Hello, Horror Syndicate! What’s your favorite scary movie? It’s Morgan here with my final entry in our ABC’s of Horror, and I’m officially all out of surprises/shocking decisions. I just had to choose Scream for S since it’s not only one of my favorite scary movies, but one of my favorite movies in general. I’ve already written a review of Scream, as well as one for season one of MTV’s Scream, in fact they were my first posts on the site, so this is going to be in a similar format to what Mike’s ABC’s of Horror: C is for The Crazies article is. I’m going to give you three reasons why you should watch Scream this Halloween season.
1.The costumed killer. Scream may not take place ON Halloween, but that doesn’t stop the movie’s killer from wearing a Halloween costume while committing his crimes. When you think about it, not too many other killers have gotten their get up from a costume shop, besides Michael Myers of course. Not only is the killer’s outfit a costume in the movie universe, but it is in real life, as well. I probably don’t have to tell you that the Ghostface mask, and robe have been one of the most popular costumes since the movie came out, as well as a way for real life criminals to attempt to hide their identities throughout the years, but did you know that it was a costume before 1996? That’s right, the famed Ghostface mask existed before the movie did. The Scream team came across the mask that was left a house they were looking into using for the movie, and thought it was a perfect fit for their killer. They discovered it was actually from a Halloween mask company called Fun World, who they eventually bought the rights from, in order to use it in their film. You can read more about that, here.
2.It’s like horror inception. No, not the beginning of horror, although it kind of was the beginning of a new type of horror. My millennial self is using inception as adjective that means something within something else, because ya know, that’s what the movie Inception is about. Scream has a lot of horror, within horror. Pretty much each individual character in Scream, is a fan of the horror genre, or at least has knowledge about it. You could probably make a “what type of horror fan are you?” quiz with the results based on different characters from the movie. This makes the movie extremely self aware, or “meta”, which is one of my favorite things about it. They could have made the characters this way without actually including references to real horror films, but instead the movie is filled with em from the moment the movie starts and Ghostface has that conversation with Casey Becker over the phone.
3.The people involved with Scream. RIP horror legend Wes Craven. He’s such a big name in horror, how can you not celebrate Halloween by watching his movies? But he’s not the only great person involved with the film. Every single one of the actors play their roles so well, and convincingly, and help add to the realistic feel of the movie. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet 4 stars of the film, Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Matthew Lillard, and Skeet Ulrich (twice!!!) at Texas Frightmare. Each one of them are not only great actors in the movie, but great, and incredibly kind people in real life as well, so that’s even more of a reason to support their work!
To my knowledge, Scream isn’t available to stream through any subscription service, don’t quote me on that though. Honestly you shouldn’t need it to be because if you’re a fan of horror you probably own it, and if not, what are you doing with your life?! It’s an essential piece to have in your horror dvd collection, plus it’s only $5 at Walmart, so even broke college kids like me can afford it. Catch ya on the flip side, with more Scream posts soon to come!
