A Slasher to make you SCREAM

Scream (1996) Poster

When thinking of iconic or monumental slasher films that have been created and presented throughout film history, titles that come up are typically Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and of course Scream. Releasing in 1996, Scream came after the previously mentioned slasher films, among others, and in doing so it had the opportunity to take the genre and take a spin on it. However, what differentiates Scream from other slasher films is how it takes many motifs from past slasher films and cranks them up to 100, in kind of a sense to both mock such movies and to take the genre further. Immediately from the now-iconic mask of the killer in the movie, it's generic and kind of comical, and it's Scooby-Doo esque running sequences, it did it's purpose well in creating an enigmatic character while simultaneously building up a great cast of stereotypical teenagers, most notably the virgin Sidney Prescott. Ranging from it's mentioning of horror movies that came before and taking horror tropes and hyper-increasing them, Scream successfully made its mark as a slasher film that was ahead of its time and a film that took an already existing concept and made it feel new again.

The movie begins with a simple and expected horror movie setup with two in-love teenagers being killed by a mysterious killer, who uses a method of calling his victims and catching them off guard to kill them. After the main threat has been revealed, we meet our main character Sidney, who is the stereotypical virgin teenager, but despite having an opportunity to have sex with her boyfriend Billy, she refuses. Sidney's father is set to leave town, and it is then found out Sidney's mother died a year before from a murder, though the murderer was never found. Sidney decides to go to her friend's, Tatum's, house while her father is gone, however, she receives a phone call that resembles that one that precluded the death of the first two teenagers.

Scream protagonists

The killer emerges and tries to kill her but Billy enters her house through her window, dropping a cell phone on the way, which leads Sidney to believe he was messing with her. They go to the police station where Billy is questioned and Sidney goes with Tatum to Tatum's house, where Sidney gets another call that lets her know that Billy was not the killer. A party is then set up to happen at Tatum's house, which is where multiple murders happen, like Tatum, however, Sidney and Billy have sex! Yay? After having sex, Billy is stabbed in the back, deputy Dewey and reporter Gale are also supposedly killed. Sidney comes face to face with both Randy, ex of the teenager killed at the beginning, and Stu, a class clown type character, and Sidney believes one of them is the killer. However, in a big swerve Billy comes downstairs, in which Randy is killed, and then it's revealed both Billy and Stu are the killers, working together to get revenge on the Prescott's, as Mrs. Prescott had an affair with Billy's father. In an even swervier swerve, Gale arrives and attempts to shoot the killers, but she fails due to the safety lock on the gun, but Sidney manages to kill Stu, with the use of a TV, and Billy by shooting him. Dewey and Randy are both revealed to be alive and the film ends with Gale calling the events that just transpired a "Real-life scary movie!".  🙀

Gender in this film revolves pretty much around two characters and that's Sidney and Billy. Sidney because she is the stereotypical horror female protagonist. As explained by Clover, she is initially made out to be scared and such, but come to the end of the movie, she prevails.

Billy and Sidney

Sidney takes on the "final girl" character to perfection. Even as far as Clover says in the sense that Sidney exists to fulfill the sadomasochist goals of Billy. Speaking of Billy, he is what some view to be the high school boy, who only wants sex and isn't bright. The two being in a relationship makes a clear distinction of the two as they directly oppose each other in every way. But with Billy being the male, he gets his way in the end by successfully having sex with Sidney, though Sidney gets the final strike by killing Billy, though that indirectly strips away the importance that losing one's virginity comes with since they had sex within the same hour that she had to kill him. Also, like Clover points out, our main threat is a male person, in this case two, who hides behind a mask that can be viewed as a barrier of a man and a man's ego, because a man's ego is typically viewed as a not good thing directly.

There is one particular scene that stuck in my mind upon watching the film and it is the scene where Tatum is killed by the killer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdYmIIbYoH0&list=PL1105CE4FE3BD6D6F&index=7

As you can see, this scene displays the death of Tatum. The reason I chose this to discuss is because of the two characters' interactions before and leading up to Tatum's death. When the two come to face each other, Tatum flirts with the killer, assuming it's Randy, which kind of paints Tatum as a girl who relies on seducing and also one that isn't very bright. Also, when Tatum tries to get through the door but fails, I saw this as a man not letting a woman get what she wants since it is out of the man's interest. The killer grabs her wrist and everything, a common sign of domestic abuse and such. Despite Tatum having a valiant fight against the killer, she makes the attempt to flee the scene through a dog door, which I also saw as comparing a woman to an animal, in this case, a dog. While trying to get through the dog door, Tatum fails to fit, only getting her upper chest through, which gives a good shot for the sex-hungry males watching the film as all that can be seen from the exterior of the house is Tatum's face and breasts. The killer kills her by raising the garage door and seemingly breaking her neck as the door was about to finish folding, leaving Tatum in an elevated state. I thought this scene demonstrated the seductive type of girl being killed, though in most films this type of character would be easily disposed but in this case she had a fight, which differentiates this film from most, but in the end, she was killed and humiliated. 

This film did great things for both slasher films as a whole and for representation in horror films. Honestly, most females in these films, despite being the "final girl" that are so prevalent, they lack a lot, mostly intelligence but I got a good vibe from Sidney as she is an intelligent girl who just got taken advantage of at the worst time, by a man at that. Also, the killer in this film is "sexually repressed" as Clover would say, as Billy primarily wants sex with Sidney, which he does get, but this movie had the surprise of having two killers, which surely carved some horror movies that'd come in the future. This film is also great to refer to for a good representation of women in horror films as they're perceived well here with obviously Sidney, but also Tatum who was able to fight back against the killer, and Gale who saves the story by coming back at the end with a faulty gun. 

Gale wielding the safe-locked gun

In conclusion, Scream is one of the greatest series starters for a film franchise, as it took what was already established but raised such expectations very high to a point where it's comedic but also very entertaining. I mean, just look at the first three Scream films box office records, which holds places 2, 3, and 4 for the highest box office sales. Where this movie didn't aim to entertain a crowd with a convoluted story or insane special effects, it went for an over the top approach that did very well and became a movie that actors like Neve Campbell would become memorable for. The later movies don't have the natural feeling of the debut, but the franchise is built off of mocking slasher tropes, though it does it in an intellectual manner and treats gender very carefully in the films, and doing so allows me to say that Sidney is the greatest "final girl" in any slasher movie ever. And based on Clover's beliefs, she may agree with such too.