"Scream" - The Series Overview
We're keeping up the October horror spirit here on Trash Mutant, and that's why we're particularly happy about our good friend ReuBen DeBord being back with a very special guest article! Why is it special? Because it's an absolutely EPIC overview of the "Scream" movie series! Take it away, ReuBen!
I’ve never really been into horror films, but I’ve always felt like I’m vaguely “aware” of the conventions that go into these films. Franchises like Friday the 13th, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, they all follow this same sort of pattern that doesn’t seem to allow for much in the way of out of the box thinking. At least, that’s my impression. Since I don’t consider myself an expert on these movies, perhaps I’m not the one to make these assessments. But what I understand is that there’s your group of characters, bonus points if they’re all young, like high school or college age. In a group of five or six, one of them will be the, airquotes, good one of the bunch. He or she (more often a she) is referred to as the Last Girl standing. (S)He is called such because (s)he is the one that survives this massacre. Even movies that might not traditionally be considered horror films, we’ve seen this pattern leak into those movies. After you watch Halloween, and then you watch Terminator and Alien, it’s abundantly clear that one genre has been sleeping around. And the final ingredient in any of these films is the supernatural larger than life force or being that the very average normal ordinary joe faces off against. Freddy, Jason, Michael, the Terminator: what makes the Last Girl Standing’s victory so noteworthy in these films is that these are extraordinary threats. To the point where it’s hard to call the triumphs of the Laurie Strodes even “triumphs” if their nemeses survive for multiple sequels (and yeah, in some cases, like Terminator and Alien, it’s a different “thing” that comes back for a sequel, but now we’re just nitpicking).
On the one hand, you might think that this would make the foes of this film less terrifying. They’re just dudes. Ah, but there’s where this film is brilliant. The small town where the first movie is set is effectively thrown into a panic by just a couple of dudes. Not a demon or an alien or a robot. What makes this even more terrifying and morbid is that this movie inspired real life crazy people to kill someone, in an effort to use the victim’s money to buy equipment that would allow them to dress up in the Ghostface costume and kill other people. It’s debatable on if these atrocities were caused by the movie, or if they would have happened anyway, even if this movie didn’t exist. After all, one of our villains says the unforgettable line “Movies don't create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative!” And as I understand it, this real life tragedy that is probably inspired by this first movie pretty much neutered this franchise of movies for the next 15 years. But I’ll get there later.
So the first movie is pretty simple, as it both follows the general pattern of previous horror movies, and it also subverts that pattern as well. You’ve got your group of teenagers who are all friends or at least are friendly enough with each other that they hang out with each other and go to parties and such. And all of these violent murders are happening. Drew Barrymore and her boyfriend, Principal Fonzy. And all of this is happening about 2 days before the anniversary of the death of Neve Campbell’s mother. And so a rookie going into this movie will be looking at our cast of characters and will be trying to figure out who the killer is. And that is where Wes Craven sucker punches everyone who is watching this movie. It isn’t a single killer, but rather, 2 killers. So if this character has an air tight alibi that means he couldn’t possibly have killed that person, then we are all meant to let down our guard and mentally cross him off our check list of possible killers. And apparently, this was borne from a conflict behind the scenes. Apparently the people making the movie couldn’t decide on whether the killer should have a motive or not. They took a vote, and half the people voted yes, give the killer a motive, because audiences want to KNOW why the characters are making the choices they are making. And the other half of the people making the movie said no, no motive makes the bad guy more mysterious and when we can’t understand the villain, that makes him scarier. So they compromised. Two villains. One has a reason for doing what he’s doing, the other seemingly has no reason. And this simple alteration of the ending is what allows for the mind blowage of everyone who was expecting just one single villain to be unmasked at the end. Even on repeat viewings, nobody can watch this movie and say “well, this killing must be that one guy right there.” It’s still hard to tell exactly who is doing the stabby at which point in the movie, and it’s all thanks to this brilliant idea to have multiple villains pulling these crimes together. There’s still so much else I could talk about with the first movie, but as this piece is meant to be an overview of the entire Scream franchise, I must move on. The second and third movie both had to be significantly altered and reshot for a couple of reasons. One, Craven battled the MPAA because the first Scream was deemed “intense” and even that movie had been toned down for its release. But factor that in with the real life murders that were potentially inspired by the first movie, you can imagine it would have been difficult to make a sequel with so much pressure from all sides. But Craven probably isn’t the kind of guy to be deterred. In a move that is the picture definition of art inspired by life inspired by art, the second movie is, in many ways, just as brilliant as the first, though it feels less innovative and primal when you’re watching it. One thing I love about the second movie is the conceit that, in this world, the events of the first movie were made into a movie, and now everyone in the world knows about the killings of the previous movie. And this itself gives us a really good reason why there might be more incidents that are similar to the first movie. We don’t have the same bad guys as the first movie, but we have other crazy people who are inspired by those bad guys. (Remember, movies don’t create psychos, they just make them more creative). Like I said, this is a genius move, because the first movie really did inspire some kids to kill someone, and now the sequel is giving us the story of a dude who was inspired by a movie to go out and do his own killing. Brilliant. And what is probably the biggest reason the second movie was altered as it was being filmed was that, somehow, the script was leaked to the internet. Now in 1997, the internet wasn’t quite the haven of information accessibility as it is now. But apparently, the network and the people working on the movie felt that with the details of the plot now revealed to the world, the identities of the killers and even some of the victims had to be changed. So while I can understand why the second movie feels choppier and less perfect than the first movie, it still doesn’t change the fact that the second film is choppier and less perfect. In our second film, we still have 2 people committing these murders, but one of them really does remind me of that one episode of Scooby Doo where the kids unmask the criminal, and it’s some dude we’ve never seen before. A mystery absolutely must present all of the clues to the audience so that it is at least possible for them to figure out what is going on. So revealing that this one character who has had like one line of dialogue is actually the (*SPOILER*SPOILER*SPOILER*) mother of one of the killers from the previous movie, and she’s angry that our Last Girl Standing killed him, that’s pretty weak sauce. And then our other killer, at least for me, he was pretty easy to spot as one of the villains. He wasn’t even in roughly half of the movie, which made me suspect that he was absent because he was off killing people. But again, this movie can’t help that someone was an elephant’s anus and leaked the script to the internet. (part of me really wishes I could visit the alternate universe where the script wasn’t altered and we got the movie where there were four copycat killers, but oh well. It is what it is.) Now one thing I have not talked about in these movies is their self awareness. The first movie had the character who worked in a video store (remember those? Our Blockbuster is now an empty husk and it makes me sad), and he was so familiar with movies in general that he knew the “rules” of horror movies. One of the more famous scenes from the first movie is when he is telling everyone at a party all the rules to survive in a horror movie. This is interesting because the killers really aren’t following any rules that he speaks of, and the survivors of the massacre are not themselves technically followers of the rules either. I bring this up now because, in our second movie (*SPOILER*SPOILER*SPOILER*), he dies. It’s sad, not because you’re attached to the character (although I guess it’s possible that you would be, after 2 films). But what’s sad is that this character was what made this series of movies different than, say, Halloween. Halloween was the movie where the girl would probably walk into the dark basement alone after hearing a noise. Scream is the one that allows the characters to be smart and do things that you would not see in a horror movie. And when this character dies, that element of self awareness the first two films had disappears. Sure, the third movie has a brief scene where his unknown sister, Heather Matarazzo, brings a tape where he gives advice from beyond the grave of what to do in case he dies. But really, in my humble, the third movie was an all time low that is best left forgotten. Without that level of self awareness, it just felt like the people who once brought us greatness are now just trying to cash in on this property one more time, without a real “idea” behind the movie that the other 2 had. (Even the second movie, flawed it was, still had a very interesting idea behind it.) The third movie also devolves a little bit in that this movie only has the one killer. So if you go back and watch the movie, it becomes apparent who is doing what, or when it’s not apparent, you begin to wonder “how is just one person able to do everything he does here?” This movie also tries to plant connections to the first movie that seem tenuous at best, and like the people behind the movie just want more money at worst. So that would’ve been it, except that 11 years later, we got another movie. This one was, in my opinion, the closest one to capture the spirit and tone of the first movie. When I was watching 2 and 3, I never realized how much I missed the original setting of the small town where the first movie is set, but that really does make a world of difference, when you’re watching the fourth movie after seeing the previous 2 installments. This movie also does what movies like Crocodile Dundee 3 or Indiana Jones 4 failed at. Those movies went for the very predictable passing of the torch plot. This movie does more or less work in real time, so now Neve Campbell is in her 30s and there’s an entirely new generation of teenagers in this town who, thanks to the ingenuity of the second film, idolize Ghostface, and we even have a few of them, who are trying to recreate the circumstances of the original killings for their own reasons. And we even have new rules that horror movies follow, so we’ve got a new different kind of awareness of what this movie and this franchise has become. This movie also takes us back to characters who are really terrifying, not because they are invincible, but because of why they are doing what they are doing. And I should probably mention that this movie had an advantage over the second film, which had to restructure just about everything about its plot because of internet leakage, and the third movie, which had to become almost a Kill-comedy to please the network. This didn’t have those restrictions. For better or worse, in the year 2011, horror movies were scarier than they were in 2000, so it was okay for this kind of movie to be intense. Now I had heard that Scream 4 was an attempt to relaunch the franchise and maybe even become the first installment in a brand new trilogy. But here we are, 2 years later, and there’s no news of a Scream 5. Is this good or bad? Well, personally, I enjoyed Scream 4 quite a bit. It reminded me why I loved the first movie so much. So if we could get 2 more movies that are as groundbreaking and just plain exciting as the first and fourth movies were, then heck yeah, I’d love to see some more Scream movies. But if Wes Craven says it’s not gonna happen, then I certainly wouldn’t want to see them happen anyway, if his heart wasn’t in it. You might say that (*SPOILER*SPOILER*SPOILER*) most of the new characters introduced in 4 died, so it’d be tough to even do a fifth movie, unless it then introduced EVEN MORE new characters. Which, it could do that. But we’re not sure if Hayden Panettiere actually died, or was just wounded. And then there’s Heather Matarazzo, who would more than likely still be around, since we never saw her beyond her cameo in 3. I think there’s enough stray characters from each of the films that a fifth movie could work. And apparently, at one point, an idea was floated around for a sequel, where Matt Lillard, from prison, would be orchestrating a new wave of killings. Now this would be hard to pull off, as Lillard’s character was hardly a criminal mastermind. And since it’s been so long since his character was even a presence in the franchise, that’d also be hard to buy. But, C’mon, I’d want to see that movie! Admit it, you would to! But by the time we got to the fourth movie, one thing I was getting a little tired of was seeing Courtney Cox, David Arquette and Neve Campbell. They were all great, but after 4 movies, when almost every other character in this world died, it felt strange that these guys were never victims, themselves. That these guys are unkillable kinda took away the quality that I loved so much about the Scream movies: that there is no supernatural presence here. It’s just normal people trying not to get killed by normal people. So if there WAS to be a fifth Scream movie, I’d really want it to do something daring and kill off one of these guys who have become fixtures of the franchise. So those are my thoughts on this franchise as a whole. Truth be told, I probably could have talked longer, because even when this franchise was at its lowest, there is a lot to talk about here. What do you guys think? Which "Scream" movie is your favorite? Do you agree with my thoughts here? Would you want to see more Scream, or are you fine where it’s left off? Let us know in the comments below! ABOUT THE AUTHOR: ReuBen DeBord has written a few things on the internet. On the wunderkind of a website, the Essential Webcomics Showcase, he has written a few pieces you may have heard of, such as "50 Reasons why I hate Smallville", and his ongoing series called “If It’s Broken, they won’t fix it.” If you don’t feel like waiting 5 months for him to put something on that website, then you can go to his Youtube page, where he tries to put up content a couple of times a week, and has even managed to squeeze out content once a day, for a while there. This is where you can see him review movies, comics and things that are just kinda related to this corner of pop culture.
Outside of his writing, there are rumors that ReuBen is a surviving clone of some kind. Either from the Clone Wars, or an unknown from Peter Parker’s past. Either way, he’s pretty crazy. It’s a good thing he focuses 95 percent of his energy on writing stuff for the internet. |
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