Scream
Someone has taken their love of scary movies one step too far. Solving this mystery is going to be murder.
Scream (1996)
Production
Budget
$14 000 000
Revenue
$173 046 663
Director
Scenario
Composer
Producer
Cathy Konrad
Actors
Neve Campbell
Sidney
Skeet Ulrich
Billy
Rose McGowan
Tatum
Matthew Lillard
Stuart
David Arquette
Deputy Dewey
Courteney Cox
Gale Weathers
Jamie Kennedy
Randy
Drew Barrymore
Casey
Short description
A masked killer stalks teenagers in the town of Woodsboro, turning a knowledge of horror films into a matter of survival. Sidney Prescott, still grieving the murder of her mother a year earlier, becomes the focus of the attacks, while a journalist who covered that earlier case returns to report on the new killings. As the bodies accumulate, Sidney finds she cannot tell whom to trust among her boyfriend, her friends and the adults around her.
Wes Craven directed the film, the seventeenth of the twenty-five features listed for him, arriving between Vampire in Brooklyn and Scream 2. Kevin Williamson wrote the screenplay, with Cathy Konrad and Cary Woods producing. Neve Campbell plays Sidney, alongside Skeet Ulrich, Rose McGowan, Matthew Lillard, David Arquette as Deputy Dewey and Courteney Cox as Gale Weathers. Thirty-nine cast members and 139 crew members are credited.
Made for 14 million dollars, the film took about 173 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 6.1/10 from 15 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.4/10 from more than eight thousand votes. A critics' rating of 7.2/10 from 130 reviews places it above the IMDb figure and close to the TMDB one.
What's left behind the scenes
- Casey, answering the killer’s question, repeats the line from Rachel in “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers” (1988): “It’s Jason, I saw that movie 20 god damn times, it’s Jason!” The intonation of the voice is also preserved.
- Reese Witherspoon turned down the role of Sidney Prescott.
- Drew Barrymore was almost cast in the lead role. However, unexpected changes occurred in the actress's schedule, and she agreed to play a supporting role – the role of Casey Becker.
- Wes Craven found the sinister mask in one of the shops in California. Since then, with the success of the film, sales of these masks have increased tenfold.
- When Stu discovers that someone has taken the gun, he says, “Uh… Houston, we have a problem.” This line was not in the script and is an improvisation by Matthew Lillard.
- The only scene where an actor, and not a stuntman, wore the killer’s costume was the scene of the killer appearing behind Randy, who was watching television in the living room. Skeet Ulrich specifically asked the director to allow him to wear the costume for this scene.
- The scene where the telephone receiver slips from Billy’s hand and hits Stu on the head was an accident. But Wes Craven kept the scene in the final cut due to Stu’s genuine reaction.
- The scene in which Billy climbs into Sydney's room is very similar to the scene from "A Nightmare on Elm Street" in which the same is done by Johnny Depp's character.
- Dewey (David Arquette) was supposed to die in the film’s finale. During test screenings, audiences liked the character so much that Wes Craven decided to keep him alive, and the ending of the film was reshot specifically for that purpose. If you look closely at the scene where Billy (Skeet Ulrich) hits Gale (Courteney Cox), and she falls on Dewey, you can notice that Dewey isn’t breathing, because it was assumed he was already dead. Every time we see Dewey after being stabbed (but before the final scene), he is always lying motionless.
- Tatum’s house in “Scream” is located across the street from the house used for filming in “Pollyanna.”
- Tatum asks Sidney: "If a movie was made about you, who would play you?" to which Dewey remarks: "That's scary to think about, I guess maybe a young Meg Ryan?" Sidney replies to them: "More likely Tori Spelling, with my luck." In "Scream 2", from an interview about the film "Stab" (the movie within the movie), we learn that Tori Spelling is indeed playing Sidney.
- The janitor at the school, played by Wes Craven, is dressed in a Freddy Krueger costume from "A Nightmare on Elm Street".
- Melissa Joan Hart, Holly Marie Combs, and Reese Witherspoon were considered for the role of Sidney Prescott. Ultimately, the role went to Neve Campbell.
- In one scene, Tatum is wearing a t-shirt with the number 10 on it. Johnny Depp's character wore the exact same t-shirt in "A Nightmare on Elm Street".
- Approximately 50 gallons of fake blood were used during filming.
- Linda Blair played a cameo role: she played a reporter saying the phrase: “People want to know, they have a right to know.”
- In the scene where Randy is watching 'Halloween,' he repeatedly says 'Jamie, behind you,' addressing Jamie Lee Curtis. At the same time, the killer is behind Randy, who was played by Jamie Kennedy.
- When the film's producer, Bob Weinstein, first saw the raw footage, he expressed clear disapproval of the killer's mask and advised selecting seven masks, filming the same scene with each of them, and then making a final decision. However, filming the scene with Drew was already actively underway, and it was decided to wait for its completion to determine whether to change the killer's mask or not. The footage satisfied Weinstein, and no further complaints were received from him until the end of filming.
- When viewers see the killer in a costume and mask, in most cases it was a stuntman, not an actor, playing the part.
- Rose McGowan could actually crawl through the cat flap on the garage door.
- When Casey's parents come home and discover something has happened, her father tells her mother, "Go to the Mackenzie's." This phrase is a quote from "Halloween".
- The knife used by the killer in the "Scream" trilogy is the same knife that Mrs. Voorhees used in "Friday the 13th".
- A videotape of the film "Clerks" can be spotted in the scene where Gayle installs a miniature camera during a party. "Clerks" was released by Miramax. The "Scream" trilogy was released by Dimension Films, which is a subsidiary of Miramax. Kevin Smith (director of "Clerks") and Jason Mewes played cameo roles as Silent Bob and Jay, respectively, in "Scream 3".
- When Sidney enters her house, the killer appears from the pantry in the same way that Michael Myers does in the Bob murder scene in "Halloween".
- The working title of the film was “Very Scary Movie” (Scary Movie). Four years later, a parody film with that title was released.
- Janine Garofalo declined the offer to play Gale Weathers.
- After the film's release, sales of phones with caller ID increased more than threefold.
- Director Himbry’s death was specifically added to the film after Bob Weinstein noticed that approximately 30 pages of the script contained no deaths. He told Kevin Williamson that someone absolutely had to die. Subsequently, adding this scene to the script allowed Kevin Williamson to find a good reason for almost all of the guests to leave the party shortly before the film's climax.
- The song "Don't Fear the Reaper" can be heard in the film. The characters Annie and Laurie from "Halloween" are listening to the same composition in the car.
- The scene in which Casey’s body is hanging from a tree is very reminiscent of the beginning of Suspiria.
- To make Drew's face look more naturalistic and frightened in the frame, Wes Craven told her terrifying stories about animal cruelty towards each other. Barrymore is known to be a great animal lover and has been a vegetarian for many years.
- In the scene where the masked killer breaks into Casey's house and is hit in the face with a phone, Wes Craven – the film's director – was wearing the killer's costume. In other scenes involving the killer, various members of the film crew (not actors) participated.
- Filming was originally planned to take place at a school in Santa Rosa, but after school administrators read the script, they refused to provide the school building for filming. The film's shooting was moved to Healdsburg.
- Billy’s last name is Loomis. The same last name was used for Donald Pleasence’s character in “Halloween” (1978), which in turn echoes the surname of Marion Crane’s lover in “Psycho” (1960).
- In all scenes where the killer is on the phone, we hear the voice of Roger L. Jackson, who spoke to the actors over a cell phone. Once, local police contacted the film crew, asking them to clarify the situation with the phone calls. The police thought a real killer was calling someone on the crew.
- A poster for the Jamie Lee Curtis film “My Mother’s Son” can be seen in the video store. Another film featuring her, “Freaky Friday,” is also mentioned in the film.
- Casey says that all sequels to "A Nightmare on Elm Street" are terrible. Wes Craven sold the rights to the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" sequels before the film was released. He also disliked most of the sequels.
- The idea of a cat flap in the garage door belonged to Kevin Williamson’s assistant. Originally, Tatum was supposed to die from the garage door collapsing on her neck.
- Kevin Williamson wanted Molly Ringwald to play the role of Sidney Prescott. She turned down the role, citing that it would be impossible to play a high school senior at age 27.
- When Sidney jumps out of the pantry and plunges the umbrella tip into Billy, the stuntman doubling for Neve Campbell in this scene had to hit a special pad on Skeet Ulrich’s chest. The first hit landed on the pad, but the second hit an unprotected area of Ulrich’s chest (Ulrich’s reaction to the second hit is clearly visible in the film). This take made it into the final cut of the film because Wes Craven kept it for its authenticity.
- Courteney Cox and David Arquette met and fell in love on the set. Shortly after, they got married.
- In the opening scene of the film, Casey’s boyfriend was “gutted.” This scene is a reference to Wes Craven’s first film, “The Last House on the Left.” The same fate befell the first victim, Phyllis Stone, who was “gutted” while trying to escape from Sadie and Weasel.
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