Why ‘Scream’ is the Best Horror Franchise: Scream 1 + 2
Ghostface Killah
You read that right. The Scream series is the best horror franchise of all time. I love horror movies, especially slashers. If you grew up in the 90s, Scream is probably the horror movie of the decade. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, bozo. Those movies aren’t that scary. They’re too funny to be scary. Also, they’re 90s as hell. Why are there 25 year-olds playing teenagers? Yo, my guy, that mask is fucking GOOFY.” And I’m not going to disagree with that.
But what about all the other franchises? There’s Halloween, Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw, etc. Now, I love some of those franchises but let’s be honest, it’s usually the first one that’s the best. Maybe…MAYBE one of the sequels is good but honestly, there are only three good horror sequels I can think of as I type this caffeine-induced think piece: The Exorcist III, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (Yes, the one where Wes Craven is in the movie writing a movie that’s literally the movie we’re watching but we can talk about that another time), and 2018’s Halloween. No, I don’t think Halloween II is a good movie.
Scream is not your regular slasher franchise. It’s probably the reason everyone has Caller ID. Now, it’s the standard. In the 90s, not so much. God, I feel old. It’s the best franchise because it’s about something other than blood, guts, and Courtney Cox’s fucked up hairstyles (Seriously, they did my girl dirty).
Seriously, what’s happening here?
It’s a great satire on media, the public’s relationship with violence, and horror movies themselves. But, most importantly, the Scream movies chronicle the trauma of Sidney Prescott, the greatest slasher film protagonist of all time; a compelling protagonist with emotional depth, and the best character arc in horror cinema.
Sorry, Laurie Strode. I still think you’re a badass though.
“Do you like scary movies?”
By the mid-90s, slasher flicks were dead. It got kinda hard to tell Michael Myers and Jason apart. Freddy pretty much became Bugs Bunny. When Wes Craven tried to make Freddy scary and meta, people weren’t interested. (Wes Craven’s New Nightmare slaps, I’m telling you) So, when Scream, written by Kevin Williamson and directed by slasher legend, Wes Craven) came along, the slasher genre was back in full force and launched a bunch of imitators also starring the stars of 90s teen shows (I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legends, Valentine, and of course, Halloween Water).
Scream, originally titled Scary Movie, was a breath of fresh air. The characters also saw the scary movies the audience grew up watching. It’s one of the few horror films the audience is on the same page as the characters; both parties know the rules, recited to us by Randy (Jamie Kennedy), the audience surrogate and the film’s horror movie expert.
The opening of Scream is considered one of the greatest movie openings of all time. It’s so good, if it were released as a short film, it would probably be considered the best short film of all time. The premise is simple: A teenage girl, Casey Becker, (played by the biggest name in the cast, Drew Barrymore) gets ready to watch a movie, she’s making popcorn, and she gets a call from a stranger. At first, it’s playful. They flirt and talk about horror movies. He asks her for her name and when she asks why he says…
“Because I want to know who I’m looking at.”
That shit is bone-chilling.
From that point on, this man terrorizes her; asking her to answer horror trivia, threatening to murder her boyfriend if she gets any answers wrong. Unfortunately, she does, and her boyfriend is disemboweled. The scene ends with the killer breaking into the house and chasing her before murdering her.
The opening tells us what we’re in for. It’s playful, self-referential, funny, a little silly, and finally, heartbreaking. It’s a fun scene before it ends with a teenage girl being murdered while her parents listen on the phone as she dies calling for her mother.
Drew Barrymore is chased by Ghostface in the opening scene.
Then, we’re introduced to our protagonist, Sidney Prescott, played marvelously by Neve Campbell. She’s dealing with the brutal murder of her mother, Maureen. She’s got a really sus boyfriend, Billy (Skeet Ulrich), who climbs through her window, talking only in movie references, and pressuring her to have sex with him (Today, this is called a film bro). There’s a morally bankrupt tabloid journalist, Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), who’s writing a book about her mother’s murder and how Sidney identified the wrong man, Cotton Weary (Liev Shreiber), a man with whom her mother had an affair. When Casey Becker is murdered, the town of Woodsboro whips up into a frenzy while Sidney becomes the new target. The killer calls her threatening to murder her just as he did her mother and attempts to murder her in her house. Her boyfriend, Billy, conveniently shows up through her window after the killer leaves. With all this happening, Sidney goes to school and tries to live a normal life and hang out with her friends, Tatum (Rose McGowan), Tatum’s insane boyfriend, Stu (Matthew Lillard), Randy, and her “lovable” boyfriend, Billy. But people are running through the hallways dressing up as Ghostface and slut shaming her mother who had affairs with men in town when she was alive. Meanwhile, people are murdered while Tatum’s brother, the goofy and lovable Deputy Dewey Riley (David Arquette), and Gale Weathers try to investigate the murders while they flirt with each other.
Maureen Prescott is one of the most fascinating characters in the series. We never meet her but she is referred to. Her murder is technically the first murder in the franchise. Sidney grieves her mother while denying her mother’s frequent infidelity. Characters frequently talk about how Sidney has changed due to this trauma. Billy, frustrated with how Sidney has coped with said trauma, tells her to move on. This leads to Sidney going to a party at Stu’s house to try to take her mind off things.
Ghostface, the series’ franchise killer is terrifying. He is on the Mt. Rushmore of slasher killers. But he’s nowhere near as scary as the other people in this film. The gravity of the murders doesn’t matter to everyone else. They compare the murders to the horror films they’ve seen rather than acknowledge the horror of the killings themselves. When a teenage girl is brutally murdered, everyone is more excited about leaving school early and having a party. When the students hear the principal is murdered, they rush to the crime scene to see his body. The media is more occupied with headlines and book sales rather than journalism.
When everyone leaves, the killer murders Billy and chases Sidney all around the property. He murders Tatum, Gale’s cameraman, and stabs Dewey in the back before Billy reveals he’s alive and he and Stu are both Ghostface, using horror movies as pointers for their psychotic spree.
Another lesson we can learn from this movie: Be wary of film bros.
Even worse, they murdered her mother and framed Cotton Weary. When asked why, Stu refuses to give a motive while Billy reveals that he murdered Maureen because she had an affair with his father, causing his mother to leave town. They plan to frame Sidney’s dad for the murders. Sidney fights for her life, killing Billy and Stu. Unlike Freddy, Jason, Michael, or whoever else, Ghostface is human. He falls and trips. People beat the shit out of him. We’re watching Scream from the safety of the movie screen and the comfort of knowing it’s fiction. But Billy, Stu, and all the other privileged white people of Woodsboro see real-life murder as entertainment rather than a tragic event that causes trauma to the victim’s loved ones. That’s the true horror of Scream.
Sidney after dropping a TV on Stu’s head and shooting Billy in the head. The movie’s biggest lesson: Don’t fuck with Sidney Prescott. Seriously.
“There are rules one must abide by in order to create a successful sequel.”
There aren’t many good horror sequels. Like I said, I can only name three. Wait. four. I just remembered I like The Conjuring 2. Usually, the filmmakers take the script to the first film and play mad-libs, make the sequel bloodier and gorier, and underwrite the characters and we, the audience members, look at the screen and say, “Well I hope Jason murders all these horny camp counselors again.” They never measure up to the original and they run the franchise into the ground.
Scream 2 is The Godfather Part II of horror sequels. It’s just as good as the original. Maybe even better.
Scream 2 went into production when the first one was in theaters. It has its goofiness, (There is a scene where Jerry O’Connell sings in a cafeteria that gives me secondhand embarrassment) but it improves on what makes the original so great. In this movie, the formula is officially established. We open with two murders (A very misguided scene where two black characters criticize white horror movies while playing into racial stereotypes only to be brutally murdered). Ghostface calls his victims. There’s suspense, murder, Sidney throws hands at Gale Weathers, (Seriously, Sidney can fuck people up) Courtney Cox has a fucked up hairstyle, Dewey gets stabbed in the back, and the film ends with the identity of Ghostface revealed, explaining to Sidney the motive for the murders.
Seriously. Why did they do this to her?
Most importantly though, the film further explores the trauma of Sidney Prescott. A couple (Omar Epps and Jada Pinkett) is murdered at the premiere of a film called Stab, a film based on the events of the first film and a book by Gale Weathers. As mentioned earlier, the scene is misguided but it is pretty horrifying considering that two people are murdered in the middle of a crowded movie theater and no one seems to notice or take it seriously. Sidney and the gang are trying to move on from the events of the last film. She’s a drama major in college dealing with people prank calling her talking like Ghostface not to mention the release of the movie. She takes this all in stride until she finds out there is a copycat Ghostface killer. The victims have similar names as the victims in the first film. Gale Weathers is back on the scene, trying to find another scoop. She brings along Cotton Weary, looking to use the media to clean up his public image and get famous after being exonerated of Maureen’s murder. Dewey Riley comes to Windsor College to catch the killer and protect Sidney. He’s also pissed at Gale for portraying him as incompetent in her book. And of course. Randy is doing Randy shit, reciting the rules of horror sequels. Sidney even has a new boyfriend, Derek (Jerry O’Connell), who’s madly in love with Sidney and is studying to be a doctor. He seems a little too good to be true. From that point on, Sidney gets phone calls from the killer, her friends are murdered. Randy’s death and her best friend, Hallie’s (Elise Neal) deaths are gut punches.
As the bodies pile up, Sidney’s post-traumatic stress worsens. She feels responsible for the deaths of anyone close to her. After Derek is attacked by Ghostface, she can’t decide if she should leave him because being close to her has caused him harm or if she thinks he’s the killer. Cotton Weary is aggressively and obsessively pressuring her into appearing on Diane Sawyer with him. After a while, Sidney can barely have a conversation without showing physical discomfort or being on the verge of tears. Sidney is in a greek play, Agamemnon. She plays Cassandra, a cursed woman. During rehearsal, Sidney sees Ghostface when the other actors wear cloaks similar to him and wield daggers. She breaks down, leaving the audience to wonder whether Ghostface was on stage with her or a figment of her imagination caused by PTSD.
Sidney rehearses Agamemnon, as the cursed woman, Cassandra.
The film rushes toward the climax beginning with an exciting sequence where Ghostface murders the cops protecting Sidney and Hallie, steals the car, and ultimately crashes it. Sidney and Hallie have to climb over an unconscious Ghostface to escape. Hallie is murdered and Sidney runs away and she ends up in the theater where she had her breakdown. Ghostface follows her and unmasks. It’s Mickey (Timothy Olyphant), Sidney’s film bro friend who’s been documenting the killings on his camcorder. Mickey wants to be famous. He’s going to blame movies for his insanity and he implies that he aspires to be O.J. Simpson.
“These days, it’s all about the trial.”
Seriously. Stay away from film bros.
He preys on Sidney’s trust issues and murders Derek. Then reveals his real partner, Mrs. Loomis (Laurie Metcalf), Billy’s mother. She’s paid Mickey’s tuition to get close to Sidney to avenge her son’s death. She shoots Mickey and attempts to murder Sidney while she uses the stage effects to fight Mrs. Loomis, using her art form to battle her demons. Cotton stumbles onto the scene after finding wounded Dewey, gun in hand. Mrs. Loomis attempts to convince Cotton to kill Sidney. He shoots Mrs. Loomis and Sidney shoots her in the head.
The film wraps up with Gale riding in the ambulance with Dewey. Cotton is now a celebrity; a hero instead of a convict. A helicopter shot reveals Sidney walking through the campus, swallowed by her surroundings; her future unknown. Hollywood has profited off of Sidney’s trauma. Her friends have been injured or murdered. Another one of her friends conspired to kill her; leaving Sidney, a woman cursed, alone with no one to trust. That is the true horror of Scream 2.
Stay tuned for Scream 3 +4.
I’ll be right back…
