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The Rewatchables ·

Scream

year 1996decade 90sdirector Wes Cravengenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Sean Fennesseyhost Shea Serranohost K. Austin Collinshost Jason Concepcion
All 12 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 11:18

The opening twelve minutes with Drew Barrymore

The twelve-minute scene at the top is proposed as the most rewatchable scene and its clip is played; the ending and the Rose McGowan garage door death are arguable alternatives, but as a pure, well-done piece of art the first twelve minutes are called way up there for a horror movie.

K. Austin Collins: Calls the opening fantastic and recalls that this was a first horror movie.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:08:24

"Hello, Sidney"

'Hello, Sidney' is proposed as the number one quote; 'I'm dying here, man', 'I'm feeling a little woozy', Lillard's proud 'liver alone', his intoning of 'I'll be right back' after the rule against saying it, and Skeet's 'rated R on the way to an NC‑17' line are also liked, though his character is clearly a sociopath who brings her dead mother into every conversation about sex and is weird in every scene.

The film

Scream (1996)

Directed by Wes Craven · Drama

111 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Cast credits have not been imported yet.

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

20:51

Casting What-Ifs

Drew Barrymore was cast as Sidney before commitments cut her to four days; Molly Ringwald was Williamson's first choi...

Drew Barrymore was cast as Sidney before commitments cut her to four days; Molly Ringwald was Williamson's first choice for Sidney; Brooke Shields for the Courtney Cox reporter; Ben Affleck considered for the Skeet Ulrich part; Breckin Meyer for the Jamie Kennedy part; Reese Witherspoon declined to audition for Sidney; Rebecca Gayhart (as transcribed) for the Rose McGowan part; Freddie Prinze (as transcribed) up for a role

In the discussion (12)
Approx. transcript time · 00:20:51Read transcript
  • Drew Barrymore was supposed to be Sidney and was locked in, the first to buy in and give the script credibility, but commitments left them four days with her, so she played the opening scene, which is thought to have helped the movie.
  • It is hard to name another 1996 actress who could have carried the first murder with the same weight; Jennifer Aniston pretending to be eighteen is rejected, while Barrymore was famous yet young, a zeitgeist star.
  • Neve Campbell was caught at a nice point in Party of Five; in a fantasy draft of 1996 actresses including Aniston, Courtney Cox, Reese Witherspoon and Sarah Michelle Gellar one host would take her top five for a 25-year career, while another never really got it.
  • Party of Five trained her to do the sad emotions better than anybody, and she is formidable enough that you believe she would win a straight-up fist fight, which is why Drew Barrymore would not have worked as well in the lead.
  • Gail Weathers getting punched in the face is another good scene for a host who hated Friends as a kid and still counts Ross as the least favorite character, which draws the remark that this is a hot-takey podcast.
  • Neve Campbell never found a second stage after starring in a hundred-million-dollar movie; she is thought to have gone artsy and precious with the dance movie The Company, and her House of Cards appearance was greeted as a comeback.
  • Molly Ringwald was the first choice Williamson wrote the movie for; she turned it down as too old at 27, which would have been a disaster as a high school senior, though an aged-up, harder-edged Gail Weathers might have suited her.
  • Brooke Shields was in the mix for the Courtney Cox reporter role and Ben Affleck was supposedly considered for the Skeet Ulrich part, but this is one of the few movies where no name could be plugged into any role to improve it.
  • Jamie Kennedy's part is the one that might have been stepped up, yet Breckin Meyer, who was up for it, would not have worked, because the character has to be annoying in the right way.
  • Reese Witherspoon was wanted to audition for Sidney and wanted no part of it; she would have been good in anything, even Predator, and instead made the roller-coaster movie with Mark Wahlberg and the gnarly Freeway that year, with Cruel Intentions flagged for a future episode.
  • Rebecca Gayhart (as transcribed) was up for Rose McGowan's part, though nothing like her, and was then put in Scream 2; after 90210 and the Noxzema ads she looked destined to be a massive star, but like Felicity she was hair dependent in a way that fit only 1996.
  • Freddie Prinze (as transcribed) was remembered from the research as up for one of these roles; he was neck and neck for everything for three years, and gets away with his acting only in high school movies, so Summer Catch and She's All That cut around his throwing and kicking.
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39:48

Half-Assed Internet Research

Santa Rosa High School refused to host the shoot and got a 'no thanks' credit; eight ratings submissions to avoid NC‑...

Santa Rosa High School refused to host the shoot and got a 'no thanks' credit; eight ratings submissions to avoid NC‑17; the Gainesville Ripper inspiration; Romero and Raimi almost directed; Craven's phone-hit cameo; the mask found while location scouting; Linda Blair's reporter cameo; a 21-day final scene with 50 gallons of fake blood; Craven told Drew Barrymore animal-torture stories; Williamson wrote it in three days as Scary Movie

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:39:48Read transcript
  • Santa Rosa High School was to host the high school scenes and refused, so they shot at a community college, and the credits include a pointed 'no thanks' to Santa Rosa.
  • The movie was almost NC‑17 for violence and went back eight times; Williamson's script was reportedly extremely specific about organs dripping down legs, so the disemboweling was originally even more disgusting.
  • Williamson was obviously inspired by the Gainesville Ripper, who murdered students in Florida and was executed after the movie's release, one of the grisliest American crimes of the period; it was a ripped-from-the-headlines idea for a young screenwriter looking for anything to get a script sold.
  • George Romero and Sam Raimi almost directed; Raimi's version would probably have been a lot funnier, Romero never made a movie like this, and Scream is not thought improvable, only different; this was Craven's second act after peaking in the eighties.
  • Craven's one cameo is being hit by Drew Barrymore with the phone while wearing the Ghostface costume; the mask was found at a house during location scouting; Linda Blair cameos as a reporter who bumps into Sidney outside the school after the attack.
  • The final scene took 21 days of a roughly 60-day shoot for a $15 million movie and used 50 gallons of fake blood.
  • A return to research corner: to keep Drew Barrymore upset through the opening, Wes Craven told her real stories of animal torture, since she was an animal activist, and then turned the camera on.
  • Earlier, Kevin Williamson is said to have written the script in three days in Palm Springs under the title Scary Movie, after failing to sell Teaching Mrs. Tingle, and pitched it as a trilogy package.
  • Earlier, the opening death was reportedly worse originally, with the guts coming out, and had to be fixed to avoid an NC‑17.
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59:00

Picking Nits

Cell phone reception; thin evidence clearing the boyfriend; the speed of the opening disemboweling; Drew Barrymore's ...

Cell phone reception; thin evidence clearing the boyfriend; the speed of the opening disemboweling; Drew Barrymore's character not calling the cops; the cameraman on the roof; the voice disguiser and cloned phone; waiting a year to kill again; a party a week after the murders; the parents splitting up; where to stab each other; Billy seemingly trying to kill his partner; explaining the corn syrup

In the discussion (14)
Approx. transcript time · 00:59:00Read transcript
  • The cell phone reception problem is restated, and more evidence than one call was wanted before Sidney stops suspecting her boyfriend, who turns up randomly while the other killer is chasing her.
  • Wonders how the boyfriend was disemboweled so quickly in the opening, when the killer is barely seen. — K. Austin Collins
  • The disemboweling looks less like a slit across the gut than a velociraptor clawing at him, a little fast for the work involved.
  • Two nits: Drew Barrymore's character agreeing not to call the cops, and Matthew Lillard's character killing the 240-pound cameraman and getting him onto the roof before Gail drives off, which is not believable. — Shea Serrano
  • The reply is that Skeet's character was still upstairs and must have been involved, since he walks down the stairs when she runs back inside, or that Lillard had taken eight bath salts for superhuman strength.
  • How the voice disguiser works and how high school kids got it is questioned; the voice belongs to a separately cast actor, originally a placeholder they liked enough to keep, and cloning the cell phone seems beyond a seventeen-year-old without time at Radio Shack, though they did have a whole year.
  • Whether killers could lay off for a year is doubted; once the line is crossed you might as well start killing everybody, and Skeet's character is as petty as the hosts for waiting a year to insult Sidney's mother; the Green River Killer is noted to have laid off for ten years.
  • A parent's nit: a week after the first murders, with the killer not found, everybody goes to a huge party; the rationale offered is that wine-country parents are drunk at a tasting and the killer only kills high school kids.
  • Walking in on their daughter hanging from a tree with the house on fire is about as tough a way to see a child go as there is; a small nit is the husband sending his wife outside alone to drive to the police, splitting up and breaking a core horror rule, though a movie about the parents would be watched.
  • Asked, as the resident prison-movie expert, where to be stabbed to look left for dead: avoid the nipples area, where the important stuff is, and take it lower, preferably on the side. — Shea Serrano
  • Alternatives are debated: the kidney is not the target because the wound must look serious, an arm or hand stab would not look like being left for dead, and the movie's killers aim for the sides.
  • A theory that Billy is actually trying to kill Matthew Lillard's character, stabbing him four or five times off camera, is called great and unspoken; it fits Lillard being there for peer pressure while Billy is the sociopath, and the phone to the head is the one moment that made a host wince.
  • Final stabbing preferences: a high left shoulder and a grazed neck for blood, though nobody trusts Skeet Ulrich near their neck, the legs are too minor to look near death, and the whole plan should have been nixed in favour of hiding in a closet.
  • How Billy Loomis would explain being covered in corn syrup to the police is asked; a good cop would notice it is not blood, but Dewey, whose brain damage is established, can barely find the doorknob.
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1:09:58

Probably Unanswerable Questions

What is the next day of school like for Sidney? What does the house's owner fix first? How much does Sidney regret lo...

What is the next day of school like for Sidney? What does the house's owner fix first? How much does Sidney regret losing her virginity to the killer? What would you do when the murders start? Why did the killers not finish her? Was there a Scream 20th anniversary? Is the lack of diversity intentional? What expo was Sidney's father headed to?

In the discussion (10)
Approx. transcript time · 01:09:58Read transcript
  • What is the next day of school like for Neve Campbell's character? She is done for the rest of the year, though strong-willed enough to try to come back early, and the principal is dead too.
  • What does the house's owner fix first? The garage door before the blood, or simply bulldoze the house and sell the land after fifteen murders and fifty gallons of corn syrup, since it becomes a Halloween tourist attraction.
  • The virginity subplot winks at the earlier movies where the girl who did not have sex survived; how much does Sidney regret that her first time was with the killer ten minutes before his spree, and how does she tell later partners?
  • Scream 2 arrives two years later with Sidney, after more trauma than any human, simply going to college and a sorority; one host does not acknowledge Scream 2 and 3, though the Jerry O'Connell cafeteria song and Laurie Metcalf are liked while the long ending with the mother drags.
  • Asked what to do when the murders start at the party: just run away, out to the middle of the street where nobody can sneak up, for two miles if needed, saving nobody.
  • Flipped around: with Neve Campbell hard to kill, the killers were toying with her and should have finished it when he had her in the Jeep, like the Wolf Creek killer stabbing straight through the car seat, or Oberyn Martell failing to finish the Mountain in Game of Thrones.
  • The killer toying with the last girl was a horror staple of the era, as when Jamie Lee Curtis drops the knife beside Michael Myers; the final-girl flirtation is a trope shared with James Bond and Six Million Dollar Man.
  • Was there a Scream 20th anniversary? Scream 4 in 2011 updated it with Emma Roberts and was not great, and MTV made a Scream TV show nobody here watched; self-reference can only go so far before it becomes Airplane, and Scream 4 lays it on thick.
  • Last question: is the astonishing lack of diversity intentional? Probably unintentional and corrected in Scream 2 with Jada Pinkett Smith and a Black best friend; no minority with a speaking line is recalled, a cast that would never happen today, and the filmmakers would likely claim it was a statement about how white earlier movies were.
  • Earlier, what expo Sidney's father is heading to after the attack is asked.
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