Written by Melissa Allen, who you can follow on Twitter at @melissajournal
It may be November 1st, but in keeping with this week's Halloween spirit, we've decided to highlight Scream as part of our ongoing Film of the Week series!
Film of the Week on Female First
This 1996 horror is perfect for the spooky season as it's filled with, well... screams! How fitting! Starring Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox, the film follows Campbell’s character, Sidney Prescott, as she is pursued by the Ghostface killer a year after her own mother’s murder.
The 90s were a brilliant decade for horror as the cliché elements included in Scream prove, such as Randy’s (Jamie Kennedy) rules for surviving a horror movie as he himself is a horror fanatic, and constantly points out which part pf the horror film he and his friends have made it to. The characters constantly mention that “this isn’t a film”, thus breaking the fourth wall and opening audiences up to a dose of subtle irony. The characters also discuss horror films such as Carrie and The Silence of the Lambs, allowing for relatability with the audience at the time, who would be familiar with the classic horror flicks.
The film’s clever camerawork leaves the audience to guess whether the killer is there or not and leads you to wonder whose perspective we’re seeing the horror from. The unexpected view we see this movie from is what really changed the horror film genre forever, as the film proves that clichés can indeed work if done correctly.
The film flows brilliantly and allows the characters that survive the film to change for the better towards the end; Gale Weathers (Cox) becomes less self-centred as she risks her own life to save Sidney’s, and Sidney becomes a more grounded character by the end of the film as she realises she must move on from her mother’s murder.
The plot twist this film offers is perhaps the most horrifying part, as Sidney’s boyfriend Billy (Skeet Ulrich) is behind all the murders we see, including her mother’s; his reveal is almost as grim as his crimes throughout this film as we see the breakdown of Sidney’s character after he faked his own death, only to re-appear and reveal himself to Sidney as the killer. This however only helps her to become a stronger character by the end of the film.
Scream is perfect for Halloween and essentially branded the slasher film as one of the best types of horror film.