Films are a form of art, and that means they’re all about inspiration and influence. It’s entirely rare for someone to make a movie that isn’t inspired by another. Really, few movies get the honor of being one that changed their genre or influenced film as a whole. Looking at horror specifically, a few films come to mind as infamous ones.
61 years ago, Alfred Hitchcock’sPsychowas said to change modern horror forever because of how shocking it was. Almost 20 years later,John Carpenter madeHalloweenwhich popularized the slasher genre. With the 1980s and early 1990s being filled with franchise sequels and unoriginal campy films, albeit with some wonderful gems, the horror genre needed some revitalization. And to fix that, along came Wes Craven with his 1996 filmScream.
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The story outline ofScreamvery much sounds like a typical slasher, aHalloweenripoff. It follows a teenaged girl named Sidney (Neve Campbell) and her group of friends in their typical American town of Woodsboro. Unfortunately, one of their classmates is found brutally murdered, and soon, the killer is after them as well. It’s a simple story with simple characters, but it was made in a near-perfect way. The film spawned three sequelswith another to be released in Januaryof 2022, as well as an MTV series. The characters were more than one typically expected from a teen scream slasher and horror fans liked that, despite the simple and perhaps unoriginal plot, it was witty and smart, and different.
Though it may not seem it on the surface,Screamreally acts as satire. It’s a comedy, and it’s making fun of the very genre that it went onto influence. This is mostly seen through a couple of the main characters and a few key scenes. The main character of Sidney, the final girl, is a virgin. This is very much a trope seen throughout slasher films, that only the pure female character will survive. One of her friends, Randy, also adds a meta element to the franchise. He’s a major film fan, especially horror movies, and teaches the teens of Woodsboro what and what not to do to better their chances of surviving. Funnily enough,Screamgot the parody treatment itselfin the firstScary Movie.
All of Sidney’s friend group consists mainly of tropes, but the villain as well seems to be poking a bit of fun. Ultimately it’s not some super spooky monster or intimidating person, but just someone in a cheap-looking costume easily found at any party store. And the perpetrators were just some silly, relatively stupid, teenagers, who got a lot of inspiration from horror movies. Really, this is a very funny movie. It walks the line of being satirical and also completely fulfilling the roles of a typical slasher very well. Instead of being a funny movie with horror elements, such as something likeZombieland,it’s a scary moviewith a script that happens to have laugh-out-loud moments. This style of comedy has been seen throughout slasher films to come afterScreamlikeYou’re NextandReady or Not.
Screamalso set trends in the way it paid homage to slashers that came before it. Now, most slashers have huge glimpses of 1990s aesthetics and give nods to the past. This was massively seen in the recentFear Streettrilogy, which received a lot of success. The way to do this properly was set byScream. It was its own thing entirely, but it had subtle yet specific references to familiar things. The fake-out final girl, which wasalso seen inFear Street, was first seen inPsycho. The girl audiences think will be the main character, ends up being the first to die. Another big thing is seen inScreamas well as movies from the 1970s, the classic trope of “the killer is calling from inside of the house.“Screamtakes the idea made popular in films likeWhen A Stranger CallsandBlack Christmas, but uses it in a way that feels really earnest and genuine to the story. And that’s the right way to pay homage to something.
Many would say that the post-Screamera was just as bad as the pre-Screamera. The 2000s were full of basically terrible horror movies, many cheap teen scream slashers included. So was this film really that important, did it actually change anything? Well, it didn’t change the world of cinema forever. However, it made people excited about horror again. Even if it swung too far and there was an influx of bad horror movies to come, it breathed some real life into the genre. As a singular film franchise, there are a lot of great things about it. Notone of theScreamfilmsis bad, and hopefully, it stays that way following the new one. But its real success is the way it influenced films to follow for the better, especially horror films with satire. And most of all, it’s important because it made people excited about this genre again. Without it, some of the best recent horror films might not have ever been made.
