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Scream (film)
Encyclopedia
Scream is a 1996 American slasher film
written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Wes Craven
. The film stars Neve Campbell
, Courteney Cox
, Drew Barrymore
, and David Arquette
. Released on December 20, 1996, Scream follows the character of Sidney Prescott
(Campbell), a high school student in the fictional town of Woodsboro, who becomes the target of a mysterious killer known as Ghostface
. Other main characters include Sidney's best friend Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan
), Sidney's boyfriend Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich
), film geek Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy
), deputy sheriff Dewey Riley (Arquette), and news reporter Gale Weathers (Cox). The film combined comedy and "whodunit
" mystery with the violence of the slasher genre to satirize the cliché
of the horror genre popularized in films such as Halloween
and Friday the 13th. The film was considered unique at the time of its release for featuring characters who were aware of real world horror films and openly discussed the cliché that Scream attempted to subvert.
Based partly on the real-life case of the Gainesville Ripper
, Scream was inspired by Williamson's passion for horror films, especially Halloween
(1978). The script, originally titled Scary Movie, was bought by Dimension Films
and was retitled by the Weinstein Brothers just before filming was complete. The production faced censorship issues with the Motion Picture Association of America
and obstacles from locals while filming on location. The film went on to financial and critical acclaim, earning $173 million worldwide, and became the highest-grossing slasher film in the US in unadjusted dollars. It received several awards and award nominations. The soundtrack by Marco Beltrami
was also acclaimed, and was cited as "[one] of the most intriguing horror scores composed in years". It has since earned "cult status". Scream marked a change in the genre as it cast already-established and successful actors, which was considered to have helped it find a wider audience, including a significant female viewership.
Scream was credited with revitalizing the horror genre in the 1990s, which was considered to be almost dead following an influx of direct-to-video
titles and numerous sequels to established horror franchises of the 1970s and 1980s. These sequels drew decreasing financial and critical success, as they exploited clichés that films in the genre had become reliant upon. Screams success spawned a series of sequels
, though only the first of them achieved a level of commercial and critical success equal to the original film. In the years following the release of Scream, the film was accused of inspiring and even inducing violent crimes and murders.
) receives a flirtatious phone call from an unknown person (voiced by Roger L. Jackson
), asking her, "What's your favorite scary movie?" The situation quickly escalates out of control as the caller turns sadistic and threatens her life. He reveals that her boyfriend Steve (Kevin Patrick Walls
) is being held hostage. After failing to answer a question correctly about horror films, Steve is murdered. When Casey refuses to cooperate with the caller, she is attacked and murdered by a masked killer, and her body is hung from a tree.
The following day, the news media
descend on the town and a police investigation begins. Meanwhile, Sidney Prescott
(Neve Campbell
) struggles with the impending one-year anniversary of her mother's murder by Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber
). While waiting at home for her friend Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan
), Sidney receives a threatening phone call. After she hangs up, she is attacked by the killer. Sidney's boyfriend Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich
) arrives and offers support, but after he drops his cell phone Sidney suspects him of making the call. She flees. Billy is arrested and Tatum takes Sidney to her house.
Billy is released the next day. Suspicion has shifted to Sidney's father Neil Prescott (Lawrence Hecht), as the calls have been traced to his phone. School is suspended in the wake of the murders. After the students have left the school, Principal Himbry (Henry Winkler
) is stabbed to death in his office. Billy's friend Stu Macher throws a party to celebrate the school closure. The party is attended by Sidney, Tatum, their friend Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy
), and several other students. Reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox
) attends uninvited to cover the situation, as she expects the killer to strike. Tatum is killed during the party after having her neck crushed by a garage door. Billy arrives to speak to Sidney privately, and the two ultimately consummate their relationship. Deputy sheriff Dewey Riley (David Arquette
) and Gale investigate a nearby abandoned car. Many party attendees are drawn away after hearing news of Himbry's death; Randy, Sidney, Billy, Stu, and Gale's cameraman Kenny (W. Earl Brown
) remain.
After having sex, Sidney and Billy are attacked by the killer, who seemingly murders Billy. Sidney escapes the killer and seeks help from Kenny, but he too is attacked and killed. Sidney again flees. Gale and Dewey, having discovered the car belongs to Neil Prescott, return to the house. They believe Neil is the killer and has come to the party to continue his spree. Gale attempts to leave the scene in her van but drives off-road and crashes to avoid hitting Sidney. Meanwhile Dewey is stabbed in the back while investigating in the house. Sidney takes Dewey's gun. Stu and Randy appear and accuse each other of being the killer. Sidney retreats into the house, where she finds Billy, wounded but still alive. She gives Billy the gun; he lets Randy into the house and then shoots him. Billy has feigned his injuries and is actually the killer; Stu is his accomplice. Billy and Stu discuss their plan to kill Sidney and frame her father—whom they have taken hostage—for their murder spree. The pair admit to being the killers of her mother Maureen. Billy says he was motivated to seek revenge on Maureen because of an affair she was having with Billy's father, Hank (C.W. Morgan), which drove his mother away. Gale, thought dead by the killers, intervenes. Sidney takes advantage of this to turn the tables on her attackers, killing Stu. Randy is revealed to be wounded but alive. Billy attacks Sidney but she shoots him through the head, killing him. As the sun rises and police arrive, a badly-injured Dewey is taken away by ambulance and Gale makes an impromptu news report about the night's events.
. Influenced by a news story he was watching about a series of grisly murders by the Gainesville Ripper, Williamson became concerned about intruders upon finding an open window in the house where he was staying. He was inspired to draft an 18-page script treatment about a young woman, alone in a house, who is taunted over the phone and then attacked by a masked killer. The treatment remained as a short story while Williamson worked on another script, Teaching Mrs. Tingle
, a thriller that he would eventually sell but that would languish in development hell
for many years. Struggling to pay his bills, Williamson secluded himself in Palm Springs
and focused on the development of his Scary Movie treatment, hoping for a quick sale to meet his financial needs. Over the course of three days, Williamson developed a full-length script as well as two separate five-page outlines for potential sequels—Scary Movie 2 and Scary Movie 3. He hoped to entice buyers with the potential for a franchise. In an interview, Williamson said that one reason he focused on the Scary Movie script was because it was a film he wanted to watch, born of his childhood love of horror films such as Halloween, but "nobody else [was] making it". His appreciation for previous horror films became evident in the script, which features inspiration from and references to films such as Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street
, When a Stranger Calls
, and Prom Night. Williamson listened to the soundtrack for Halloween for inspiration while writing the script. Excerpts from the soundtrack appear in the film.
By June 1995 Williamson brought the Scary Movie script to his agent, Rob Paris, to put out for sale. Paris warned him that the level of violence and gore in his script would make it "impossible" to sell. Following the script's purchase by Miramax, Williamson was required to remove much of the gorier content, such as graphic depictions of the internal organs of gutted murder victims "rolling" down their legs. However, once Craven was secured as director, he was able to bring much of the excised content back. Williamson was going to remove a scene in the school bathroom featuring Sidney, as he felt it was awkward and out of place in the film. Craven insisted the scene should remain, as he felt it developed the character and her relationship with her deceased mother. Williamson later confirmed that he was glad that Craven proved him wrong about the scene. Dimension Films
head Bob Weinstein
realized while reviewing the script that there were thirty pages (approximately thirty on-screen minutes) without a murder, so he instructed Williamson to have another character killed. Williamson included the death of the character Principal Himbry (Winkler) based on this input and in doing so inadvertently solved a problem in the script's finale. Williamson had struggled to find a reason for several characters to leave a party so that the killer could attack. The discovery of the corpse of Winkler's character was used to remove the characters from the scene at the party. Concerning the killer's motive, Williamson felt it was essential for the audience to learn why the antagonists had become killers, but he also felt it was potentially scarier if they had no motivation. Opinions at the studio were split between those who believed a motive was needed for resolution and those who felt the action was scarier without one. As there were two killers, Williamson decided to do both: Billy Loomis had the motive of maternal abandonment, while the second killer, Stu Macher, jokingly suggests "peer pressure" as his motive when prompted.
, Universal Pictures
, and Morgan Creek Productions
. Producer
Cathy Konrad read the script and felt it was exactly what the Weinstein brothers of the fledgling Dimension Films—then a part of Miramax—were looking for. Dimension had previously released several horror films and intended to focus on that genre. Konrad brought the script to Bob Weinstein's assistant, Richard Potter. Believing it had potential, he brought it to Weinstein's attention. Studios began to drop out of the bidding as the price of the script increased, and the final two bidders were Oliver Stone
, who was at the time working under Cinergi Pictures
, and the Weinsteins of Dimension Films. Williamson agreed to a bid of $400,000 from Miramax, plus a contract for two sequels and a possible fourth unrelated film. Williamson said he chose Dimension because he believed they would produce Scary Movie immediately and without significantly censoring the violence in the script. Craven read the script before he became involved in the production, and considered convincing a studio to buy it for him to direct. However, by the time Craven read the script, it had already been sold.
Bob Weinstein approached Craven early in the planning stages, because he felt Craven's previous work in the genre that combined horror and comedy would make him the perfect person to bring Williamson's script to screen. Craven was already busy developing a remake of The Haunting
and was considering distancing himself from the horror genre. He was growing weary of the inherent misogyny
and violence. Weinstein approached other directors, including Robert Rodriguez
, Danny Boyle
, George A. Romero
, and Sam Raimi
. Williamson said that they "didn't get it"; he was concerned that having read the script, many of the directors believed the film to be purely a comedy. Craven was approached again but continued to pass in spite of repeated requests. When production of The Haunting collapsed, Craven was freed from that commitment and found himself in need of a project. Meanwhile, Drew Barrymore had signed on to the film at her own request. When he heard an established actress wanted to be involved, Craven reasoned that Scary Movie might be different from other films of the genre he had previously undertaken, and he contacted Weinstein to accept the job.
As the film neared completion, the Weinstein brothers changed the film's title from Scary Movie to Scream. They were inspired by the Michael Jackson song of the same name
. Bob Weinstein considered "Scary Movie" to be an unsuitable title as, in addition to the horror and violence, the film contained elements of satire and comedy; Weinstein wished for that to be better conveyed by the title. The change was effected so late into production that congratulatory gifts bore the original name. Williamson and Craven immediately disliked the new title, and considered it "stupid". Both later remarked that the change turned out to be positive, and that Weinstein had been wise to pick the new title. Following a highly-successful screening of the film in front of a test audience
and Miramax executives, Craven was offered a two-picture contract for sequels to Scream.
Sony Pictures filed a lawsuit against Dimension Films and Miramax, claiming that the title "Scream" infringed on the copyright of Sony's own Screamers (1995), released the previous year. After the case was settled out of court—the details remain confidential—Scream 2 producer Marianne Maddalena
considered that the case was a result of other issues between the two companies and did not truly pertain to the film's moniker. Maddalena confirmed that the studio was free to use the Scream brand for future films.
of actors and granddaughter of actor John Barrymore
, had become a star in her own right following her appearance in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
(1982). The producers were quick to take advantage of her unexpected interest, and signed her to play the lead role of Sidney Prescott
. Her involvement was believed to be instrumental in attracting other popular actors to the film in spite of its smaller budget, and in causing Craven to reconsider his decision to direct the film. Before filming began, Barrymore was faced with unexpected commitments that meant she would no longer be available to play the demanding lead role. She instead played the smaller role of Casey Becker, which allowed her to remain involved and still gave the production the advantage of her stature. Killing off one of their biggest stars early in the film was considered a calculated risk, but it was believed that it would be so shocking and unexpected that the audience would then believe that any character could die. Actresses including Alicia Witt
and Brittany Murphy
auditioned for the lead role of Sidney; the producers also approached Reese Witherspoon
, though she never auditioned. Craven had seen Neve Campbell
in the TV show Party of Five
and asked her to audition for the part. He believed she could portray a character who was "innocent", but who could also realistically handle herself while dealing with the physical conflict and emotions required by the role. Campbell was initially reluctant to perform in another horror film so soon after her supporting role in The Craft
. After a successful audition, Campbell accepted an offer to play the lead character. She accepted because Scream would be her first leading role, and because she adored the character, saying "She's a fantastic character for any kind of movie."
For the character of news reporter Gale Weathers, the studio wanted a recognizable actress. They auditioned Brooke Shields
and Janeane Garofalo
. Courteney Cox
, who was starring in the sitcom Friends
at the time, approached the production herself to pursue the role. She was interested in playing a "bitch" character to offset her "nice" Friends image. This image was the main reason why the producers initially refused to consider Cox for the part. Cox continued to lobby the studio as she felt she could believably play the character; her efforts ultimately succeeded. Actresses Melinda Clarke
and Rebecca Gayheart
auditioned for the role of Tatum Riley, before Rose McGowan
was cast. The casting director believed she best embodied the "spunky", "cynical" but "innocent" nature of the character. The studio felt the strong female cast of Campbell, Barrymore, Cox, and McGowan would help draw a significant female audience to the film. Gayheart would later receive a role in Scream 2.
Kevin Patrick Walls
and Justin Whalin
were amongst the final candidates for the key role of Sidney's boyfriend Billy Loomis. Whalin took part in auditions with Campbell. Skeet Ulrich
ultimately secured the role. The producers viewed him as "perfect" for the part and noted his resemblance to a young Johnny Depp
as he appeared in A Nightmare on Elm Street
, one of the many films Scream references. Ulrich and Campbell had worked together on The Craft shortly before Scream. They believed the experience helped them be more comfortable with each other, which allowed a more natural portrayal of the relationship between their characters. Though he failed to win the Loomis role, Walls remained in the film in the minor role of Steve Orth, boyfriend of Barrymore's Casey Becker. David Arquette
was also approached for the role of Billy Loomis but he asked to read for the part of Dewey Riley after reading the script. The role, described as "hunky
", was considered ill-fitting for Arquette's appearance and approach but Arquette was still allowed to audition for the part. Craven appreciated his softer, funnier approach to the character, and gave him the role. Matthew Lillard
was cast as Billy's friend Stu Macher by chance after accompanying his then-girlfriend to an unrelated audition taking place elsewhere in the same building. Casting director Lisa Beach saw Lillard in the hallway and asked him to audition for the part. He got into the role with "incredible ferocity". The role of Randy Meeks was contested between Jamie Kennedy
and Breckin Meyer
. The producers favored Kennedy, believing him to best embody the role. As he had no major roles prior to Scream, the studio wanted a more prominent actor than Kennedy to play the character. The producers were adamant that he was the best choice and successfully fought to keep him. Roger L. Jackson
, voice of the character Ghostface
, was picked at the end of several weeks of local casting in Santa Rosa, where parts of Scream were filmed. The producers had originally intended to use his voice only as a placeholder, dubbing
over it during post-production. They decided that Jackson's contribution was perfect and kept it. Craven described it as an "intelligent" and "evil" voice that would become irreplaceable to the series. To aid their performance, Jackson was never allowed to meet the other actors, preventing them from associating a face with the menacing voice. Jackson was present on the set and spoke to actors by phone to help aid their performance.
The cast was rounded out by W. Earl Brown
, who played Gale Weather's cameraman Kenny; Joseph Whipp
, who portrayed Sheriff Burke; Lawrence Hecht as Sidney's father Neil Prescott; and C.W. Morgan as Billy's father Hank Loomis. Liev Schreiber
appeared in a minor role as Cotton Weary, the framed killer of Sidney's mother Maureen Prescott. Henry Winkler
appeared as Principal Himbry, an aggressive school principal. He remained uncredited so as to not draw attention away from the young main cast.
as it was estimated that they could save $1 million in costs compared to shooting in America. Craven was adamant about filming in the United States, and making a film that looked "truly American". The argument over where to film almost led to Craven being removed from the project, but the Weinsteins eventually agreed to keep the production in America. Location scouts looked at North Carolina
as a possibility, but found that sites that seemed appropriate for the film's requirements would have required extensive building, repairs, or modification, which would have inflated costs.
Attention was next turned towards California
; scouts discovered Sonoma County
and the cities of Santa Rosa
, Healdsburg
, and the nearby Tomales Bay
. The house of Barrymore's character is situated southeast of Santa Rosa on Sonoma Mountain Road, directly facing the house used in the horror film Cujo
(1983). The home of Sidney Prescott is located near Calistoga
, north of Santa Rosa. Tatum's home is situated on McDonald Avenue in Santa Rosa, next to the houses used in Pollyanna
(1960) and Shadow of a Doubt
(1943). The home of Lillard's character, which is the location for the entire third act, is a house on Tomales Road east of Tomales Bay that had only recently become available after the death of its owners. The Woodsboro town square, including the fountain where many of the cast sit in an early scene, is represented by the Healdsburg town square. For the Woodsboro high school, Craven desired a building that looked "American", and the producers approached Santa Rosa High School. The school board insisted on seeing the script and immediately objected to the violence against teenage children and the cynical, dark dialogue, including that of the fictional school principal. Local newspapers criticized the project, and irate parents objected to such a film taking place at their children's school. Comparisons were made between film violence and the kidnap and murder of Polly Klaas
three years prior, which had left the area sensitized toward violence. The producers received support from the school's students and some local residents, who recognized that economic benefits would be generated by the film's presence. Others argued for the film's First Amendment rights. The dispute resulted in a three-hour debate scheduled for April 16, one day after filming was to begin. Unwilling to be delayed, Craven began filming as scheduled on the 15th. He started with the opening scene of the film, which features Barrymore; the scene took five days to complete. The result of the Santa Rosa debate was that permission would be denied. The production was forced to find another location for the school, and ended up filming at the Sonoma Community Center, southeast of Santa Rosa.
The progress of filming was criticized early on. Bob Weinstein disliked the Ghostface mask, believing it was not "scary". Upon reviewing the dailies
footage of the opening scene, the studio was concerned that the film was progressing in an unwanted direction. They considered replacing Craven. To assuage their concerns, Craven and editor Patrick Lussier
, developed a rough, workprint
version of the opening 13 minutes of the film to demonstrate how the completed film might turn out. After viewing the new footage, the studio was content to let Craven continue as director. Weinstein, having seen the mask in action, was satisfied that it could be scary. The third and final act of the film, over forty minutes long, is set at a house party where Ghostface strikes. It was shot at a vacant property in Tomales over 21 nights. The scene, labelled "Scene 118", was considered the most difficult to shoot as it took place entirely in one location yet featured the individual stories and deaths of multiple characters. Actors spent weeks undertaking intense emotional and physical scenes while coated in fake blood and wounds. As the scene was set during the evening, production had no choice but to halt at dawn.
Director of photography
Mark Irwin
was fired during filming of Screams finale, a week before principal photography
was to be completed. Upon review of the dailies, Craven found the footage was out of focus and unusable. Irwin was initially ordered to fire his camera crew. He retorted that if his crew were to be fired, they would also have to fire him. The producers fired him and replaced him with Peter Deming
, who finished the film.
, and Gregory Nicotero
. One of their first tasks was the production of a mask for the film's killer. In his script, Williamson had only described the antagonist as a "masked killer", which gave Craven no specific information on what type of mask to use or how to conceal the body. While location scouting, Maddalena discovered the Ghostface mask hanging from a post inside the house previously used for the film Shadow of a Doubt. Craven wanted to use it, but the mask design was owned by Fun World, a costume company. He was told to create one that the production could own. KNB developed multiple design sketches varying from deformed faces to monstrous visages riddled with fangs. Craven found nothing like the Ghostface design, so he had KNB develop a mask that was based on it, with enough differences to avoid any claim of copyright. The team developed several molds
based on the Ghostface design, but Craven found none were as suitable as the mask he wanted to use. Desperate to use the design, Craven finally convinced the studio to approach Fun World and gained permission to use the mask. While negotiations were in progress, he had KNB make a mask that was very similar to the original mask, but was appropriate for use in filming. The mask they produced, made of a thin foam, was used in two scenes of the film: the opening scene with Barrymore's character and the murder of Winkler's Principal Himbry. Craven disliked the mask due to its slight differences from the original, and thus used the Fun World design for the rest of filming.
KNB Effects created over 50 gallons of fake blood
, normally composed of corn syrup and food dye, to create the visual effect of severe wounds. For the penetrating effect of knives, the production used collapsible blades to prevent injury. An umbrella with a retractable tip is used as a stabbing weapon in the finale. Ulrich wore a protective vest beneath his shirt to help prevent harm while a stuntwoman attacked him with it. The second thrust missed the vest and stabbed Ulrich on his chest, impacting a wound from an open heart surgery operation. Ulrich's genuine pain was captured on film and used in the release version of Scream.
Two of the most complex visual effects in the film were the corpses of Barrymore's and Walls' characters, Casey Becker and Steve Orth. Their deaths involved the character being gutted from ribcage to pelvis, essentially hollowing out the torso of internal organs, with the guts "rolling" from the wound. To allow Walls to continue to move and feign death while displaying the wound, KNB designed a chair with no back. The actor would kneel behind it while his upper body, head, and arms were positioned within the chair's seating area. An anatomical model representing the character's torso and legs was positioned in the chair and disguised so that the actor's upper body and the model appeared to be one piece. The fake abdomen was filled with rubber, latex, and gelatin pieces smeared in fake blood—the "internal organs"—which could then fall free. The other effect involved Barrymore's character being gutted and hung by the neck from a tree. The team utilized a similar approach, but replicated Barrymore's entire body, as it would be impossible to conceal her real body and display the visual effect of her character having been gutted.
Craven sent eight different cuts of the film to deal with complaints. Problematic scenes included the gutting death of Steve Orth (Walls), where he was required to remove any movement of the character's internal organs; the throat-cutting of Kenny, where he had to trim the end of the scene, as the MPAA felt the actor's pained expression was too "disturbing"; and they had to shorten the length of time spent viewing the crushed head of Tatum Riley. The MPAA still held issue with a scene from the finale, where the killers (Ulrich and Lillard) stab each other, creating large amounts of visible blood. The MPAA required that the blood could not be seen in motion—falling to the floor from the body. It seemed unlikely that the film would be able to achieve an R rating without further significant cuts. With the film's release date drawing closer, Bob Weinstein intervened and personally contacted the MPAA. He believed they misunderstood the film and to which genre Scream really belonged, and were focusing too much on the horror elements. Weinstein explained that although he agreed with their assessment that the film was "intense", the film also had comedic elements and satire; it was not just a horror film glorifying violence. The MPAA reviewed their decision; shortly thereafter the film was granted an R rating.
, his first time scoring a feature film. Craven's assistant Julie Plec had requested input on composers who were "new", "fresh", and "wonderful", and was given Beltrami's name by several people. Beltrami was contacted for samples of his work. Craven, impressed by what he heard, requested Beltrami come to the set to view the opening thirteen minutes of the film containing the introduction and the death of Barrymore's character. Beltrami was tasked with scoring a piece of music for this scene, which would be reviewed by the producers and the Weinstein brothers. Beltrami was hired to score the entire film on the basis of this sample. Beltrami had no prior experience scoring a work of horror. Craven and editor Patrick Lussier advised him on how to deliver music that would raise the tension and how to use sting
s to punctuate the more intense moments. Craven wanted the music to intentionally raise tension during scenes where audience expectations were already raised by their experience of previous horror films. The volume would be raised to indicate that the killer is hiding behind a door, but nothing would be present upon its opening.
Beltrami decided to intentionally disregard conventional horror score styles. He approached the film as a western, taking influence from Ennio Morricone
, a prolific composer for many westerns. When scoring a theme for the character of Dewey (Arquette), Beltrami approached him as a "quirky" wild west sheriff, using a Morricone-style guitar accompaniment. Sidney Prescott's theme, titled "Sidney's Lament", features a female choral arrangement expressing "sorrow" concerning the character's situation. Beltrami states that the voice "spoke" for the character, "lamenting" the loss of her mother. Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks
called the "haunting" vocals of the track the "voice of the franchise". The song was used throughout the film's sequels.
on December 18, 1996 at the AMC
Avco theater in Westwood, California
. Bob Weinstein ordered that the film be released on December 20, 1996, a date others were critical of as it was the Christmas period where seasonal and family films were more prevalent. Weinstein argued this fact was in the film's favor as it meant that horror fans and teenagers had nothing interesting to watch during the December period. When Screams first weekend takings amounted to only $6 million, it was considered that this release date gamble had failed, but the following week, takings did not drop but increased and continued to increase in the following weeks leading to a total U.S. gross of over $100 million and high critical praise.
Despite competition from other box office fare such as Tom Cruise
's Jerry Maguire
and Tim Burton
's Mars Attacks!
, its release during the Christmas season, and Variety
labeling it "D.O.A.
" before it was even released, Scream became the 15th-highest grossing film of 1996, well placed amongst big-budget blockbusters
released that year such as Independence Day
and Mission: Impossible
. It was shown in cinemas for nearly eight months after its release.
Adam Smith called it "Clever, quick and bloody funny." Williamson's script was praised as containing a "fiendishly clever, complicated plot" which "deftly mixes irony, self-reference and wry social commentary with chills and blood spills." Time Out London lauded the film's intelligence and scares, while praising the casting, saying "at last, a horror movie to shout about!" Film4
cited Craven's own Wes Craven's New Nightmare
(1994) and its cast of self-aware characters as inspiration for Scream, but declared that while New Nightmare was a "noble failure – pretty smart, but crucially not very scary" that Scream was "not merely clever...it is, from its breathtaking opening sequence (with Barrymore as the woman in peril) onwards, simply terrifying." Scream is "certified fresh" on the review site Rotten Tomatoes
, which develops an average score based on critics' reviews. On review-aggregate site Metacritic
, the film holds a score of 65 out of 100 based on 25 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Roger Ebert
presented a mixed response, appreciating "the in-jokes and the self-aware characters", but was confused over whether the level of violence was "defused by the ironic way the film uses it and comments on it." The New York Times
Janet Maslin was not as appreciative of the film, saying "not much of 'Scream' is that gruesome"; she observes that Craven "wants things both ways, capitalizing on lurid material while undermining it with mocking humor. Not even horror fans who can answer all this film's knowing trivia questions may be fully comfortable with such an exploitative mix." Despite being critical of the film itself, calling it "one experiment that needed more lab time", Variety complimented the "strong" ensemble cast, singling out the performances of Campbell and Ulrich as "charismatic". The BBC
claimed that the film had promise, saying "It appeared to be clever, dangerous, witty, and fresh" but went on to label it as derivative of the films it satirized: "Scream runs out of humour, and in turn robs itself of the chance to get the audience to take the thrills and gut-spills it offers seriously."
for Best Actress for Campbell, Best Writing
for Kevin Williamson, and Best Horror Film
; it received Saturn nominations for Best Director for Wes Craven and Best Supporting Actor for Ulrich and Barrymore. Craven was awarded the Grand Prize at the Gérardmer Film Festival. The film was awarded the 1997 Best Movie
by the MTV Movie Awards
, while Campbell received a nomination for Best Female Performance
.
on December 2, 1997, and on DVD
on December 3, 1997. A Collector's Edition of the film was released on December 8, 1998, containing the film, the theatrical trailer, cast interviews, a director's commentary, and behind the scenes
information. These releases were all undertaken by Buena Vista Home Entertainment. Following the release of Scream 3
, Scream and its first two sequels were collected in "The Ultimate Scream Collection" by Dimension Films on September 26, 2000, a boxset containing the three films and a bonus disc containing "Behind the Scream", a 30 minute documentary about the production of the three films, and additional material, including screentests and outtakes.
Scream remained unreleased in foreign territories, including Europe and Japan, until 2001. It was simultaneously released with Scream 2 and Scream 3 on February 26 by Buena Vista Home Entertainment. Each package contained additional content found in the Collector's Edition version of the US release, including deleted scenes, outtakes, theatrical trailers, music videos, and crew commentary. The three films were sold as a collection called the "Scream Trilogy", released on February 26, 2001.
On March 29, 2011, two weeks prior to the release of Scream 4
, Scream was released in US territories on Blu-ray
by Lionsgate Home Entertainment
. The Blu-rays present the films in 1080p
high definition
. The releases contain all the additional materials found on the Collector's Edition DVD, including outtakes and deleted scenes.
. The soundtrack features 11 songs—most of which appeared in various scenes in the film—plus a piece from the film's score, "Trouble In Woodsboro"/"Sidney's Lament", by Beltrami. The Alice Cooper
version of "School's Out
" appeared in the film following the closure of Woodsboro high school, but it was replaced with a cover
version of the song by The Last Hard Men on the album. An acoustic cover of Blue Öyster Cult
's "Don't Fear the Reaper", performed by Gus Black
, plays softly in the background while Sidney and Billy discuss their relationship. Analyst Jeff Smith describes the musical choice as
The song "Red Right Hand
" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
, heard in the first film, is also used in Scream 2 and Scream 3. Nick Cave performs a version of the track written specifically for Scream 3 in that film. An alternate version of the music video "Drop Dead Gorgeous" by Republica
, featuring clips from the film, was shown on music networks such as MTV
. Although the song can be heard in the film, it is not included on the soundtrack album. The song was also used in one of the film's television commercials. The soundtrack album was not considered a success, failing to chart on the Billboard 200
. Allmusic awarded the album 3 stars out of 5.
was released by Varèse Sarabande
on July 14, 1998, on a CD titled "Scream/Scream 2", which also contained tracks from the score of Scream 2. The release consisted of only six tracks—"Sidney's Lament", "Altered Ego", "A Cruel World", "Trouble in Woodsboro", "Chasing Sidney", and "NC-17"—with a runtime of only 12 minutes, compared to over an hour of music made for the film and the more common 30–45 minutes of music found in other original scores. Some reviewers felt the restricted runtime was a result of the high cost of releasing a composer's music commercially, combined with Varèse Sarabande's unwillingness to pay.
The score to Scream received generally positive reviews, with Mikael Carlsson labeling it as "some of the most intriguing horror scores composed in years". Filmtracks.com claimed the scores had "cult status", awarding it 3 stars out of 5. AllMusic said that the score "perfectly captured the post-modern, hip scare-ride of the Scream movies", also giving it 3 stars out of 5.
Fifteen years after the release of Scream and eleven years after the release of the last film in the series, The Weinstein Company
released a new sequel, Scream 4
, on April 15, 2011. Campbell, Cox and Arquette all return to their roles, and Craven, Williamson, and Beltrami return to the production side. The Weinstein Company stated that the success of Scream 4 could lead to potential sequels and a new Scream trilogy, with Campbell, Arquette, Craven, and Williamson all having been contracted or expressed interest in appearing in future installments.
In January 1998, 16-year-old Mario Padilla and his 14-year-old cousin, Samuel Ramirez stabbed Mario's mother, Gina Castillo, 45 times, killing her. The case became known as the "Scream murder" and fell under intense media scrutiny after the boys claimed they were inspired by Scream and Scream 2. The pair confessed to needing the money acquired from Gina's murder to fund a killing spree, purchase two Ghostface costumes, and a voice-changer used by the character in the film. During their trial, psychologist Madeline Levine who studied the effect of violence on children, stated
The case was expected to highlight the effect of violent films on teenagers. However, presiding judge John Cheroske ordered that evidence pertaining to Scream be barred and that the case not be referred to as the "Scream murder", refusing media access to the courtroom, intending that the case was tried as murder and nothing else.
On January 17, 1999, 13-year-old Ashley Murray was stabbed multiple times in the head and back before being left for dead by his then-friends Daniel Gill, 14, and Robert Fuller, 15. He was later found and saved by an elderly man walking his dog. The pair were dubbed the "Scream attackers" after it emerged that they had watched Scream shortly before the attack and drawings of the Ghostface mask were found among their possessions. Their actions were additionally blamed on physical abuse
, drugs and exposure to black magic
in their home life. Murray, who later testified against the pair, stated that he believed the film may have influenced the pair to attack him.
On May 4, 1999, following the Columbine High School massacre
and increasing news media reports on the effects on violent films, games, and other media on society, the United States Senate Commerce committee
held a hearing about Hollywood's marketing of films to youths. The committee focused specifically on horror films. The opening scene of Scream featuring the murder of Barrymore's character was shown to the committee as an example of negative media which may be viewed by children.
that they were considered to have lost their ability to instill scares or interest in their audience. Scream, utilizing a popular and attractive cast and an innovative script that mocked and embraced the conventions of horror which had become considered cliche, was credited with changing the status of the genre, becoming both a financial and critical success, and launching the careers of many of its actors. Such was the film's impact that some commentators considered its legacy as the creation of a distinct era of "post-Scream" horror films. Following its release many studios, including Screams own Dimension Films, rushed to capitalize on its unexpected success with the release of films such as I Know What You Did Last Summer
(1997) and Urban Legend
(1998) as well as sequels to popular, but diminishing, franchises such as Halloween H20 and Bride of Chucky
.
In June 2001, as part of the American Film Institute
's (AFI) AFI 100 Years... series
, Scream became one of the 400 nominees in the 100 Years... 100 Thrills
category. In 2003, the character Ghostface
was nominated in the category 100 Heroes and Villains
. In 2005, "Do you like scary movies", as spoken by Roger Jackson, was nominated for AFI's 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes, a list of the greatest cinematic quotes.
Scream ranks #32 on Entertainment Weekly
list of the "50 Best High School Movies", and the opening scene featuring the death of Barrymore's character ranked #13 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. In 2008, Entertainment Weekly dubbed the film a "New Classic" by ranking it #60 in their list of the "100 Best Films of the Last 13 years". In 2008 Empire ranked the film #482 on their list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time".
Slasher film
A slasher film is a type of horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe...
written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Wes Craven
Wes Craven
Wesley Earl "Wes" Craven is an American actor, film director, writer, producer, perhaps best known as the director of many horror films, particularly slasher films, including the famed A Nightmare on Elm Street and Wes Craven's New Nightmare, featuring the iconic Freddy Krueger character, the...
. The film stars Neve Campbell
Neve Campbell
Neve Adrianne Campbell is a Canadian actress. After beginning her career on stage, and on numerous commercials, she starred on the Canadian television series Catwalk. She then rose to international fame on the Golden Globe-winning 1990s television series Party of Five, playing the role of teenager...
, Courteney Cox
Courteney Cox
Courteney Bass Cox is an American actress, she is best known for her roles as Monica Geller on the NBC sitcom Friends, Gale Weathers in the horror series Scream and as Jules Cobb in the ABC sitcom Cougar Town, for which she earned her first Golden Globe nomination....
, Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
, and David Arquette
David Arquette
David Arquette is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, fashion designer, and occasional professional wrestler. A member of the Arquette acting family, he first became known during the mid 1990s after starring in several Hollywood films, such as the Scream series, Wild Bill and...
. Released on December 20, 1996, Scream follows the character of Sidney Prescott
Sidney Prescott
Sidney Prescott is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Scream series of slasher films. The character was created by Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven and is portrayed by Canadian actress Neve Campbell. She first appeared in Scream followed by three sequels: Scream 2 , Scream 3 ...
(Campbell), a high school student in the fictional town of Woodsboro, who becomes the target of a mysterious killer known as Ghostface
Ghostface (Scream)
Ghostface is a fictional identity adopted by the main antagonists in the Scream series of slasher films. The character is voiced by Roger L. Jackson regardless of who is behind the mask...
. Other main characters include Sidney's best friend Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan
Rose McGowan
Rose Arianna McGowan is an actress and singer. She is known for her role as Paige Matthews in The WB Television Network supernatural drama series Charmed. She played Ann-Margret alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Elvis Presley in the CBS mini-series Elvis...
), Sidney's boyfriend Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich
Skeet Ulrich
Bryan Ray Trout , best known as Skeet Ulrich, is an American actor best known for starring in the CBS drama Jericho as Jake Green and for portraying Billy Loomis in Scream...
), film geek Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy
Jamie Kennedy
James Harvey "Jamie" Kennedy is an American comedian, rapper, and actor.-Early life:Kennedy, the youngest of six children, was born in Upper Darby Township, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His family is of Irish descent and he was raised Roman Catholic. He attended and graduated from...
), deputy sheriff Dewey Riley (Arquette), and news reporter Gale Weathers (Cox). The film combined comedy and "whodunit
Whodunit
A whodunit or whodunnit is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the puzzle is the main feature of interest. The reader or viewer is provided with clues from which the identity of the perpetrator of the crime may be deduced before the solution is revealed in the final...
" mystery with the violence of the slasher genre to satirize the cliché
Cliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...
of the horror genre popularized in films such as Halloween
Halloween (franchise)
Halloween is an American horror franchise that consists of ten slasher films, novels, and comic books. The franchise focuses on the fictional character of Michael Myers who was committed to a sanitarium as a child for the murder of his older sister, Judith Myers...
and Friday the 13th. The film was considered unique at the time of its release for featuring characters who were aware of real world horror films and openly discussed the cliché that Scream attempted to subvert.
Based partly on the real-life case of the Gainesville Ripper
Danny Rolling
Daniel Harold Rolling , also known as The Gainesville Ripper, was an American serial killer who murdered five students in Gainesville, Florida. Rolling later confessed to raping several of his victims, committing an additional 1989 triple homicide in Shreveport, Louisiana, and attempting to murder...
, Scream was inspired by Williamson's passion for horror films, especially Halloween
Halloween (1978 film)
Halloween is a 1978 American independent horror film directed, produced, and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut and the first installment in the Halloween franchise. The film is set in the fictional midwestern...
(1978). The script, originally titled Scary Movie, was bought by Dimension Films
Dimension Films
Dimension Films is a motion picture unit currently a part of The Weinstein Company. It was formerly used as Bob Weinstein's label within Miramax Films, to produce and release genre films...
and was retitled by the Weinstein Brothers just before filming was complete. The production faced censorship issues with the Motion Picture Association of America
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
and obstacles from locals while filming on location. The film went on to financial and critical acclaim, earning $173 million worldwide, and became the highest-grossing slasher film in the US in unadjusted dollars. It received several awards and award nominations. The soundtrack by Marco Beltrami
Marco Beltrami
Marco Beltrami is an American film composer.-Life and career:Beltrami was born in Long Island, New York of Italian and Greek descent...
was also acclaimed, and was cited as "[one] of the most intriguing horror scores composed in years". It has since earned "cult status". Scream marked a change in the genre as it cast already-established and successful actors, which was considered to have helped it find a wider audience, including a significant female viewership.
Scream was credited with revitalizing the horror genre in the 1990s, which was considered to be almost dead following an influx of direct-to-video
Direct-to-video
Direct-to-video is a term used to describe a film that has been released to the public on home video formats without being released in film theaters or broadcast on television...
titles and numerous sequels to established horror franchises of the 1970s and 1980s. These sequels drew decreasing financial and critical success, as they exploited clichés that films in the genre had become reliant upon. Screams success spawned a series of sequels
Scream (film series)
Scream is a series of American horror slasher films created by Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven. The films star Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette. The series has grossed over $600 million in worldwide box-office receipts and consists, to date, of four motion pictures...
, though only the first of them achieved a level of commercial and critical success equal to the original film. In the years following the release of Scream, the film was accused of inspiring and even inducing violent crimes and murders.
Plot
High school student Casey Becker (Drew BarrymoreDrew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
) receives a flirtatious phone call from an unknown person (voiced by Roger L. Jackson
Roger L. Jackson
Roger Labon Jackson is an American voice actor. He is best known for voicing the killer Ghostface in the Scream films, leaving him to keep an unknown identity to withhold the mystery of Ghostface...
), asking her, "What's your favorite scary movie?" The situation quickly escalates out of control as the caller turns sadistic and threatens her life. He reveals that her boyfriend Steve (Kevin Patrick Walls
Kevin Patrick Walls
Kevin Patrick Walls is an American actor who has appeared in minor film roles.He auditioned for the lead role of Billy Loomis in 1996 film Scream but lost the role to Skeet Ulrich...
) is being held hostage. After failing to answer a question correctly about horror films, Steve is murdered. When Casey refuses to cooperate with the caller, she is attacked and murdered by a masked killer, and her body is hung from a tree.
The following day, the news media
News media
The news media are those elements of the mass media that focus on delivering news to the general public or a target public.These include print media , broadcast news , and more recently the Internet .-Etymology:A medium is a carrier of something...
descend on the town and a police investigation begins. Meanwhile, Sidney Prescott
Sidney Prescott
Sidney Prescott is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Scream series of slasher films. The character was created by Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven and is portrayed by Canadian actress Neve Campbell. She first appeared in Scream followed by three sequels: Scream 2 , Scream 3 ...
(Neve Campbell
Neve Campbell
Neve Adrianne Campbell is a Canadian actress. After beginning her career on stage, and on numerous commercials, she starred on the Canadian television series Catwalk. She then rose to international fame on the Golden Globe-winning 1990s television series Party of Five, playing the role of teenager...
) struggles with the impending one-year anniversary of her mother's murder by Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber
Liev Schreiber
Isaac Liev Schreiber , commonly known as Liev Schreiber, is an American actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s, having initially appeared in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywood films, including the Scream trilogy of...
). While waiting at home for her friend Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan
Rose McGowan
Rose Arianna McGowan is an actress and singer. She is known for her role as Paige Matthews in The WB Television Network supernatural drama series Charmed. She played Ann-Margret alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Elvis Presley in the CBS mini-series Elvis...
), Sidney receives a threatening phone call. After she hangs up, she is attacked by the killer. Sidney's boyfriend Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich
Skeet Ulrich
Bryan Ray Trout , best known as Skeet Ulrich, is an American actor best known for starring in the CBS drama Jericho as Jake Green and for portraying Billy Loomis in Scream...
) arrives and offers support, but after he drops his cell phone Sidney suspects him of making the call. She flees. Billy is arrested and Tatum takes Sidney to her house.
Billy is released the next day. Suspicion has shifted to Sidney's father Neil Prescott (Lawrence Hecht), as the calls have been traced to his phone. School is suspended in the wake of the murders. After the students have left the school, Principal Himbry (Henry Winkler
Henry Winkler
Henry Franklin Winkler, OBE is an American actor, director, producer, and author.Winkler is best known for his role as Fonzie on the 1970s American sitcom Happy Days...
) is stabbed to death in his office. Billy's friend Stu Macher throws a party to celebrate the school closure. The party is attended by Sidney, Tatum, their friend Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy
Jamie Kennedy
James Harvey "Jamie" Kennedy is an American comedian, rapper, and actor.-Early life:Kennedy, the youngest of six children, was born in Upper Darby Township, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His family is of Irish descent and he was raised Roman Catholic. He attended and graduated from...
), and several other students. Reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox
Courteney Cox
Courteney Bass Cox is an American actress, she is best known for her roles as Monica Geller on the NBC sitcom Friends, Gale Weathers in the horror series Scream and as Jules Cobb in the ABC sitcom Cougar Town, for which she earned her first Golden Globe nomination....
) attends uninvited to cover the situation, as she expects the killer to strike. Tatum is killed during the party after having her neck crushed by a garage door. Billy arrives to speak to Sidney privately, and the two ultimately consummate their relationship. Deputy sheriff Dewey Riley (David Arquette
David Arquette
David Arquette is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, fashion designer, and occasional professional wrestler. A member of the Arquette acting family, he first became known during the mid 1990s after starring in several Hollywood films, such as the Scream series, Wild Bill and...
) and Gale investigate a nearby abandoned car. Many party attendees are drawn away after hearing news of Himbry's death; Randy, Sidney, Billy, Stu, and Gale's cameraman Kenny (W. Earl Brown
W. Earl Brown
W. Earl Brown is an American character actor who has appeared in many mainstream film and television projects. He is perhaps best known as Dan Dority on the HBO series Deadwood...
) remain.
After having sex, Sidney and Billy are attacked by the killer, who seemingly murders Billy. Sidney escapes the killer and seeks help from Kenny, but he too is attacked and killed. Sidney again flees. Gale and Dewey, having discovered the car belongs to Neil Prescott, return to the house. They believe Neil is the killer and has come to the party to continue his spree. Gale attempts to leave the scene in her van but drives off-road and crashes to avoid hitting Sidney. Meanwhile Dewey is stabbed in the back while investigating in the house. Sidney takes Dewey's gun. Stu and Randy appear and accuse each other of being the killer. Sidney retreats into the house, where she finds Billy, wounded but still alive. She gives Billy the gun; he lets Randy into the house and then shoots him. Billy has feigned his injuries and is actually the killer; Stu is his accomplice. Billy and Stu discuss their plan to kill Sidney and frame her father—whom they have taken hostage—for their murder spree. The pair admit to being the killers of her mother Maureen. Billy says he was motivated to seek revenge on Maureen because of an affair she was having with Billy's father, Hank (C.W. Morgan), which drove his mother away. Gale, thought dead by the killers, intervenes. Sidney takes advantage of this to turn the tables on her attackers, killing Stu. Randy is revealed to be wounded but alive. Billy attacks Sidney but she shoots him through the head, killing him. As the sun rises and police arrive, a badly-injured Dewey is taken away by ambulance and Gale makes an impromptu news report about the night's events.
Writing
Scream was originally developed under the title Scary Movie by Kevin Williamson, an aspiring screenwriterScreenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
. Influenced by a news story he was watching about a series of grisly murders by the Gainesville Ripper, Williamson became concerned about intruders upon finding an open window in the house where he was staying. He was inspired to draft an 18-page script treatment about a young woman, alone in a house, who is taunted over the phone and then attacked by a masked killer. The treatment remained as a short story while Williamson worked on another script, Teaching Mrs. Tingle
Teaching Mrs. Tingle
Teaching Mrs. Tingle is a 1999 black comedy film and the directing debut of screenwriter Kevin Williamson. The film stars Helen Mirren, Katie Holmes, Marisa Coughlan, Barry Watson and Jeffrey Tambor and was released on August 20, 1999. It was originally titled Killing Mrs...
, a thriller that he would eventually sell but that would languish in development hell
Development hell
In the jargon of the media-industry, "development hell" is a period during which a film or other project is trapped in development...
for many years. Struggling to pay his bills, Williamson secluded himself in Palm Springs
Palm Springs
Palm Springs is a desert city in CaliforniaPalm Springs may also refer to:* Palm Springs, Florida* Palm Springs, Hong Kong, a residential development in Yuen Long, Hong Kong* Coachella Valley, also known as the Palm Springs area...
and focused on the development of his Scary Movie treatment, hoping for a quick sale to meet his financial needs. Over the course of three days, Williamson developed a full-length script as well as two separate five-page outlines for potential sequels—Scary Movie 2 and Scary Movie 3. He hoped to entice buyers with the potential for a franchise. In an interview, Williamson said that one reason he focused on the Scary Movie script was because it was a film he wanted to watch, born of his childhood love of horror films such as Halloween, but "nobody else [was] making it". His appreciation for previous horror films became evident in the script, which features inspiration from and references to films such as Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street
A Nightmare on Elm Street (franchise)
A Nightmare on Elm Street is an American horror franchise that consists of nine slasher films, a television show, novels, and comic books. The franchise began with the film series created by Wes Craven. The franchise is based on the fictional character Freddy Krueger, introduced in A Nightmare on...
, When a Stranger Calls
When a Stranger Calls (1979 film)
When a Stranger Calls is a 1979 thriller starring Carol Kane and Charles Durning, directed by Fred Walton. The film derives its story from the classic folk legend of "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs". The original music score is composed by television composer Dana Kaproff.The film ranked #28...
, and Prom Night. Williamson listened to the soundtrack for Halloween for inspiration while writing the script. Excerpts from the soundtrack appear in the film.
By June 1995 Williamson brought the Scary Movie script to his agent, Rob Paris, to put out for sale. Paris warned him that the level of violence and gore in his script would make it "impossible" to sell. Following the script's purchase by Miramax, Williamson was required to remove much of the gorier content, such as graphic depictions of the internal organs of gutted murder victims "rolling" down their legs. However, once Craven was secured as director, he was able to bring much of the excised content back. Williamson was going to remove a scene in the school bathroom featuring Sidney, as he felt it was awkward and out of place in the film. Craven insisted the scene should remain, as he felt it developed the character and her relationship with her deceased mother. Williamson later confirmed that he was glad that Craven proved him wrong about the scene. Dimension Films
Dimension Films
Dimension Films is a motion picture unit currently a part of The Weinstein Company. It was formerly used as Bob Weinstein's label within Miramax Films, to produce and release genre films...
head Bob Weinstein
Bob Weinstein
Robert "Bob" Weinstein is an American film and theatre producer, the founder and head of Dimension Films, former co-chairman of Miramax Films, and current head, with his brother Harvey Weinstein, of The Weinstein Company.-Career:...
realized while reviewing the script that there were thirty pages (approximately thirty on-screen minutes) without a murder, so he instructed Williamson to have another character killed. Williamson included the death of the character Principal Himbry (Winkler) based on this input and in doing so inadvertently solved a problem in the script's finale. Williamson had struggled to find a reason for several characters to leave a party so that the killer could attack. The discovery of the corpse of Winkler's character was used to remove the characters from the scene at the party. Concerning the killer's motive, Williamson felt it was essential for the audience to learn why the antagonists had become killers, but he also felt it was potentially scarier if they had no motivation. Opinions at the studio were split between those who believed a motive was needed for resolution and those who felt the action was scarier without one. As there were two killers, Williamson decided to do both: Billy Loomis had the motive of maternal abandonment, while the second killer, Stu Macher, jokingly suggests "peer pressure" as his motive when prompted.
Development
The script for what was then known as Scary Movie went on sale on a Friday in June 1995, but received no bids. By the following Monday, the script had become the subject of a significant bidding war among a host of established studios, including Paramount PicturesParamount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, Universal Pictures
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
, and Morgan Creek Productions
Morgan Creek Productions
Morgan Creek Productions is an American film studio that has released box-office hits like Young Guns, Dead Ringers, Major League, True Romance, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The King and I, The Crush, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and others. The studio was co-founded in 1987 by James G...
. Producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
Cathy Konrad read the script and felt it was exactly what the Weinstein brothers of the fledgling Dimension Films—then a part of Miramax—were looking for. Dimension had previously released several horror films and intended to focus on that genre. Konrad brought the script to Bob Weinstein's assistant, Richard Potter. Believing it had potential, he brought it to Weinstein's attention. Studios began to drop out of the bidding as the price of the script increased, and the final two bidders were Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...
, who was at the time working under Cinergi Pictures
Cinergi Pictures
Cinergi Pictures Entertainment Inc. was a small independent production company that was founded by Andrew G. Vajna, after he had sold his interest in his first production company, Carolco International Pictures in 1989, which he had started with his partner Mario F. Kassar in 1975.-Cinergi...
, and the Weinsteins of Dimension Films. Williamson agreed to a bid of $400,000 from Miramax, plus a contract for two sequels and a possible fourth unrelated film. Williamson said he chose Dimension because he believed they would produce Scary Movie immediately and without significantly censoring the violence in the script. Craven read the script before he became involved in the production, and considered convincing a studio to buy it for him to direct. However, by the time Craven read the script, it had already been sold.
Bob Weinstein approached Craven early in the planning stages, because he felt Craven's previous work in the genre that combined horror and comedy would make him the perfect person to bring Williamson's script to screen. Craven was already busy developing a remake of The Haunting
The Haunting (1963 film)
The Haunting is a 1963 British psychological horror film by American director Robert Wise and adapted by Nelson Gidding from the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It stars Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn. The film centers around the conflict between...
and was considering distancing himself from the horror genre. He was growing weary of the inherent misogyny
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
and violence. Weinstein approached other directors, including Robert Rodriguez
Robert Rodriguez
Robert Anthony Rodríguez is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor and musician. He shoots and produces many of his films in his native Texas and Mexico. He has directed such films as Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, The Faculty, Spy Kids, Sin City, Planet...
, Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
, George A. Romero
George A. Romero
George Andrew Romero is a Canadian-American film director, screenwriter and editor, best known for his gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. He is nicknamed "Godfather of all Zombies." -Life and career:...
, and Sam Raimi
Sam Raimi
Samuel Marshall "Sam" Raimi is an American film director, producer, actor and writer. He is best known for directing cult horror films like the Evil Dead series, Darkman and Drag Me to Hell, as well as the blockbuster Spider-Man films and the producer of the successful TV series Hercules: The...
. Williamson said that they "didn't get it"; he was concerned that having read the script, many of the directors believed the film to be purely a comedy. Craven was approached again but continued to pass in spite of repeated requests. When production of The Haunting collapsed, Craven was freed from that commitment and found himself in need of a project. Meanwhile, Drew Barrymore had signed on to the film at her own request. When he heard an established actress wanted to be involved, Craven reasoned that Scary Movie might be different from other films of the genre he had previously undertaken, and he contacted Weinstein to accept the job.
As the film neared completion, the Weinstein brothers changed the film's title from Scary Movie to Scream. They were inspired by the Michael Jackson song of the same name
Scream/Childhood
"Scream"/"Childhood" is the lead single from Michael Jackson's ninth studio album, HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I where "Scream" is the first song and "Childhood" is the tenth song on the second disc of the album HIStory Continues. The A-side, "Scream", is a duet with his younger sister...
. Bob Weinstein considered "Scary Movie" to be an unsuitable title as, in addition to the horror and violence, the film contained elements of satire and comedy; Weinstein wished for that to be better conveyed by the title. The change was effected so late into production that congratulatory gifts bore the original name. Williamson and Craven immediately disliked the new title, and considered it "stupid". Both later remarked that the change turned out to be positive, and that Weinstein had been wise to pick the new title. Following a highly-successful screening of the film in front of a test audience
Test screening
A test screening is a preview screening of a movie or television show before its general release in order to gauge audience reaction. Preview audiences are selected from a cross-section of the population, and are usually asked to complete a questionnaire or provide feedback in some form. Harold...
and Miramax executives, Craven was offered a two-picture contract for sequels to Scream.
Sony Pictures filed a lawsuit against Dimension Films and Miramax, claiming that the title "Scream" infringed on the copyright of Sony's own Screamers (1995), released the previous year. After the case was settled out of court—the details remain confidential—Scream 2 producer Marianne Maddalena
Marianne Maddalena
Marianne Maddalena is an American film producer. She is part of a joint venture called Craven-Maddalena Films alongside Wes Craven...
considered that the case was a result of other issues between the two companies and did not truly pertain to the film's moniker. Maddalena confirmed that the studio was free to use the Scream brand for future films.
Casting
Scream was a turning point in terms of casting for the horror genre, which normally involved relatively unknown actors. The genre was considered unsuitable for bigger names as the films had lower budgets and often attained negative critical response. Drew Barrymore read the script and was interested in being involved. She approached the production team herself to request a role. Barrymore, a member of the Barrymore familyBarrymore family
The Barrymore family is an American acting family.The Barrymores are also the inspiration of a Broadway and West End play called The Royal Family....
of actors and granddaughter of actor John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
, had become a star in her own right following her appearance in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote...
(1982). The producers were quick to take advantage of her unexpected interest, and signed her to play the lead role of Sidney Prescott
Sidney Prescott
Sidney Prescott is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the Scream series of slasher films. The character was created by Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven and is portrayed by Canadian actress Neve Campbell. She first appeared in Scream followed by three sequels: Scream 2 , Scream 3 ...
. Her involvement was believed to be instrumental in attracting other popular actors to the film in spite of its smaller budget, and in causing Craven to reconsider his decision to direct the film. Before filming began, Barrymore was faced with unexpected commitments that meant she would no longer be available to play the demanding lead role. She instead played the smaller role of Casey Becker, which allowed her to remain involved and still gave the production the advantage of her stature. Killing off one of their biggest stars early in the film was considered a calculated risk, but it was believed that it would be so shocking and unexpected that the audience would then believe that any character could die. Actresses including Alicia Witt
Alicia Witt
Alicia Roanne Witt is an American film, stage, television actress and singer.-Early life:Witt was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her mother, Diane , is a junior high school reading teacher, and her father, Robert Witt, is a science teacher and photographer. She has a brother, Ian...
and Brittany Murphy
Brittany Murphy
Brittany Anne Murphy-Monjack , known professionally as Brittany Murphy, was an American actress and singer. She starred in films such as Clueless, Just Married, Girl Interrupted, Spun, 8 Mile, Uptown Girls, Sin City, Happy Feet, and Riding in Cars with Boys...
auditioned for the lead role of Sidney; the producers also approached Reese Witherspoon
Reese Witherspoon
Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon , better known as Reese Witherspoon, is an American actress and film producer. Witherspoon landed her first feature role as the female lead in the film The Man in the Moon in 1991; later that year she made her television acting debut, in the cable movie Wildflower...
, though she never auditioned. Craven had seen Neve Campbell
Neve Campbell
Neve Adrianne Campbell is a Canadian actress. After beginning her career on stage, and on numerous commercials, she starred on the Canadian television series Catwalk. She then rose to international fame on the Golden Globe-winning 1990s television series Party of Five, playing the role of teenager...
in the TV show Party of Five
Party of Five
Party of Five is an American teen drama television series that aired on Fox for six seasons, from September 12, 1994, until May 3, 2000.Critically acclaimed, the show suffered from low ratings and after its first season was slated for cancellation...
and asked her to audition for the part. He believed she could portray a character who was "innocent", but who could also realistically handle herself while dealing with the physical conflict and emotions required by the role. Campbell was initially reluctant to perform in another horror film so soon after her supporting role in The Craft
The Craft (film)
The Craft is a 1996 American supernatural teen horror film directed by Andrew Fleming and starring Robin Tunney, Rachel True, Fairuza Balk and Neve Campbell. The film's plot centers on a group of four teenage girls who pursue witchcraft and use it for their own gain...
. After a successful audition, Campbell accepted an offer to play the lead character. She accepted because Scream would be her first leading role, and because she adored the character, saying "She's a fantastic character for any kind of movie."
For the character of news reporter Gale Weathers, the studio wanted a recognizable actress. They auditioned Brooke Shields
Brooke Shields
Brooke Christa Shields is an American actress and model. Some of her better-known movies include Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon, as well as TV shows such as Suddenly Susan, That '70s Show and Lipstick Jungle....
and Janeane Garofalo
Janeane Garofalo
Janeane Garofalo is an American stand-up comedian, actress, political activist and writer. She is the former co-host on the now defunct Air America Radio's The Majority Report. Garofalo continues to circulate regularly within New York City's local comedy and performance art scene.-Early...
. Courteney Cox
Courteney Cox
Courteney Bass Cox is an American actress, she is best known for her roles as Monica Geller on the NBC sitcom Friends, Gale Weathers in the horror series Scream and as Jules Cobb in the ABC sitcom Cougar Town, for which she earned her first Golden Globe nomination....
, who was starring in the sitcom Friends
Friends
Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
at the time, approached the production herself to pursue the role. She was interested in playing a "bitch" character to offset her "nice" Friends image. This image was the main reason why the producers initially refused to consider Cox for the part. Cox continued to lobby the studio as she felt she could believably play the character; her efforts ultimately succeeded. Actresses Melinda Clarke
Melinda Clarke
Melinda Patrice Clarke is an American actress who has primarily worked in television. Clarke is best known for playing Faith Taylor on the daytime drama Days of our Lives, the manipulative and cunning Julie Cooper-Nichol on The O.C., and the professional dominatrix Lady Heather on CSI...
and Rebecca Gayheart
Rebecca Gayheart
-Early life:Gayheart was born in Hazard, Kentucky and raised in Pine Top, Kentucky, the daughter of Floneva , who worked as a Mary Kay independent beauty consultant, and Curtis Gayheart, a miner and coal truck driver. She is of Irish, Italian, and German descent...
auditioned for the role of Tatum Riley, before Rose McGowan
Rose McGowan
Rose Arianna McGowan is an actress and singer. She is known for her role as Paige Matthews in The WB Television Network supernatural drama series Charmed. She played Ann-Margret alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Elvis Presley in the CBS mini-series Elvis...
was cast. The casting director believed she best embodied the "spunky", "cynical" but "innocent" nature of the character. The studio felt the strong female cast of Campbell, Barrymore, Cox, and McGowan would help draw a significant female audience to the film. Gayheart would later receive a role in Scream 2.
Kevin Patrick Walls
Kevin Patrick Walls
Kevin Patrick Walls is an American actor who has appeared in minor film roles.He auditioned for the lead role of Billy Loomis in 1996 film Scream but lost the role to Skeet Ulrich...
and Justin Whalin
Justin Whalin
Justin Garrett Whalin is an American actor best known for his role as Jimmy Olsen in the American television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.-Early life:...
were amongst the final candidates for the key role of Sidney's boyfriend Billy Loomis. Whalin took part in auditions with Campbell. Skeet Ulrich
Skeet Ulrich
Bryan Ray Trout , best known as Skeet Ulrich, is an American actor best known for starring in the CBS drama Jericho as Jake Green and for portraying Billy Loomis in Scream...
ultimately secured the role. The producers viewed him as "perfect" for the part and noted his resemblance to a young Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
as he appeared in A Nightmare on Elm Street
A Nightmare on Elm Street
A Nightmare on Elm Street is a 1984 American slasher film directed and written by Wes Craven, and the first film of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The film features Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Robert Englund, and Johnny Depp in his feature film...
, one of the many films Scream references. Ulrich and Campbell had worked together on The Craft shortly before Scream. They believed the experience helped them be more comfortable with each other, which allowed a more natural portrayal of the relationship between their characters. Though he failed to win the Loomis role, Walls remained in the film in the minor role of Steve Orth, boyfriend of Barrymore's Casey Becker. David Arquette
David Arquette
David Arquette is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, fashion designer, and occasional professional wrestler. A member of the Arquette acting family, he first became known during the mid 1990s after starring in several Hollywood films, such as the Scream series, Wild Bill and...
was also approached for the role of Billy Loomis but he asked to read for the part of Dewey Riley after reading the script. The role, described as "hunky
Beefcake
Beefcake is a term denoting the use of nude or semi-nude male bodies. It can refer to a genre or a person. It often is used to denote male sexual attractiveness stemming from physical build but the definition has expanded to include anyone interested in physical fitness, bodybuilding and weight...
", was considered ill-fitting for Arquette's appearance and approach but Arquette was still allowed to audition for the part. Craven appreciated his softer, funnier approach to the character, and gave him the role. Matthew Lillard
Matthew Lillard
Matthew Lyn Lillard is an American actor and producer. He is best known for his roles as Stu Macher in Scream, Stevo in SLC Punk , and Shaggy Rogers in the Scooby-Doo film series and the Animated reboot series.-Early life:Lillard was born in Lansing, Michigan, and grew up in Tustin, California...
was cast as Billy's friend Stu Macher by chance after accompanying his then-girlfriend to an unrelated audition taking place elsewhere in the same building. Casting director Lisa Beach saw Lillard in the hallway and asked him to audition for the part. He got into the role with "incredible ferocity". The role of Randy Meeks was contested between Jamie Kennedy
Jamie Kennedy
James Harvey "Jamie" Kennedy is an American comedian, rapper, and actor.-Early life:Kennedy, the youngest of six children, was born in Upper Darby Township, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His family is of Irish descent and he was raised Roman Catholic. He attended and graduated from...
and Breckin Meyer
Breckin Meyer
-Early life:Meyer was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Dorothy Ann , a travel agent and former microbiologist, and Christopher William Meyer, a management consultant. As a child of divorced parents, he lived in California, Texas, West Virginia and New Jersey. He has an older brother,...
. The producers favored Kennedy, believing him to best embody the role. As he had no major roles prior to Scream, the studio wanted a more prominent actor than Kennedy to play the character. The producers were adamant that he was the best choice and successfully fought to keep him. Roger L. Jackson
Roger L. Jackson
Roger Labon Jackson is an American voice actor. He is best known for voicing the killer Ghostface in the Scream films, leaving him to keep an unknown identity to withhold the mystery of Ghostface...
, voice of the character Ghostface
Ghostface (Scream)
Ghostface is a fictional identity adopted by the main antagonists in the Scream series of slasher films. The character is voiced by Roger L. Jackson regardless of who is behind the mask...
, was picked at the end of several weeks of local casting in Santa Rosa, where parts of Scream were filmed. The producers had originally intended to use his voice only as a placeholder, dubbing
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
over it during post-production. They decided that Jackson's contribution was perfect and kept it. Craven described it as an "intelligent" and "evil" voice that would become irreplaceable to the series. To aid their performance, Jackson was never allowed to meet the other actors, preventing them from associating a face with the menacing voice. Jackson was present on the set and spoke to actors by phone to help aid their performance.
The cast was rounded out by W. Earl Brown
W. Earl Brown
W. Earl Brown is an American character actor who has appeared in many mainstream film and television projects. He is perhaps best known as Dan Dority on the HBO series Deadwood...
, who played Gale Weather's cameraman Kenny; Joseph Whipp
Joseph Whipp
Joseph Whipp is an American actor who has starred in many films and starred on television. He is known for playing police officers in films and on television, too....
, who portrayed Sheriff Burke; Lawrence Hecht as Sidney's father Neil Prescott; and C.W. Morgan as Billy's father Hank Loomis. Liev Schreiber
Liev Schreiber
Isaac Liev Schreiber , commonly known as Liev Schreiber, is an American actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s, having initially appeared in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywood films, including the Scream trilogy of...
appeared in a minor role as Cotton Weary, the framed killer of Sidney's mother Maureen Prescott. Henry Winkler
Henry Winkler
Henry Franklin Winkler, OBE is an American actor, director, producer, and author.Winkler is best known for his role as Fonzie on the 1970s American sitcom Happy Days...
appeared as Principal Himbry, an aggressive school principal. He remained uncredited so as to not draw attention away from the young main cast.
Filming
Filming for Scream took place over eight weeks between April 15 and June 8, 1996, on a budget of $15 million. The Weinsteins wanted to film in VancouverVancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
as it was estimated that they could save $1 million in costs compared to shooting in America. Craven was adamant about filming in the United States, and making a film that looked "truly American". The argument over where to film almost led to Craven being removed from the project, but the Weinsteins eventually agreed to keep the production in America. Location scouts looked at North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
as a possibility, but found that sites that seemed appropriate for the film's requirements would have required extensive building, repairs, or modification, which would have inflated costs.
Attention was next turned towards California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
; scouts discovered Sonoma County
Sonoma County, California
Sonoma County, located on the northern coast of the U.S. state of California, is the largest and northernmost of the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. Its population at the 2010 census was 483,878. Its largest city and county seat is Santa Rosa....
and the cities of Santa Rosa
Santa Rosa, California
Santa Rosa is the county seat of Sonoma County, California, United States. The 2010 census reported a population of 167,815. Santa Rosa is the largest city in California's Wine Country and fifth largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area, after San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, and Fremont and 26th...
, Healdsburg
Healdsburg, California
Healdsburg is a city located in Sonoma County, California, in the United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a population of 11,254...
, and the nearby Tomales Bay
Tomales Bay
Tomales Bay is a long narrow inlet of the Pacific Ocean in Marin County in northern California in the United States. It is approximately 15 miles long and averages nearly 1.0 miles wide, effectively separating the Point Reyes Peninsula from the mainland of Marin County. It is located...
. The house of Barrymore's character is situated southeast of Santa Rosa on Sonoma Mountain Road, directly facing the house used in the horror film Cujo
Cujo (film)
Cujo is a 1983 American horror/thriller film based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. Cujo was directed by Lewis Teague from a screenplay by Lauren Currier. The film was #58 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.-Plot:...
(1983). The home of Sidney Prescott is located near Calistoga
Calistoga, California
Calistoga is a city in Napa County, California, United States. The population was 5,155 at the 2010 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , 99.30% of it land and 0.70% of it water.-Climate:...
, north of Santa Rosa. Tatum's home is situated on McDonald Avenue in Santa Rosa, next to the houses used in Pollyanna
Pollyanna (1960 film)
Pollyanna is a Walt Disney Productions feature film starring child actress Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Karl Malden and Richard Egan in a story about a cheerful orphan changing the outlook of a small town. Based upon the novel Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter, the film was written and directed by David...
(1960) and Shadow of a Doubt
Shadow of a Doubt
Shadow of a Doubt is a 1943 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten. Written by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, and Alma Reville, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story for Gordon McDonell...
(1943). The home of Lillard's character, which is the location for the entire third act, is a house on Tomales Road east of Tomales Bay that had only recently become available after the death of its owners. The Woodsboro town square, including the fountain where many of the cast sit in an early scene, is represented by the Healdsburg town square. For the Woodsboro high school, Craven desired a building that looked "American", and the producers approached Santa Rosa High School. The school board insisted on seeing the script and immediately objected to the violence against teenage children and the cynical, dark dialogue, including that of the fictional school principal. Local newspapers criticized the project, and irate parents objected to such a film taking place at their children's school. Comparisons were made between film violence and the kidnap and murder of Polly Klaas
Polly Klaas
Polly Hannah Klaas was an American murder victim whose case gained national attention. At the age of twelve, she was kidnapped at knife point from her mother's home during a slumber party in Petaluma, California, on October 1, 1993. She was later strangled...
three years prior, which had left the area sensitized toward violence. The producers received support from the school's students and some local residents, who recognized that economic benefits would be generated by the film's presence. Others argued for the film's First Amendment rights. The dispute resulted in a three-hour debate scheduled for April 16, one day after filming was to begin. Unwilling to be delayed, Craven began filming as scheduled on the 15th. He started with the opening scene of the film, which features Barrymore; the scene took five days to complete. The result of the Santa Rosa debate was that permission would be denied. The production was forced to find another location for the school, and ended up filming at the Sonoma Community Center, southeast of Santa Rosa.
The progress of filming was criticized early on. Bob Weinstein disliked the Ghostface mask, believing it was not "scary". Upon reviewing the dailies
Dailies
Dailies, in filmmaking, are the raw, unedited footage shot during the making of a motion picture. They are so called because usually at the end of each day, that day's footage is developed, synched to sound, and printed on film in a batch for viewing the next day by the director and some members...
footage of the opening scene, the studio was concerned that the film was progressing in an unwanted direction. They considered replacing Craven. To assuage their concerns, Craven and editor Patrick Lussier
Patrick Lussier
Patrick Lussier is a Canadian horror and thriller genre writer, editor and director.- Career :Lussier has worked as a film editor on most of Wes Craven's latter films, including Wes Craven's New Nightmare, Vampire in Brooklyn, Scream and Red Eye and has directed films including Dracula 2000, The...
, developed a rough, workprint
Workprint
A workprint is a rough version of a motion picture, used by the film editor during the editing process. Such copies generally contain original recorded sound that will later be re-dubbed, stock footage as placeholders for missing shots or special effects, and animation tests for in-production...
version of the opening 13 minutes of the film to demonstrate how the completed film might turn out. After viewing the new footage, the studio was content to let Craven continue as director. Weinstein, having seen the mask in action, was satisfied that it could be scary. The third and final act of the film, over forty minutes long, is set at a house party where Ghostface strikes. It was shot at a vacant property in Tomales over 21 nights. The scene, labelled "Scene 118", was considered the most difficult to shoot as it took place entirely in one location yet featured the individual stories and deaths of multiple characters. Actors spent weeks undertaking intense emotional and physical scenes while coated in fake blood and wounds. As the scene was set during the evening, production had no choice but to halt at dawn.
Director of photography
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
Mark Irwin
Mark Irwin
Mark Irwin, A.S.C., C.S.C. is a Canadian cinematographer. He was born in Toronto. His credits run to over one hundred films.-Notable Filmography:*Chromosome 3 *Scanners *Videodrome *The Fly...
was fired during filming of Screams finale, a week before principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
was to be completed. Upon review of the dailies, Craven found the footage was out of focus and unusable. Irwin was initially ordered to fire his camera crew. He retorted that if his crew were to be fired, they would also have to fire him. The producers fired him and replaced him with Peter Deming
Peter Deming
Peter Deming A.S.C. is an American cinematographer, winner of the Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography.Deming was born in Racine, Wisconsin.-Filmography:*Hollywood Shuffle - - Director of Photography...
, who finished the film.
Visual effects and design
To produce the many grisly effects for the film, the producers recruited KNB Effects team Howard Berger, Robert KurtzmanRobert Kurtzman
Robert Kurtzman is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and special effects creator.- Career :Kurtzman began his career in 1984 when he moved from his hometown of Crestline, Ohio, to Hollywood, California, to pursue his interest in special effects. In 1988, along with Gregory...
, and Gregory Nicotero
Gregory Nicotero
Gregory Nicotero is an American special effects creator and actor. In 1988, along with Robert Kurtzman and Howard Berger, he formed KNB Efx Group, a special effects studio which has gone on to work on over 400 film and television projects...
. One of their first tasks was the production of a mask for the film's killer. In his script, Williamson had only described the antagonist as a "masked killer", which gave Craven no specific information on what type of mask to use or how to conceal the body. While location scouting, Maddalena discovered the Ghostface mask hanging from a post inside the house previously used for the film Shadow of a Doubt. Craven wanted to use it, but the mask design was owned by Fun World, a costume company. He was told to create one that the production could own. KNB developed multiple design sketches varying from deformed faces to monstrous visages riddled with fangs. Craven found nothing like the Ghostface design, so he had KNB develop a mask that was based on it, with enough differences to avoid any claim of copyright. The team developed several molds
Molding (process)
Molding or moulding is the process of manufacturing by shaping pliable raw material using a rigid frame or model called a pattern....
based on the Ghostface design, but Craven found none were as suitable as the mask he wanted to use. Desperate to use the design, Craven finally convinced the studio to approach Fun World and gained permission to use the mask. While negotiations were in progress, he had KNB make a mask that was very similar to the original mask, but was appropriate for use in filming. The mask they produced, made of a thin foam, was used in two scenes of the film: the opening scene with Barrymore's character and the murder of Winkler's Principal Himbry. Craven disliked the mask due to its slight differences from the original, and thus used the Fun World design for the rest of filming.
KNB Effects created over 50 gallons of fake blood
Theatrical blood
Theatrical blood or stage blood is anything used as a substitute for blood in a theatrical or cinematic performance. For example, in the special effects industry, when a director needs to simulate an actor being shot or cut, a wide variety of chemicals and natural products can be used...
, normally composed of corn syrup and food dye, to create the visual effect of severe wounds. For the penetrating effect of knives, the production used collapsible blades to prevent injury. An umbrella with a retractable tip is used as a stabbing weapon in the finale. Ulrich wore a protective vest beneath his shirt to help prevent harm while a stuntwoman attacked him with it. The second thrust missed the vest and stabbed Ulrich on his chest, impacting a wound from an open heart surgery operation. Ulrich's genuine pain was captured on film and used in the release version of Scream.
Two of the most complex visual effects in the film were the corpses of Barrymore's and Walls' characters, Casey Becker and Steve Orth. Their deaths involved the character being gutted from ribcage to pelvis, essentially hollowing out the torso of internal organs, with the guts "rolling" from the wound. To allow Walls to continue to move and feign death while displaying the wound, KNB designed a chair with no back. The actor would kneel behind it while his upper body, head, and arms were positioned within the chair's seating area. An anatomical model representing the character's torso and legs was positioned in the chair and disguised so that the actor's upper body and the model appeared to be one piece. The fake abdomen was filled with rubber, latex, and gelatin pieces smeared in fake blood—the "internal organs"—which could then fall free. The other effect involved Barrymore's character being gutted and hung by the neck from a tree. The team utilized a similar approach, but replicated Barrymore's entire body, as it would be impossible to conceal her real body and display the visual effect of her character having been gutted.
Post production
After filming was completed in June 1996, Craven spent two months editing the final product. He encountered repeated conflicts with the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system (MPAA) concerning the content of scenes. He was forced to tone down or obscure the more intense scenes and overall violence to avoid an NC-17 rating, which is considered "box office suicide"—cinemas and retail chains often refused to stock NC-17 titles. Though Dimension Films had previously released NC-17-rated films, the rating made those films difficult to market and attract an audience. Dimension was desperate for a less-restrictive R rating, but the producers felt the demanded cuts would remove key elements from the film and reduce its quality. The opening scene featuring Barrymore was one of the most difficult parts to process through the MPAA, who required cuts based on its "intensity". Craven intentionally lied to the MPAA, claiming he had only one take of the scene and could not replace it with something less intense; the MPAA allowed the scene.Craven sent eight different cuts of the film to deal with complaints. Problematic scenes included the gutting death of Steve Orth (Walls), where he was required to remove any movement of the character's internal organs; the throat-cutting of Kenny, where he had to trim the end of the scene, as the MPAA felt the actor's pained expression was too "disturbing"; and they had to shorten the length of time spent viewing the crushed head of Tatum Riley. The MPAA still held issue with a scene from the finale, where the killers (Ulrich and Lillard) stab each other, creating large amounts of visible blood. The MPAA required that the blood could not be seen in motion—falling to the floor from the body. It seemed unlikely that the film would be able to achieve an R rating without further significant cuts. With the film's release date drawing closer, Bob Weinstein intervened and personally contacted the MPAA. He believed they misunderstood the film and to which genre Scream really belonged, and were focusing too much on the horror elements. Weinstein explained that although he agreed with their assessment that the film was "intense", the film also had comedic elements and satire; it was not just a horror film glorifying violence. The MPAA reviewed their decision; shortly thereafter the film was granted an R rating.
Music
The Scream score was provided by fledgling composer Marco BeltramiMarco Beltrami
Marco Beltrami is an American film composer.-Life and career:Beltrami was born in Long Island, New York of Italian and Greek descent...
, his first time scoring a feature film. Craven's assistant Julie Plec had requested input on composers who were "new", "fresh", and "wonderful", and was given Beltrami's name by several people. Beltrami was contacted for samples of his work. Craven, impressed by what he heard, requested Beltrami come to the set to view the opening thirteen minutes of the film containing the introduction and the death of Barrymore's character. Beltrami was tasked with scoring a piece of music for this scene, which would be reviewed by the producers and the Weinstein brothers. Beltrami was hired to score the entire film on the basis of this sample. Beltrami had no prior experience scoring a work of horror. Craven and editor Patrick Lussier advised him on how to deliver music that would raise the tension and how to use sting
Sting (musical phrase)
A sting is a short musical phrase, primarily used in television shows and films as a form of punctuation—for example at the end of a scene, or as a dramatic climax is imminent...
s to punctuate the more intense moments. Craven wanted the music to intentionally raise tension during scenes where audience expectations were already raised by their experience of previous horror films. The volume would be raised to indicate that the killer is hiding behind a door, but nothing would be present upon its opening.
Beltrami decided to intentionally disregard conventional horror score styles. He approached the film as a western, taking influence from Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces...
, a prolific composer for many westerns. When scoring a theme for the character of Dewey (Arquette), Beltrami approached him as a "quirky" wild west sheriff, using a Morricone-style guitar accompaniment. Sidney Prescott's theme, titled "Sidney's Lament", features a female choral arrangement expressing "sorrow" concerning the character's situation. Beltrami states that the voice "spoke" for the character, "lamenting" the loss of her mother. Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks
Filmtracks.com
Filmtracks.com is a leading modern film score review website created and maintained out of Missoula, Montana by its sole reviewer, Christian Clemmensen...
called the "haunting" vocals of the track the "voice of the franchise". The song was used throughout the film's sequels.
Release
Scream held its premierePremiere
A premiere is generally "a first performance". This can refer to plays, films, television programs, operas, symphonies, ballets and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much media...
on December 18, 1996 at the AMC
AMC Theatres
AMC Theatres , officially known as AMC Entertainment, Inc., is the second largest movie theater chain in North America with 5,325 screens, second only to Regal Entertainment Group, and one of the United States's four national cinema chains AMC Theatres (American Multi-Cinema), officially known as...
Avco theater in Westwood, California
Westwood, California
Westwood is a census-designated place in Lassen County, California, United States. Westwood is located west-southwest of Susanville, at an elevation of 5128 feet...
. Bob Weinstein ordered that the film be released on December 20, 1996, a date others were critical of as it was the Christmas period where seasonal and family films were more prevalent. Weinstein argued this fact was in the film's favor as it meant that horror fans and teenagers had nothing interesting to watch during the December period. When Screams first weekend takings amounted to only $6 million, it was considered that this release date gamble had failed, but the following week, takings did not drop but increased and continued to increase in the following weeks leading to a total U.S. gross of over $100 million and high critical praise.
Box office
The film opened in 1,413 theaters, taking $6,354,586 in its opening weekend, and almost $87 million in its initial release. It was re-released to theatres on April 11, 1997, and accrued a further $16.2 million, for a total domestic gross of $103,046,663, and a worldwide lifetime gross of $173,046,663. Scream remains the most successful of the Scream film series, receiving a largely positive critical reception. Scream 2 generated a worldwide gross of $172,363,301, less than $1 million below that of the first film and $11 million more than Scream 3. As of 2011, Scream is currently the 518th-highest grossing movie worldwide. In the United States, without adjusting for inflation, the film is the 20th-highest grossing horror film, and remains the highest-grossing slasher genre film, followed by Scream 2 and Scream 3, at #2 and #3 respectively.Despite competition from other box office fare such as Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
's Jerry Maguire
Jerry Maguire
Jerry Maguire is a 1996 American romantic comedy-drama film starring Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding, Jr. It was written, co-produced, and directed by Cameron Crowe...
and Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
's Mars Attacks!
Mars Attacks!
Mars Attacks! is a 1996 American science fiction film directed by Tim Burton and based on the cult trading card series of the same name. The film uses elements of black comedy, surreal humour, and political satire, and claims to be also a parody of multiple science fiction B movies...
, its release during the Christmas season, and Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
labeling it "D.O.A.
Dead on arrival
Dead on arrival or D.O.A. is a term used to indicate that a patient was found to be already clinically dead upon the arrival of professional medical assistance, often in the form of first responders such as emergency medical technicians, paramedics, or police...
" before it was even released, Scream became the 15th-highest grossing film of 1996, well placed amongst big-budget blockbusters
Blockbuster (entertainment)
Blockbuster, as applied to film or theatre, denotes a very popular or successful production. The entertainment industry use was originally theatrical slang referring to a particularly successful play but is now used primarily by the film industry...
released that year such as Independence Day
Independence Day (film)
Independence Day is a 1996 science fiction film about an alien invasion of Earth, focusing on a disparate group of individuals and families as they converge in the Nevada desert and, along with the rest of the human population, participate in a last-chance counterattack on July 4 – the same...
and Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible (film)
Mission: Impossible is a 1996 action thriller directed by Brian De Palma and starring Tom Cruise. Following on from the television series of the same name, the plot follows a new agent, Ethan Hunt and his mission to uncover the mole within the CIA who has framed him for the murders of his entire...
. It was shown in cinemas for nearly eight months after its release.
| Release date (United States) |
Budget (estimated) |
Box office revenue | Box office ranking | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Foreign | Worldwide | Release year | All time U.S. | All time worldwide | |||
| December 20, 1996 | $15,000,000 | $103,046,663 | $70,000,000 | $173,046,663 | #15 | #436 | #518 | |
| Note(s)
|
||||||||
Critical reception
Scream received critical praise from film reviewers, who appreciated the shift from the teen slasher films of the 1980s and their "endless series of laborious, half-baked sequels." Kevin Thomas of The Los Angeles Times called Scream "a bravura, provocative sendup of horror pictures" and complimented the film for being "scary and gruesome" while avoiding a sense of "morbidity". EmpireEmpire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
Adam Smith called it "Clever, quick and bloody funny." Williamson's script was praised as containing a "fiendishly clever, complicated plot" which "deftly mixes irony, self-reference and wry social commentary with chills and blood spills." Time Out London lauded the film's intelligence and scares, while praising the casting, saying "at last, a horror movie to shout about!" Film4
Film4
Film4 is a free digital television channel available in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, owned and operated by Channel 4, that screens films.-Programming:...
cited Craven's own Wes Craven's New Nightmare
Wes Craven's New Nightmare
Wes Craven's New Nightmare is a 1994 horror metafilm written and directed by Wes Craven. Although it is the seventh installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, it is not part of the series continuity, instead portraying Freddy Krueger as a fictional movie villain who invades the real world...
(1994) and its cast of self-aware characters as inspiration for Scream, but declared that while New Nightmare was a "noble failure – pretty smart, but crucially not very scary" that Scream was "not merely clever...it is, from its breathtaking opening sequence (with Barrymore as the woman in peril) onwards, simply terrifying." Scream is "certified fresh" on the review site Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, which develops an average score based on critics' reviews. On review-aggregate site Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, the film holds a score of 65 out of 100 based on 25 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
presented a mixed response, appreciating "the in-jokes and the self-aware characters", but was confused over whether the level of violence was "defused by the ironic way the film uses it and comments on it." The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
Janet Maslin was not as appreciative of the film, saying "not much of 'Scream' is that gruesome"; she observes that Craven "wants things both ways, capitalizing on lurid material while undermining it with mocking humor. Not even horror fans who can answer all this film's knowing trivia questions may be fully comfortable with such an exploitative mix." Despite being critical of the film itself, calling it "one experiment that needed more lab time", Variety complimented the "strong" ensemble cast, singling out the performances of Campbell and Ulrich as "charismatic". The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
claimed that the film had promise, saying "It appeared to be clever, dangerous, witty, and fresh" but went on to label it as derivative of the films it satirized: "Scream runs out of humour, and in turn robs itself of the chance to get the audience to take the thrills and gut-spills it offers seriously."
Accolades
Scream received several awards and award nominations following its release, including the Saturn AwardSaturn Award
The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
for Best Actress for Campbell, Best Writing
Saturn Award for Best Writing
The following is a list of people who have won the Saturn Award for Best Writing.-Multiple Winners:*James Cameron - 3 awards*Christopher Nolan - 3 awards*William Peter Blatty - 3 awards-External links:* http://www.saturnawards.org/past.html#writing...
for Kevin Williamson, and Best Horror Film
Saturn Award for Best Horror Film
The following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Horror Film:-References:...
; it received Saturn nominations for Best Director for Wes Craven and Best Supporting Actor for Ulrich and Barrymore. Craven was awarded the Grand Prize at the Gérardmer Film Festival. The film was awarded the 1997 Best Movie
MTV Movie Award for Best Movie
This is a following list of the MTV Movie Award winners and nominees for Best Movie.-References:...
by the MTV Movie Awards
MTV Movie Awards
The MTV Movie Awards is a film awards show presented annually on MTV . It also contains movie parodies that used official movie footage with hosts and other celebrities and music performances. The nominees are decided by producers and executives at MTV. Winners are decided online by the general...
, while Campbell received a nomination for Best Female Performance
MTV Movie Award for Best Performance
This is a following list of the MTV Movie Award winners and nominees for Best Performance from 1992 onward. In all but two years, the awards are separated into Male and Female categories.-1992:...
.
| Year | Award | Category | Work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | International Horror Guild International Horror Guild Award The International Horror Guild Award is a recognition presented by the International Horror Guild to recognize the achievements of those who create in the field of horror and dark fantasy. Nancy A. Collins, the founder of the award, felt there was a need for an award granted by a large,... |
Best Film | Scream | ||
| Saturn Award Saturn Award The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within... |
Best Actress | Neve Campbell Neve Campbell Neve Adrianne Campbell is a Canadian actress. After beginning her career on stage, and on numerous commercials, she starred on the Canadian television series Catwalk. She then rose to international fame on the Golden Globe-winning 1990s television series Party of Five, playing the role of teenager... |
|||
| Best Direction Saturn Award for Best Direction The following is a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Direction:-Multiple Winners:*James Cameron - 5 awards*Steven Spielberg - 4 awards*Peter Jackson - 3 awards*Bryan Singer - 2 awards... |
Wes Craven Wes Craven Wesley Earl "Wes" Craven is an American actor, film director, writer, producer, perhaps best known as the director of many horror films, particularly slasher films, including the famed A Nightmare on Elm Street and Wes Craven's New Nightmare, featuring the iconic Freddy Krueger character, the... |
||||
| Best Horror Film Saturn Award for Best Horror Film The following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Horror Film:-References:... |
Scream | ||||
| Best Supporting Actor | Skeet Ulrich Skeet Ulrich Bryan Ray Trout , best known as Skeet Ulrich, is an American actor best known for starring in the CBS drama Jericho as Jake Green and for portraying Billy Loomis in Scream... |
||||
| Best Supporting Actress | Drew Barrymore Drew Barrymore Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered... |
||||
| Best Writing Saturn Award for Best Writing The following is a list of people who have won the Saturn Award for Best Writing.-Multiple Winners:*James Cameron - 3 awards*Christopher Nolan - 3 awards*William Peter Blatty - 3 awards-External links:* http://www.saturnawards.org/past.html#writing... |
Kevin Williamson | ||||
| 1997 | MTV Movie Award | Best Female Performance MTV Movie Award for Best Performance This is a following list of the MTV Movie Award winners and nominees for Best Performance from 1992 onward. In all but two years, the awards are separated into Male and Female categories.-1992:... |
Neve Campbell | ||
| Best Movie MTV Movie Award for Best Movie This is a following list of the MTV Movie Award winners and nominees for Best Movie.-References:... |
Scream | ||||
| Gérardmer Film Festival Fantastic'Arts The Festival international du film fantastique de Gérardmer is an international festival of horror and science fiction films which has been held each year since 1994 in Gérardmer in the Vosges, France towards the end of January... |
Grand Prize | Wes Craven | |||
Home media
Scream was released in the United States on VHSVHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
on December 2, 1997, and on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
on December 3, 1997. A Collector's Edition of the film was released on December 8, 1998, containing the film, the theatrical trailer, cast interviews, a director's commentary, and behind the scenes
Making-of
In cinema, a making-of, also known as behind-the-scenes, is a documentary film that features the production of a film or television program...
information. These releases were all undertaken by Buena Vista Home Entertainment. Following the release of Scream 3
Scream 3
Scream 3 is a 2000 American slasher film created by Kevin Williamson, directed by Wes Craven and written by Ehren Kruger, starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox Arquette and David Arquette, released on February 4, 2000 as the third, and originally, concluding installment in the Scream film series...
, Scream and its first two sequels were collected in "The Ultimate Scream Collection" by Dimension Films on September 26, 2000, a boxset containing the three films and a bonus disc containing "Behind the Scream", a 30 minute documentary about the production of the three films, and additional material, including screentests and outtakes.
Scream remained unreleased in foreign territories, including Europe and Japan, until 2001. It was simultaneously released with Scream 2 and Scream 3 on February 26 by Buena Vista Home Entertainment. Each package contained additional content found in the Collector's Edition version of the US release, including deleted scenes, outtakes, theatrical trailers, music videos, and crew commentary. The three films were sold as a collection called the "Scream Trilogy", released on February 26, 2001.
On March 29, 2011, two weeks prior to the release of Scream 4
Scream 4
Scream 4 is a 2011 American slasher horror film and the fourth installment in the Scream film series. Directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson, writer of Scream and Scream 2, the film stars an ensemble cast which includes David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Emma Roberts,...
, Scream was released in US territories on Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
by Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Lionsgate Home Entertainment is the home video and DVD distribution arm of Lions Gate Entertainment and most former Artisan Entertainment releases. Its library of more than 8000 films owes some of its size to output deals with other studios...
. The Blu-rays present the films in 1080p
1080p
1080p is the shorthand identification for a set of HDTV high-definition video modes that are characterized by 1080 horizontal lines of resolution and progressive scan, meaning the image is not interlaced as is the case with the 1080i display standard....
high definition
High-definition video
High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...
. The releases contain all the additional materials found on the Collector's Edition DVD, including outtakes and deleted scenes.
Soundtrack
The Scream original soundtrack was released on December 17, 1996, by TVT RecordsTVT Records
TVT Records was an independent US record label founded by Steve Gottlieb. Over the course of its 25 year history the label released some 25 Gold, Platinum and Multi-platinum releases. Its roster included Nine Inch Nails, Ja Rule, Lil Jon, Underworld, The KLF, Sevendust, Brian Jonestown Massacre and...
. The soundtrack features 11 songs—most of which appeared in various scenes in the film—plus a piece from the film's score, "Trouble In Woodsboro"/"Sidney's Lament", by Beltrami. The Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades...
version of "School's Out
School's Out (song)
Female pop duo Daphne & Celeste, released a cover of the song in 2000. The chorus is based on Alice Cooper's hit of the same name, and some other elements of that song have been retained, although much of the song is "original", in a pop-rap style...
" appeared in the film following the closure of Woodsboro high school, but it was replaced with a cover
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
version of the song by The Last Hard Men on the album. An acoustic cover of Blue Öyster Cult
Blue Öyster Cult
Blue Öyster Cult, often abbreviated BÖC, is an American rock band, most of whose members first came together in Long Island, NY in 1967 as the band Soft White Underbelly...
's "Don't Fear the Reaper", performed by Gus Black
Gus Black
Gus Black is an American singer-songwriter/producer from Los Angeles. He signed to Almo Sounds, a subsidiary of A&M Records, and released two albums on the label, 1996's Gus and 1999's Word of Mouth Parade. He covered Blue Öyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" for the Scream soundtrack...
, plays softly in the background while Sidney and Billy discuss their relationship. Analyst Jeff Smith describes the musical choice as
The song "Red Right Hand
Red Right Hand
"Red Right Hand" is a 1994 song and single from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.It first appeared on the album Let Love In, where it ran at 6:10. It was later released as a single at the condensed length of 4:48...
" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are an Australian alternative rock band, formed in Melbourne in 1983. The band is fronted by Nick Cave and has featured international personnel throughout their career.-Formation and early releases :...
, heard in the first film, is also used in Scream 2 and Scream 3. Nick Cave performs a version of the track written specifically for Scream 3 in that film. An alternate version of the music video "Drop Dead Gorgeous" by Republica
Republica
Republica are an English alternative rock band formed in 1994. The height of their popularity spanned from 1996 to 1999. The Republica sound was described by the band as "techno-pop punk rock"...
, featuring clips from the film, was shown on music networks such as MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
. Although the song can be heard in the film, it is not included on the soundtrack album. The song was also used in one of the film's television commercials. The soundtrack album was not considered a success, failing to chart on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
. Allmusic awarded the album 3 stars out of 5.
Score
The Scream score by Marco BeltramiMarco Beltrami
Marco Beltrami is an American film composer.-Life and career:Beltrami was born in Long Island, New York of Italian and Greek descent...
was released by Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums as well as newer releases by artists no longer under a contract...
on July 14, 1998, on a CD titled "Scream/Scream 2", which also contained tracks from the score of Scream 2. The release consisted of only six tracks—"Sidney's Lament", "Altered Ego", "A Cruel World", "Trouble in Woodsboro", "Chasing Sidney", and "NC-17"—with a runtime of only 12 minutes, compared to over an hour of music made for the film and the more common 30–45 minutes of music found in other original scores. Some reviewers felt the restricted runtime was a result of the high cost of releasing a composer's music commercially, combined with Varèse Sarabande's unwillingness to pay.
The score to Scream received generally positive reviews, with Mikael Carlsson labeling it as "some of the most intriguing horror scores composed in years". Filmtracks.com claimed the scores had "cult status", awarding it 3 stars out of 5. AllMusic said that the score "perfectly captured the post-modern, hip scare-ride of the Scream movies", also giving it 3 stars out of 5.
Sequels
Williamson had attached 5-page proposals for potential sequels to Scream when he originally sold the script, hoping to entice prospective buyers into buying a film and a franchise. When Dimension Films bought the script, they secured Williamson for two future Scream films, should the original prove successful. After a highly-positive test screening of Scream at which executives from Dimension Films and Miramax were present, Craven was signed to direct the two future sequels. After the film's box office and critical success, the first sequel was greenlit and sent into production while Scream was still in theaters. The second picture was given an increased budget. The surviving cast—Campbell, Cox, Arquette, Kennedy, and Schreiber—all returned, as well as much of the original crew, including editor Patrick Lussier and composer Marco Beltrami. A third film followed shortly after, again with the crew and surviving cast returning to create what was, at the time, the concluding film in the Scream trilogy. The three original films, released in a five-year period, followed the story of Sidney Prescott's encounters with a succession of killers adopting the Ghostface disguise. The films also analyze her relationship with her deceased mother, who inadvertently initiates the events depicted in the films. Scream 2 fared as well financially and critically as its predecessor, while Scream 3 fared significantly worse on both counts, with critics deriding the film as having become what the original had so deftly satirized.Fifteen years after the release of Scream and eleven years after the release of the last film in the series, The Weinstein Company
The Weinstein Company
The Weinstein Company is an American film studio founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in 2005 after the brothers left the then-Disney-owned Miramax Films, which they had co-founded in 1979...
released a new sequel, Scream 4
Scream 4
Scream 4 is a 2011 American slasher horror film and the fourth installment in the Scream film series. Directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson, writer of Scream and Scream 2, the film stars an ensemble cast which includes David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Emma Roberts,...
, on April 15, 2011. Campbell, Cox and Arquette all return to their roles, and Craven, Williamson, and Beltrami return to the production side. The Weinstein Company stated that the success of Scream 4 could lead to potential sequels and a new Scream trilogy, with Campbell, Arquette, Craven, and Williamson all having been contracted or expressed interest in appearing in future installments.
Controversies
In the years following the release of Scream, the film has been accused of inspiring copycat crimes and inducing violent acts.In January 1998, 16-year-old Mario Padilla and his 14-year-old cousin, Samuel Ramirez stabbed Mario's mother, Gina Castillo, 45 times, killing her. The case became known as the "Scream murder" and fell under intense media scrutiny after the boys claimed they were inspired by Scream and Scream 2. The pair confessed to needing the money acquired from Gina's murder to fund a killing spree, purchase two Ghostface costumes, and a voice-changer used by the character in the film. During their trial, psychologist Madeline Levine who studied the effect of violence on children, stated
The case was expected to highlight the effect of violent films on teenagers. However, presiding judge John Cheroske ordered that evidence pertaining to Scream be barred and that the case not be referred to as the "Scream murder", refusing media access to the courtroom, intending that the case was tried as murder and nothing else.
On January 17, 1999, 13-year-old Ashley Murray was stabbed multiple times in the head and back before being left for dead by his then-friends Daniel Gill, 14, and Robert Fuller, 15. He was later found and saved by an elderly man walking his dog. The pair were dubbed the "Scream attackers" after it emerged that they had watched Scream shortly before the attack and drawings of the Ghostface mask were found among their possessions. Their actions were additionally blamed on physical abuse
Physical abuse
Physical abuse is abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm.-Forms of physical abuse:*Striking*Punching*Belting*Pushing, pulling*Slapping*Whipping*Striking with an object...
, drugs and exposure to black magic
Black magic
Black magic is the type of magic that draws on assumed malevolent powers or is used with the intention to kill, steal, injure, cause misfortune or destruction, or for personal gain without regard to harmful consequences. As a term, "black magic" is normally used by those that do not approve of its...
in their home life. Murray, who later testified against the pair, stated that he believed the film may have influenced the pair to attack him.
On May 4, 1999, following the Columbine High School massacre
Columbine High School massacre
The Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States, near Denver and Littleton. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12...
and increasing news media reports on the effects on violent films, games, and other media on society, the United States Senate Commerce committee
United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
The United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is a standing committee of the United States Senate in charge of all senate matters related to the following subjects:* Coast Guard* Coastal zone management* Communications...
held a hearing about Hollywood's marketing of films to youths. The committee focused specifically on horror films. The opening scene of Scream featuring the murder of Barrymore's character was shown to the committee as an example of negative media which may be viewed by children.
Legacy
Prior to Screams release the popularity of the horror genre had been considered to be in decline with many films released straight to DVD while those released in cinemas were sequels to popular and established franchises, such as Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, capable of drawing audiences despite decreasing budgets and diminishing critical reception. The glut of sequels contributed to audience familiarity with the icons of the late 1970s and early 1980s such as Freddy Kruger and Jason VoorheesJason Voorhees
Jason Voorhees is a fictional character from the Friday the 13th series of slasher films. He first appeared in Friday the 13th , as the son of camp cook-turned-murderer, Mrs. Voorhees, in which he was portrayed by Ari Lehman. Created by Victor Miller, with contributions by Ron Kurz, Sean S...
that they were considered to have lost their ability to instill scares or interest in their audience. Scream, utilizing a popular and attractive cast and an innovative script that mocked and embraced the conventions of horror which had become considered cliche, was credited with changing the status of the genre, becoming both a financial and critical success, and launching the careers of many of its actors. Such was the film's impact that some commentators considered its legacy as the creation of a distinct era of "post-Scream" horror films. Following its release many studios, including Screams own Dimension Films, rushed to capitalize on its unexpected success with the release of films such as I Know What You Did Last Summer
I Know What You Did Last Summer
I Know What You Did Last Summer is a 1997 American horror film. The film stars Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Freddie Prinze Jr. The screenplay was written by Kevin Williamson, writer of Scream, and very loosely based on Lois Duncan's popular novel of the same title...
(1997) and Urban Legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
(1998) as well as sequels to popular, but diminishing, franchises such as Halloween H20 and Bride of Chucky
Bride of Chucky
Bride of Chucky is a 1998 American comedy horror film directed by Chinese director Ronny Yu. It is the fourth entry in the Child's Play series. The film stars Jennifer Tilly and Brad Dourif...
.
In June 2001, as part of the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
's (AFI) AFI 100 Years... series
AFI 100 Years... series
The AFI's 100 Years… series is a series of CBS television specials featuring the American Film Institute celebrating 100 years of the greatest films in America.The specials are:* 1998: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies* 1999: AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars...
, Scream became one of the 400 nominees in the 100 Years... 100 Thrills
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills
Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Thrills is a list of the top 100 heart-pounding movies in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute on June 12, 2001, during a CBS special hosted by Harrison Ford....
category. In 2003, the character Ghostface
Ghostface (Scream)
Ghostface is a fictional identity adopted by the main antagonists in the Scream series of slasher films. The character is voiced by Roger L. Jackson regardless of who is behind the mask...
was nominated in the category 100 Heroes and Villains
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains is a list of the 100 greatest screen characters chosen by American Film Institute in June 2003. It is part of the AFI 100 Years… series. The series was first presented in a CBS special hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger...
. In 2005, "Do you like scary movies", as spoken by Roger Jackson, was nominated for AFI's 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes, a list of the greatest cinematic quotes.
Scream ranks #32 on Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
list of the "50 Best High School Movies", and the opening scene featuring the death of Barrymore's character ranked #13 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. In 2008, Entertainment Weekly dubbed the film a "New Classic" by ranking it #60 in their list of the "100 Best Films of the Last 13 years". In 2008 Empire ranked the film #482 on their list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time".
| Year | Award | Recipient | Ranking | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills | Scream | |||
| 2003 | AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains | Ghostface Ghostface (Scream) Ghostface is a fictional identity adopted by the main antagonists in the Scream series of slasher films. The character is voiced by Roger L. Jackson regardless of who is behind the mask... |
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| 2004 | Bravos "100 Scariest Movie Moments" | Opening scene | #13 | ||
| 2005 | AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes | "Do you like scary movies?" | |||
| 2008 | Empires "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time" | Scream | #482 | ||
| Entertainment Weeklys "50 Best High School Movies" | Scream | #32 | |||
| Entertainment Weeklys 100 Best Films of the Last 13 Years | Scream | #60 | |||