Scream Deconstruction

Scream Basics

• Director: Wes Craven
• Writer: Kevin Williamson 
• Synopsis: A masked killer begins murdering teenagers in a small town, and as the body count rises, one girl and her friends contemplate the "rules" of horror films as they find themselves living in a real-life one.

Scream is very much aware that it is a movie, and has fun with this. The film features numerous in-jokes and references to other horror films. The victims in Scream are quite self-aware: they each make clear their familiarity with, and make fun of, teen slasher and horror films, which sets up their fairly ironic responses to the film's situations. 

Randy seems almost unable to tell the difference between a movie world and his own world. He compares what is going on to situations in horror films, and at one point even says: "If this was a scary movie, I would be the main suspect." Randy is also the one who puts forward his "Rules For Surviving a Horror Movie;" he eventually believes that the only reason he himself survives is because he's a virgin (almost subverting the 'Final GIRL' theory). The Final Girl theory is also subverted through Sidney, who although not as loud-mouthed or overtly sexual as her female counterpart, she is attractive and has reasons for not wanting to engage in sexual activity (her mother died and has not since felt comfortable). However, she does decide to give up her virginity towards the end of the film and so is breaking the mould and practically mocking the usual slasher conventions. 

A signature device, started in Scream and continued in Scream 2 and Scream 3, was the typical "rules" for the slasher sub-genre of horror movies being stated by the characters. In Scream, those rules (as described by Randy) are:

• You may not survive the movie if you have sex.
• You may not survive the movie if you drink or do drugs.
• You may not survive the movie if you say "I'll be right back", "Hello?" or "Who's there?"
• Don't answer the phone
• Don't open the door
• Don't try to hide

Most notable of all, the climactic scene of the film revolves around the characters watching the movie Halloween, unaware that they themselves are being watched on a hidden camera with a time delay (placed there by Gale). At one point Randy yells at the movie: "Look behind you, Jamie", unaware that there is also a killer behind him, again playing into the whole self-aware theme that Scream has. Kenny (the camera man) watches this from inside the news van, and also yells: "Behind you, kid." despite the time delay meaning the warning is just as pointless as Randy's, who is inside watching the film. The result is: a movie character (Kenny) watching what the hidden camera in the room shows, giving advice to another movie character (Randy), also watching a movie, also giving advice to a movie character (in the movie he's watching). 


Billy also comments that life is just "one big movie. Only you can't pick your genre." Loomis also references several other horror films e.g. When Billy shoot's Randy he says "Anthony Perkins, Psycho" and even quotes Psycho saying "we all go a little crazy sometimes". When talking about motives, Loomis describes how several famous horror villains didn't appear to have motives e.g. why did Hannibal eat people? He even says, 'It's a lot scarier when there's no motive, Sid'. 

Two of the most common references are to A Nightmare on Elm Street and its director Wes Craven. A Nightmare on Elm Street is referenced in the high school janitor. Fred, played by Craven, wears an outfit resembling Freddy Krueger's. Later in the film, Tatum tells Sidney that she is "sounding like a Wes Carpenter flick", a fictional name created from putting together the names Wes Craven and John Carpenter (director of the first Halloween film).