Movie Monday Oct. 25: Scream

For the first in my “Movie Monday” series, I decided to go along with the spooky season. Halloween is next weekend, so my pick this week is the iconic ‘90s slasher film Scream. I’m not the biggest gorey horror movie fan, too much blood makes me a bit squeamish, but what I do really love is ‘whodunit’ style films. Most of these would include murder mysteries and suspense thrillers, but Scream perfectly blends the slasher and mystery/thriller genre.

**Warning, mild spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t watched the movie yet, what are you doing?**

The baddie of the film is the elusive Ghostface Killer, an unknown who terrorizes our final girl, Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell), and her friends around the fictional Woodsboro, California. The teens and their allies, Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) and Deputy Dewey Riley (David Arquette) are taunted by the killer and who slowly picks them off. Ultimately, Sydney prevails and goes on to star in several sequels with subsequent unknown Ghostface Killers, including the newest installation to the series coming in January 2022.

While many slasher movies have iconic killers, like Michael Meyers and Freddie Kreuger, the mystery surrounding the Ghostface Killer is one of the essential parts of the series. We the audience are aware that a character we’ve already met, possibly one we really like, will turn out to be the killer. The fact that he or she isn’t a supernatural entity or a disturbed guy, but a seemingly regular person is terrifying in itself. We’re kept guessing till the end, and once their identity is revealed, it’s a surprise no matter what. This also allows for as many sequels as the franchise wants to make. Each new movie has us back to the start, trying to figure out who the killer could be this time.

There are so many reasons I love this movie and this film series, but I think the stand out is the fact that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The Scream franchise is known for its meta satirization of the slasher genre, from the iconic ‘Rules’ scenes to the film-series-within-a-film-series Stab. It subverts the audience expectations from the beginning of the first movie. Casey Becker, played by Drew Barrymore, was marketed just as much as the rest of the cast. A big name star is expected to stick around for the rest of the movie, but Drew’s Casey dies in the first few minutes. This gives the audience the impression that no one is safe.

As previously mentioned, the ‘Rules’ scene in Scream (as well as in the sequels) acts as a sort of fourth wall break. In other slasher films characters sometimes act as if they’ve never seen a slasher film. Girls take showers by themselves even after people have been killed, someone goes off alone to investigate a “noise” with a deranged killer on the loose, and apparently no one really knows how to properly run away. The characters in Scream are at least aware of these movie tropes, such as don’t say “I’ll be right back” or have sex. Though the movie presents them as slasher movie fans, the characters that break these rules end up dead, though not always because they broke a rule.

Before I end this post, I must mention the gem that is Matthew Lillard as Stu. Though the actor has had a great career with many amazing roles from comedies like Scooby Doo and star-studded dramas like The Descendants, his role in Scream is probably one of my favorites. At first he seems like an unlikely candidate for the Ghostface Killer. Stu is a popular and well liked guy who seems to play the comedic relief for most of the film. When Sydney’s boyfriend Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) is revealed as the first Ghostface Killer, I wasn’t too surprised. He was already suspicious throughout a lot of the film, and although his earlier arrest is played off like a red herring, it makes sense that he was the killer all along. When Stu is revealed as his accomplice, however, I was genuinely shocked. Lillard’s performance as Stu slowly starts to become unhinged is amazing. His small maniacal looks, creepy smiles, and a lot of gun and knife waving are utterly believable. While Scream has been a cult classic for years, recently younger generations have come to appreciate the movies, as well as Stu, prompting lots of memes and gifs. There are also rumors and theories circulating the internet that Stu could be coming back for the 5th installment of the franchise, but we’ll have to wait and see.