How Scream became the prom queen of slash­er horror

In the win­ter of ​’96, 20 years ago this week, Scream’s blend of mur­der mys­tery, self-ref­er­en­tial com­e­dy and era-defin­ing celebri­ties result­ed in box office mag­ic. Exceed­ing all expec­ta­tions, direc­tor Wes Craven’s sto­ry of a masked killer stalk­ing pop cul­ture-savvy teens in a qui­et Cal­i­for­nia town became the sleep­er hit of the fes­tive peri­od. A sequel was already in the works by March, and by May the film had grossed $100m. It remains the most suc­cess­ful slash­er movie in history.

But fan­boys sneered, both­ered that their favourite genre had been tar­nished by what they saw as main­stream gloss. Scream was hor­ror with­out the grunge, its fash­ion cribbed from the pages of Sev­en­teen Mag­a­zine, its the­atri­cal poster made up of head­shots of attrac­tive young stars import­ed from TV. If The Texas Chain­saw Mas­sacre is the genre’s strung-out rebel smok­ing cig­a­rettes behind the gym, Scream is its prom queen. And there’s noth­ing irrev­er­ent or anar­chist about the prom queen. Or so you’d think.

There’s some­thing deep­er to Scream’s sour rep­u­ta­tion among hor­ror fans, in com­par­i­son to much of its slash­er ances­try. Unlike the movies often wor­shipped by gore­hounds, Scream occu­pies a unique­ly female space. It’s as much a film about Neve Campbell’s Sid­ney Prescott dis­cov­er­ing the strength she needs to take down a mer­ci­less killer as it is a film about her per­son­al growth as a sur­vivor – in every sense of the word.

Female sex­u­al­i­ty cost Sidney’s moth­er her life, mur­dered one year ear­li­er amid spec­u­la­tion about extra­mar­i­tal affairs, lead­ing Sid­ney to strug­gle with her own sex­u­al iden­ti­ty as a result. When she ulti­mate­ly sur­vives the film despite hav­ing sex, going against film geek Randy’s dire warn­ings of the genre risks of pre-mar­i­tal bon­ing, she decon­structs a trope that long dic­tat­ed sex­u­alised women are des­tined to die in hor­ror movies.

While rival fran­chis­es like Fri­day the 13^th or Hal­loween proud­ly use their final girls as exam­ples of their fem­i­nist cred, their killers are in truth their stars – relent­less boogey­men we’re instruct­ed to cheer on as they slaugh­ter inno­cent babysit­ters. Some­times we even get a nice POV shot while they’re doing it. Scream, alter­na­tive­ly, has an unprece­dent­ed lev­el of com­pas­sion for its heroes, con­tra­dict­ing its rep­u­ta­tion as some­thing of a cyn­i­cal ​’90s snark-machine.

Despite the infamy of Scream’s killer, a flail­ing, acci­dent-prone ghoul in an Edvard Munch mask, direc­tor Craven nev­er fetishis­es his car­nage. There’s gore, nat­u­ral­ly, but while some­thing like Drew Barrymore’s icon­ic open­ing death scene is cor­rect­ly remem­bered as an ago­nis­ing­ly tense first act, it is also a set piece that’s quite star­tling in its humanity.

While being pur­sued, Casey gets so close to call­ing out to her near­by par­ents, but finds her­self unable as a result of her injuries. The sheer hor­ror on their faces as they’re sub­se­quent­ly forced to hear their daughter’s last breaths over the phone are heart­break­ing. Bare­ly 15 min­utes in and Scream has a sense of weight, dri­ving home that these are in fact young kids being hor­ri­bly killed, rather than mere can­non fodder.

It’s an empa­thy stretched to the rest of the film’s cast. Rose McGowan has the stock role of doomed best friend, but she’s such a com­pas­sion­ate, effer­ves­cent pres­ence in the part that it’s gen­uine­ly hor­ri­ble to watch her ulti­mate­ly meet her fate. The afore­men­tioned Randy is love­able audi­ence sur­ro­gate, con­fi­dent­ly nerdy, per­pet­u­al­ly stocked up with point­less Jamie Lee Cur­tis triv­ia. Then there’s Courteney Cox as tabloid hack Gale Weath­ers, a woman of ruth­less ambi­tion and greed, but who the film still appears to actu­al­ly like.

Writer Kevin Williamson cre­ates an endear­ing patch­work of inter­con­nect­ed lives at the heart of his sto­ry, scenes of vio­lence bro­ken up by moments of enjoy­able, char­ac­ter-dri­ven lev­i­ty. These are wit­ty, believ­able young peo­ple encased in a slash­er movie coat­ing, one splat­tered in the blood of ear­ly Taran­ti­no. Scream’s dia­logue might read like a Cher Horowitz diary entry, but its themes cri­tique a cul­ture of misog­y­ny and para­noia, adults con­vinced ​’90s youth have lost their minds to guns, video games, and Mick­ey and Mallory.

For a gen­er­a­tion of kids, Scream was the not-real­ly-X-rat­ed hor­ror trad­ed dis­creet­ly at sleep­overs and watched when par­ents weren’t look­ing. It pro­vid­ed a gate­way not only to the hor­ror genre, but to a form of adult sto­ry­telling that wasn’t tru­ly adult, but grown-up-enough to seem like some­thing you weren’t sup­posed to be watching.

While the teen hor­ror cycle it influ­enced dried up rel­a­tive­ly quick­ly, replaced by creepy Japan­ese girls, Eli Roth, and loud para­nor­mal nois­es in dusty hous­es, Scream and its sub­se­quent imi­ta­tors war­rant a reap­praisal. What­ev­er their indi­vid­ual rep­u­ta­tions, they marked a moment in hor­ror that proved fun, acces­si­ble and qui­et­ly pro­gres­sive; hor­ror for all, not only young men with a Hell­rais­er t‑shirt and a sub­scrip­tion to Fangoria.