Halloween is tomorrow which means its prime time for a classic horror movie. I couldn’t put my finger on the quintessential horror flick to watch for Halloween. Of course, John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) immediately sprang to mind, but Wes Craven’s Scream (1996) is also a Halloween classic. I asked local hero Abi Todd which one she would choose and she said, “I don’t know, do Scream” So Scream it is. 

Scream was written by Kevin Williamson and directed by the legendary Wes Craven, who is famous in the horror industry for his work on Nightmare on Elm Street, The Hills Have Eyes, and The People Under The Stairs. Scream was released in 1996 and became an enormous hit, and along the way redefined the horror genre. 

The premise of the movie is that there is an unknown serial killer roaming a small California town, slicing up high school students with a knife. In the classic opening scene, two teenagers are murdered when one’s parents aren’t home, and a manhunt for the killer ensues. All of this dredges up memories of another teenager’s mothers murder a year earlier, and a mystery that desperately needs to be solved. 

Scream was an unusual horror film because, while most horror films featured completely unknown actors, Scream stared to well-known names: Drew Barrymore and Courtney Cox . The casting choice of Barrymore served a ruse to rope people into watching the movie because of her A list status at the time. What the audience didn’t know is that SPOILER ALERT: before moviegoers could finish their popcorn, Barrymore’s character gets killed off in the opening scene. This forced anyone who came to watch Drew in the movie to stick around and appreciate some of the lesser-known actors in the cast, many of whom later went on to their own stardom. The best example of this is Matthew Lillard who went on to both voice act and act as Shaggy in the live action Scooby Doo movies as well as some animated Scooby Doo adventures. 

Another way that Scream was unique is that it was a satire of horror movies themselves. The movie plays on all of the classic horror tropes of popular scary movies that came before Scream. In fact the original title for the movie was “Scary Movie” but was changed later in production. The title was used in an unrelated film later on, and you may recognize the title from the slapstick comedy series that you watched as a kid. 

Anyone that has seen a slasher from the era knows the tropes at which Scream pokes fun. One of the most famous scenes in the film points this out greatly. Jamie Kennedy’s character Randy explains the rules necessary to survive the mayhem of a slasher film. Rule 1: You can’t have sex. Rule 2: No drinking or drugs. Rule 3: Under no circumstances can you walk off alone and say “I’ll be right back.” Now while these rules are lame, they do apply to the majority of slashers that preceded Scream and embody the morals of the horror genre in the late 70s and 80s very well. The critique of these tropes creates fun opportunities to compare how the rules apply to famous slashers we know and love. Scream plays homage to an insane number of films to which it makes references, such as Halloween, Friday The 13th, Hellraiser, When A Stranger Calls, The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, and more. 

Since its release Scream has remained an iconic film with which people are familiar even if they haven’t seen the movie. This is mostly due to the iconic mask worn by the killer that has become a Halloween costume staple and a household image. World class sweetheart Zach Effman said, “when I think of ScreamI think of the mask; I’ve never seen it though.” Scream manages to be a self- aware satire while at the same time functioning as an all-time great horror movie. The movie was so successful one could argue that it outright killed the slasher genre by exposing the flaws and recurring cliches the genre presents. Overall I’d rate Scream a solid 9/10 as a horror movie, as a satire and as an appreciation to slasher flicks. It gets better the more you watch it, and you can appreciate more of the references Scream makes as you watch more horror movies. Scream is a must-see for fans of classic horror.