Horrorfest 2015: Cravenfest - Scream

Now we move on to Craven's second biggest claim to fame, 1996's SCREAM, the movie that single-handedly brought the horror genre back to life while also holding a satirical mirror up to it. Written by fledgling screenwriter Kevin Williamson, SCREAM was notable for being the first slasher flick where the teenage slasher victims had seen OTHER slasher flicks and knew the rules of the game. Even the killer was in on the joke.

Like I said before, SCREAM was such a huge mainstream success that even non-horror fans were into it, and I even went to see it at the theater with my whole family which was unheard of for this type of movie. So Craven cemented his status as an influential horror filmmaker over 3 decades: first in the 70s with exploitation fare like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and THE HILLS HAVE EYES, then in the 80s with the most famous face of modern horror, Freddy Krueger, in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and finally in the 90s with SCREAM.

For about a decade after SCREAM's release you probably can't find a single horror movie that isn't directly influenced by it, which is funny, since SCREAM itself is directly influenced by the history of horror that preceded it. In that sense it's kinda like PULP FICTION – that flick came along in the mid-90s, aping other flicks that had come before it, and then single-handedly defined much of indie (and mainstream) cinema for the next decade or so.

But enough about the legacy – how's the movie? It's good. It starts off with a  super awesome sequence in which Drew Barrymore is stalked over the phone by a killer who quizzes her on scary movies, and then moves right into the story of Neve Campbell and her friends as they're similarly stalked by the same killer.

Courteney Cox is on hand as a tabloid reporter looking to exploit the killings for her own gain and David Arquette rounds out the cast as a bumbling deputy who is a joke around town but takes his job very seriously.

Probably the most entertaining character, though, is the video store clerk by day, film buff by night played by Jamie Kennedy. He basically works as writer Kevin Williamson's voice in the film, directly commenting on the dos and don'ts of slasher flicks. This commentary is both funny and insightful, and serves to pull the rug out from under what would otherwise by a tired retread.

But that's not all that SCREAM has going for it in the meta department: Craven shoots and constructs scenes in such a way that the very shot composition starts its own satirical commentary on the events as they unfold. Craven had some practice with NEW NIGHTMARE, and on top of that was reportedly becoming tired of the violence and misogyny of the slasher genre, so SCREAM must have come at the perfect time for him.

Aside from all of this, one interesting thing about SCREAM is that the killer is pretty human. I won't give away who the killer is, in case you haven't seen the movie, but that's another strength: it's a mystery. In most of the NIGHTMARES and FRIDAYS and HALLOWEENS, we know who the killer is. The suspense, if any, is just about who's going to get killed and how. In SCREAM, part of the plot involves trying to figure out who the killer is. Because of this, the killer is not some supernatural entity, but a real person who can be knocked down and outsmarted. That's a refreshing change of pace.

I forgot to mention the rest of the cast. Skeet Ulrich makes a nice Johnny Depp circa-NIGHTMARE replacement as Campbell's love interest, Matthew Lillard goes WAY above and beyond as the local rich kid and Rose McGowan brings a lot of personality to a spunky best friend character. Even Henry Winkler's on board as the school principal.

Craven would go on to make several more films after this one, but SCREAM was really his last masterpiece. But that's great – not many directors get to redefine an entire genre that they helped create and prove themselves the master 3 decades after they got started.