Spooky Season: SCREAM

"Hello, Sidney!"

New thumbnail alert! It’s looking like my $20/mo subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud is paying for itself. This is also a little double feature after my return to this Substack. After this I will be posting as consistently as I can, but I won’t blow up your email as much.

October is right around the corner and I am too giddy to wait so Spooky Season is upon us. During the month of October, up until Halloween, I would like to get some spooky blogs in the mix to get you all in the spirit. I am a big fan of the horror genre and Halloween. This was not always the case, though. When I was about 4 years old, my cousins put on the dogshit 2005 remake of “The Amityville Horror” starring Ryan Reynolds. It had a pretty strong affect on me. I was far too young to notice any actors or the title of the movie so for years the film was just some phantom glimpse of horror in my head. Up until just recently, I never knew what movie we were watching. I did a little research and was disappointed that THIS movie scarred me:

The scariest part of the movie is Ryan Reynolds’ preposterous fit.

This moment was the beginning of my trepidation with horror movies. I grew older and avoided scary movies. I was still very young so take it easy on me. The next thing to scar me for a very long time was Scary Movie 3. I had seen Scary Movie 1 and 2, and loved them. I was pretty young so a good amount of the humor went over my head. Then Scary Movie 3 came along and did some real damage. I look back and laugh because the part that scared me so much is beyond goofy. I was so terrified of the parody of the little girl from The Ring.

Looking back, the lower budget makeup makes for a pretty scary Samara. It wasn’t until I watched 2012’s “The Woman in Black” starring Daniel Radcliffe. I do not remember anything about the movie aside from it not being scary. I felt like I had conquered my fear of all scary movies. This experience flipped a switch in my brain that was blocking out horror and scary things. After that I went wild trying to find scarier and scarier films, especially in middle school/early high school. I never really grew out of this phase and continue to love horror movies to this day.

I’m no expert, but in my experience there are a few different types of horror movies.

• Not Scary but Good movie

• Scary and Good movie

• Scary and bad movie

• Stupid

There is value in every type of horror movie and as the month goes on I will classify each of the movies in one of these categories. There will probably not be any stupid ones because I have no desire to give them the time of day. I will however describe the stupid ones to provide more context. Anyways, that was a lot of exposition. Without further ado, today’s movie (franchise) is “Scream”.

I have known about Scream for as long as I can remember. Ghostface is one of those easily recognizable slashers in the same class as Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Meyers (All very popular Halloween costumes). I never watched Scream until last year (I felt like I got the gist from “Scary Movie”), and boy was I pleasantly surprised.

The first “Scream” film came out in 1996. It stars Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox (Friends), David Arquette, and Mathew Lillard (Shaggy from Scooby Doo), and Drew Barrymore I guess (if you know, you know). It was directed by Wes Craven, who some of you may know from a little movie called “A Nightmare on Elm Street”. It follows a high school girl as she is stalked by a serial killer that contacts people via the phone. It has elements of comedy, horror, mystery, and suspense. The entire movie you are eager to find out who the killer is, but Kevin Williamson (screenwriter) and Craven keep you guessing.

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT, PLEASE GO WATCH THEM, THEY ARE SO GOOD.

“Scream” is an extremely original slasher movie. Craven uses intentionally cliché movie tropes to keep the viewer on their toes. The characters compare and contrast the killings happening in their town to the horror films they have seen. Jamie Kennedy’s Randy is considered the geek movie buff and he explains the possibilities of who the killer could be based on the typical horror formula. For example, he describes that the protagonist Sidney’s (Neve Campbell) boyfriend could be the killer because the boyfriend can have any bullshit motive. He’s right the whole time, but Craven keeps giving reasons throughout the film that lead the viewer to believe that he is not the killer.

There is a plethora of references to other horror movies and nods to the genre in general, that if I wanted to write them all it would take me days. The point is that Craven reinvented the horror genre with “Scream”. It is double impressive because he had already revolutionized the genre with “A Nightmare on Elm Street” when he made an entire generation afraid to go to sleep. “Scream” opened up the possibility for filmmakers to think outside the box and be self aware. Craven managed to parody the genre while making a movie that should be taken seriously as a horror juggernaut. It is certainly no “Scary Movie”.

If you watch “Scream” and enjoy it, you’re in luck. There’s 5 more and a 6th on the way. As the series goes on, the characters become more meta, making subtle jabs to the fact that you are watching a movie. Somehow the dialogue and content is believable and should be taken seriously. I also never got sick of the characters despite there being five movies over the span of 25 years. Many horror franchises tend to overstay their welcome (Looking at you “Halloween”, how many times does Jamie Lee Curtis have to fight the fucking guy?).

I highly recommend the “Scream” series for this Halloween season. If you like movies with suspense and twists, it is perfect for you. I classify the “Scream” series in the “Not Scary but Good Movies” category. If you watch them, please feel free to hit me up, I can talk about them forever. As always, thank you for reading and subscribing.

I’ll Be Right Back!

-CJ