it’s considered subpar but… time travel!).

• In addition to being horror, flirting with comedy, being structured as mysteries, and acting as meta-commentaries on movies and pop culture, they also work as thrillers. People who otherwise stay away from horror movies are willing to make an exception for Scream.

• Tracing the arc of the main characters from 1996 through 2023, they now define a coming-of-age saga–with a new intergenerational legacy in the making.

While Scream 7 is several months away, Ashley Cullins has written a fun and informative book to tide us over. In Your Favorite Scary Movie: How the Scream Films Rewrote the Rules of Horror, Cullins provides a well-researched overview of the entire franchise featuring new interviews and fascinating insights. The book’s structure effectively balances chronological history with thematic exploration, providing granular detail on the chaotic creative process and behind-the-scenes drama through the evolution of the franchise’s DNA. Cullins’ style is engaging and passionate; she clearly has a personal connection to this material, but doesn’t let that derail her criticality.

There’s a lot to comment on, but one point of discussion I’ll single out involves the interpretation of Scream 3’s plot as a commentary on Hollywood abuse. In the original trilogy closer, a powerful studio figure, John Milton, is revealed to have exploited aspiring actresses, including Sidney Prescott’s mother (Maureen Prescott/Rina Reynolds). Cullins argues that this storyline was prescient of the #MeToo movement and the downfall of producer Harvey Weinstein, ironically the co-founder of Dimension Films who produced all the early Scream movies. Blumhouse executive Ryan Turek states that Lance Henriksen’s character, Milton, was essentially “Harvey Weinstein, straight up.” So here we have a plotline within a Dimension Films production—whose executive leader, Harvey Weinstein, was later notoriously convicted of sexual offenses—as having criticized the very system that produced it. During my latest re-watch of Scream 3, that really stood out. 

There’s plenty of great trivia-style nuggets in the book as well. 

Here’s a baker’s dozen, some previously well-documented, some less so:

1.  Kevin Williamson completed the first draft of the original Scary Movie screenplay in just three days after creating an outline. That original title, by the way, was changed to Scream because of the popular Michael and Janet Jackson single.

2.  Wes Craven was almost fired a week into filming because studio head Bob Weinstein found the early raw footage “boring.”

3.  Roger L. Jackson, the voice of Ghostface then and now (who incidentally performs the book’s audio narration), was kept separated from the cast while filming to ensure the actors would not associate a face with his frightening voice.

4.  The now-famous line, “Movies don’t create psychos, movies make psychos more creative,” which became a foundational theme, was written on a notecard taped to Kevin Williamson’s wall.

5. Wes Craven, despite his dark filmography, was a bird-watcher who held a master's degree in philosophy and writing.

6. Danny Elfman was paid $1 million to write the “Cassandra Aria,” the score for the Greek play Agamemnon being performed within Scream 2.

7.  A number of fans, including Christopher Landon (dir. Happy Death Day, Freaky, Drop), believe Scream 2 is in fact superior to the original.

8.  The original story idea for Scream 3 had to be scrapped after the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.

9.  Actress Carrie Fisher wrote her own meta-infused dialogue for her cameo role as Bianca Burnette in Scream 3.

10.  Due to a budget dispute, Scream 4 is the only film in the franchise that does not feature the iconic Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song “Red Right Hand”.

11.  The crew used intricate details, such as hand-painted kitchen tiles, to recreate Stu Macher’s house for the Scream 5 set.

12.  Jack Quaid from Scream 5 created a Reddit account called “Stabhead” to research toxic fandom, along with a full playlist, as preparation for his role. Not only did he watch the preceding four films as well, but he also watched all of the films referenced therein. Talk about commitment.

13.  For the intense subway sequence in Scream 6, the production team built a full-scale replica of a New York City subway car set in Canada.

My only criticism of Your Favorite Scary Movie is that I was hoping for a more in-depth exploration of the Rewrote the Rules of Horror part of its title, specifically how these films influenced other filmmakers and spawned countless attempts to cash-in on their success. Urban Legend (1998) leaned into Scream’s approach by centering its kills around modern folklore, while The Faculty (1998) spiced up its science fictional horror framework with self-referential humor. Final Destination (2000) echoed Scream’s inventive kills and teen-centric storytelling, spawning a franchise that, like Scream, maintains a playful but gruesome tone. Cherry Falls (2000), complete with knowing teen banter and a sheriff’s daughter as the final girl, sees a masked killer targeting virgins in a small town, thereby precisely inverting the “sex-equals-death” rubric Scream called out. And so on. Tracing Scream’s copycat killers, whether in tone or formula, could probably be its own book. 

Maybe for an upcoming anniversary, an intrepid soul can take on the daunting task of penning Scream: The Ultimate Visual History or a similarly-titled coffee-table book. This could include set photography, script excerpts, storyboarding, high-resolution prop photographs, etc., along with an exhaustive making-of production chronicle and information on Scream-related memorabilia and merchandise. Surely, it would sell like blood-cakes.

“Scream is probably the thing I’ll be most remembered for after I’m long gone, and I’m really happy about that,” Williamson says towards the end of the book. “I set out to write my Halloween and I feel like I did it.” Depending on the quality of the franchise’s future, he may yet surpass it.