The late Wes Craven's, "Scream" (1996), is easily my favorite horror movie of all time. It is my go-to Halloween party flick. I have many fond memories watching it on a projector in my backyard, surrounded by my closest friends. Part of what makes this flick so fun for Halloween is that it is a slasher horror film, much like other horror classics, such as the "Friday the 13th" series, "Halloween" series, with its latest installment is hitting theaters this month, and Wes Craven's other horror series, "Nightmare on Elm Street."
Slasher flicks have been on a roller coaster of popularity ever since the 1970s, because of the popularity of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Although that slasher film is a little hard for me to stomach through, it is still an important staple of the sub-genre of slasher horror movies. The guts and gore thrown around the narrative is still seen in slasher flicks today. Within the 70s, it was body-gore horror, like in "Texas Chainsaw," the 80s saw a popularity of bizarre/over the top deaths, such as Johnny Depp's death scene in "Nightmare on Elm Street" when he gets sucked into his bed, TV and all.
The 90s, on the other hand, saw a strange combination of the two above. Most of this is due to the 90s seeing a large decrease in interest for the slasher genre, as many people had their favorites already, and were not interested in seeing the same tropes being projected on a big screen again. It's also partially because of the 'staleness' in the genre that lead to perhaps one of the best examples of a meta-movie, "Scream."
Although this series is chalk full of horror tropes, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), is the 'final girl/scream queen,' Dewey (David Arquette), and other officers are bumbling policemen who don't take the murders seriously until it is too late, and of course the 'rules' of horror movies are ever so present. But it's this last example that makes this series, in my opinion stand out from the rest.
Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy), Woodsboro's resident film buff, rattles off three rules that characters in a horror movie must follow in order to survive. You can't have sex, drink, or do drugs, and god forbid you say, "Hello? "Who's there?" and of course, "I'll be right back." In any other series, this list reads with certainty that those who break the rules are next on the chopping list. In "Friday the 13th" Mrs. Voorhees kills teen counselors because they were fooling around instead of watching her son Jason.
But in "Scream," Sidney, who for the entire narrative of the film has not slept with her boyfriend, Billy, loses her virginity right before the film's climax and final reveal; Billy is one of the killers, and even killed Sidney's mother. This reveal rattles Sidney, and the entire audience, after all, we have just seen Sidney seal her and Billy's fate right? In any other movie this would be the case but in the first installment of the franchise, Craven turns horror fans on their heads as they realize that the man who helped create these horror rules is dead set (literally) on breaking them.
It is because of Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson's acknowledgement and separation of the slasher genre that makes "Scream" one of my favorite slashers and one of my favorite movies of all time. What's your favorite movie to watch during Halloween?
