‘Scream’ is Terrific Horror but An Even Better Whodunit
The Scoop features personal essays on movie-centric topics.
By Elliott Cuff
Wes Craven’s Scream debuted on the big screen almost 27 years ago, and the tidal wave it created is still sending ripples through the horror industry today. The impact it had was seismic, at once rehydrating a tired genre while simultaneously spurring film innovation. I didn’t experience that genre rejuvenation first-hand because I was about two weeks old, so it wasn’t until much later in life that I finally sat down to watch it.
When I was young, I had a complicated relationship with horror. I loved macabre and disturbing storytelling, but I just couldn’t stomach horror films. For the same reason I dislike rollercoasters, I couldn’t stand jump-scares; that sudden burst of adrenaline doesn’t do anything for me. I most definitely would have failed Ghostface’s quiz about scary movies.
But one random night as a starry-eyed teenager looking for a spooky fix, I chose to embrace fear and throw Scream on—and it changed everything. I might not have experienced the impact of Craven’s horror resurrection back in 1996, but his seminal slasher left quite the impression, and all these years later I still haven’t encountered anything similar that has come close to superseding it.
Who’s behind the mask?
Scream had me hooked right from the opening moments, with a low, ominous booming sound as the Dimension Films logo emerges, quickly followed in sequence by a telephone ring, a terrified scream, and the slashing of a knife. It smoothly transitions into the beginning of the opening scene, with Drew Barrymore’s Casey answering the phone.
From the offset, Scream sets an intriguing tempo. Casey talks with the disembodied voice on the phone, initially brief yet respectful, before the textured, almost erotic tone of Roger L. Jackson’s now-iconic voice work eases her into the conversation. It’s harmless enough at first, simple yet lightly flirtatious enough to draw us in—until Jackson speaks a line that makes our blood run cold: “Because I want to know who I’m looking at.”
Much has been said about how Scream tackles meta-commentary, directly referencing films such as Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th in this opening scene. But when I watched it for the first time I was taken over by the mystery at the center of the story.
Casey is just as unknown to us as whoever is on the other end of the phone at this point, but Ghostface toys with his prey to such a degree that we can’t help but wonder who the villain is. With each instance of a taunting phone call, an attempted murder, or a brutal killing throughout the film, we become ever more curious about who is wearing that mask.
It’s that aspect that makes Scream not only a terrific horror film but also one of the best whodunit mysteries committed to cinema. Save for a few notable exceptions, most slashers are simultaneously whodunits, but few allow us to witness the twisted personality of the killer without letting us know who they are.
Chasing Ghostface
Another element that makes Scream so effective as a whodunit is the precise design of Ghostface, which proved to be nothing short of genius.
Several classic slashers (Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine, Black Christmas) were forced to keep their killers entirely off-screen to prevent audiences from learning their identity too early, but Scream gives us all of Ghostface—except a look behind the mask. Ghostface wears a costume that looks like something anyone could buy at a Halloween store, the accessibility of which gleefully widens the suspect pool.
We’re also treated not only to the voice of Ghostface, distorted by the character’s signature voice changer, but each chase sequence allows us to see the physicality of our villain. These are all clues that allow us to attempt to piece together who we believe the killer to be.
“There’s a grim excitement in trying to guess who Ghostface is, only to find that your chief suspect gets skewered in the following scene.”
But Scream is the very definition of a film that is as much about the journey as it is about the destination. There’s a grim excitement in trying to guess who Ghostface is, only to find that your chief suspect gets skewered in the following scene.
This builds to a stunning crescendo when we finally learn the identity of our killer, or rather killers. Scream constantly presents conventions of the horror genre as facts, self-referentially tributing them while also subverting them, and that’s clearly seen in the big final act reveal. There isn’t one killer but two, and when I tell you my mind was blown know that I’m not exaggerating.
A horror fan’s origin story
One of the beautiful things about Scream is that it doesn’t age. Even after the umpteenth viewing, it retains every ounce of its impact. It’s still frightening, sharp, witty, and self-aware, and it’s still a compelling mystery. Even if you know who the killers are, the film still leaves us with questions to ponder—namely, who was wearing the costume during each encounter?
For how little was expected from Scream before it debuted in late ‘96, Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson couldn’t have possibly dreamed up how influential their film would go on to become. It redefined the horror genre, it laid out the groundwork for other slasher whodunits to follow, and it established a unique formula that has been rehashed and recycled countless times since.
I owe so much of who I am as a lover of film to Scream. It didn’t just expand my viewpoint of what horror could be—it also inspired me to look deeper at film. It made me want to learn more about what films were trying to say. Scream made me realize that film is an art form and that the industry exists to do more than simply entertain.
It did that by repeatedly drawing reference to a genre of film that I was barely familiar with, and by name-dropping movie titles that I hadn’t heard of at the time. Alfred Hitchcock, Bob Clark, and John Carpenter may have walked so that Craven could run, but make no mistake: he and his masterpiece sprinted into my heart like a crazed, knife-wielding egomaniac in a Ghostface costume.
Elliott Cuff is a writer, journalist, and film enthusiast. Follow him on Twitter @CuffWrites and Instagram @elliottlovesmovies.