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Drew Barrymore gives her best “Scream”. 
A lot of landline calls in this! 
The iconic “Ghostface”.
We are continuing our coverage of the “master of horror”, Wes Craven. We have already discussed “Vampire in Brooklyn” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street“. With our “B-Roll” selection, we chose to watch 1996’s “Scream”!
Scream is a metatextual homage to the slasher films that defined the late ’70s and 80s. It stars Neve Campbell as Sidney, a high schooler who finds her town under siege from a murderer. A masked murderer, known as “Ghostface”, has been running riot and stacking up kill after kill. Sidney and her friends find themselves targeted by Ghostface. They learn that an event from Sidney’s past might be the key to figuring out what is going on.
Released in 1996, Wes Craven’s Scream was born from a screenplay that was based on the terror of the “Gainesville Ripper“. At the time, the horror genre was being flooded with sequels and knock-offs that were diluting the quality of the offerings (remember “Leprechaun”?). Scream’s screenplay satirically played off the tropes of the slasher genre while at the same time portraying a deadly serious slasher plotline. The combination of comedy and horror, a Craven trademark, propelled the film far beyond expectations. It quickly became a series of films and eventually became a television series on MTV.
Looking back on it, Scream might not be a masterpiece of a film. It oozes a ’90s aesthetic and has a middle section that drags. It features some over-the-top performances. The dialogue feels like a poor man’s version of a Tarantino script.
But despite all these flaws, Scream managed to reinvigorate the horror genre. It led to the resuscitation of Wes Craven’s career. Additionally, the iconic opening scene and the murder-filled conclusion are still effective. And who can forget Henry Winkler’s scene-stealing performance with those scissors?
The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus reads, ” Horror icon Wes Craven’s subversive deconstruction of the genre is sly, witty, and surprisingly effective as a slasher film itself, even if it’s a little too cheeky for some.”
Join Wes, Clay, and Amanda as they discuss Scream and try to determine how it fits into the filmography and career of Wes Craven.
Plus!
The gang talks about the effectiveness of jump scares, the “workman-like” nature of Craven, and the palatial estates of the characters!