In 1996, Drew Barrymore was trapped in her home, voyeurized through her many floor to ceiling windows, eventually stabbed through the heart, gutted groin to sternum, and hung from a tree with her entrails on display for her mother and father, who happened to come home shortly after.
Thus began a fresh imagining in the horror genre by seasoned veteran Wes Craven, who has also brought such classics as The Last House on the Left and A Nightmare on Elm Street, both of which melded horror, humor, satire, and intelligence in their first incarnations. The original Scream is no different as it blatantly offers and then mocks the traditional tropes of horror movies: virgins never die, never drink or do drugs, “I’ll be right back” equals death.” As expected, all of these tropes are used, but they are employed cleverly in that everyone knows the rules but chooses to ignore them by relying on their own perception of their surroundings. In other words, the belief that supernatural killers returning from the dead don’t exist (a la every Friday the 13th after the original) and the additional belief that your group of friends can not contain a killer creates a false sense of security for each cast member, which convinces them that the rules do not apply.
What’s most interesting is that Scream focuses less on gore – of which there is some – and nudity – of which there is none – and more on the characters’ reactions to the violence. The aforementioned false sense of security also works hand in hand with how media plays a part in distancing violence from society. While violence clearly exists in this small town of Woodboro, Casey Becker’s (Drew Barrymore) murder is mostly elided and the focus shifts to how similar her murder is to Maureen Prescott’s, a victim from one year prior. In turn, an Inside Edition television-style-program’s mention of Prescott’s murder leads us immediately to the imprisoned killer, Cotton Weary (Liev Shreiber), who Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) believes is falsely accused and has written a book documenting the year-long scenario. Essentially, the murder of a young woman becomes fodder for tabloid reporters to exploit a man who happens to be the basis of her book.
The media circus then trumps the actual events, encouraging a handful of students to run around the school mocking the violence by wearing the Ghostface killer costume and wielding plastic knives like the “heartless, desensitized little shits that [they] are.” Therefore, Scream is less about weaving together a tongue-in-cheek parody and more about exploring how societal-violence is often kept at our periphery, even if it’s the nucleus of our inner circle.
Scream 2 and 3 followed suit by looking at how copycats emerge, believing that imitating infamy is the sincerest form of flattery and securing a multi-book deal.
However, I’m unsure how Scream 4 or Scre4m is going to continue in the satirical odyssey set forth by Craven. Honestly, this seems less a filmic social experiment and more an introduction of his previous films to a younger generation. What I mean to suggest is that Scre4m is building off of the “rules” concept from the first three films, but it seems to be manufacturing guidelines while portending that they exist, which is suggested by the poster that presents the Ghostface killer with the words “New Decade. New Rules.” written in red at the base of his black cowl. While I don’t mind this concept, the rules exhibited in the preview are wonky and contrary to what we’ve seen in the last decade, particularly with the deluge of horror-remakes. For example, it seems the tagline ready to emerge for Scre4m is “the unexpected is the new cliché,” which very well might be true; however, what remake has employed this tactic?
The remakes that are rattled off in this film come from Hayden Panettiere when she is on the phone and told “Name the remake of the groundbreaking –” to which she interrupts and rattles off “Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead, The Hills Have Eyes, Amityville Horror, Black Christmas, House of Wax, Prom Night, My Bloody Valentine: It’s one of those right?”
However, in these remakes, none of these new rules apply, and while it hints that Sidney (Neve Campbell) or Gale (Cox) could die in this movie because Hollywood scream queen royalty is no longer safe, both of them probably won’t be terminated; rather, I would bet that one if not both of them would be the killer(s).
Admittedly, I will probably see this movie just to see where the franchise that I enjoy has headed, and I would hope that Craven clarifies these rules and maybe even debunks the fallacies from the trailer; however, I’m unsure how it could live up to the satire of the original without being a rehashing for a new generation.
