'Scream' is the most innovative horror movie of all-time
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Scream 2 did some awesome stuff too.
The opening cinema scene which follows the intro to the original film and the crescendo leading to the kill is spine-tingling, it's just perfect.
Also killing a major character in broad daylight in a crowded area was pretty shocking.
And Cotton is a great character.
The ending sort of let's it down, but as sequels go it's solid - and proves they need Williamson to make good Scream
movies. However the original script for Scream 2 was crazy - IIRC the killers turn out to be Derek (her boyfriend) and her flatmate (who is having an affair with Derek) and in that version pretty much everybody dies in the final act.
I'd say Williamson was more of a key ingredient than Craven, because in 3 & 4 Craven was really phoning in the kills. Barely any cat and mouse to speak of. The alternate opening to Scream 4 worked well they just needed to flesh it out a bit, and the first kill in Scream: The TV Series is, from memory, better than anything in 3 or 4 (I might be wrong on this, can't remember all the deaths off-hand).
Also, fuck knows why they cut this scene from 4 but they should've left it in:
The opening cinema scene which follows the intro to the original film and the crescendo leading to the kill is spine-tingling, it's just perfect.
Also killing a major character in broad daylight in a crowded area was pretty shocking.
And Cotton is a great character.
The ending sort of let's it down, but as sequels go it's solid - and proves they need Williamson to make good Scream
movies. However the original script for Scream 2 was crazy - IIRC the killers turn out to be Derek (her boyfriend) and her flatmate (who is having an affair with Derek) and in that version pretty much everybody dies in the final act.
I'd say Williamson was more of a key ingredient than Craven, because in 3 & 4 Craven was really phoning in the kills. Barely any cat and mouse to speak of. The alternate opening to Scream 4 worked well they just needed to flesh it out a bit, and the first kill in Scream: The TV Series is, from memory, better than anything in 3 or 4 (I might be wrong on this, can't remember all the deaths off-hand).
Also, fuck knows why they cut this scene from 4 but they should've left it in:
I don't think it was that innovative. Rather it delivered the package with really high quality and got pretty much everything right.
It's more a case of very high quality control vs innovation IMHO. Certainly other films (and for sure horror novels) innovated those areas before Scream did.
That said it is a really terrific and superbly constructed film as you note.
All arguably innovated more than Scream in context of release timing and what they did with horror conventions and that's without looking beyond well known films.
I'd say Scream is a classic of the genre but not hugely innovative just really, really polished and with great timing at release to the prevailing zeitgeist. It was a shot in the arm for horror at the time due to said timing.
It's more a case of very high quality control vs innovation IMHO. Certainly other films (and for sure horror novels) innovated those areas before Scream did.
That said it is a really terrific and superbly constructed film as you note.
- Psycho
- Blair Witch
- The Excorcist
- The Shining
- Haloween
All arguably innovated more than Scream in context of release timing and what they did with horror conventions and that's without looking beyond well known films.
I'd say Scream is a classic of the genre but not hugely innovative just really, really polished and with great timing at release to the prevailing zeitgeist. It was a shot in the arm for horror at the time due to said timing.
I'll add Cat People to the list of more innovative films mentioned in this thread. It would be kind of weird for the most innovative horror film all time to have come out twenty years ago when horror films have been around for over a hundred years.
Psycho is obviously one of the pinnacles of the genre, but it always makes me sad that people see it as *the* horror movie of 1960. Peeping Tom, Black Sunday, Eyes Without a Face, and Jigoku may not be as widely known, but they're all on a similar level of quality IMO, for various reasons. And City of the Dead isn't an amazing movie but it has basically the same twist Psycho does.
Psycho is obviously one of the pinnacles of the genre, but it always makes me sad that people see it as *the* horror movie of 1960. Peeping Tom, Black Sunday, Eyes Without a Face, and Jigoku may not be as widely known, but they're all on a similar level of quality IMO, for various reasons. And City of the Dead isn't an amazing movie but it has basically the same twist Psycho does.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Oh come on. The only thing most of the movies listed on that blog are similar is in that they are contemporary horror movies with mostly young leads... like that's in any way a new thing since Halloween!
Scream was a post-modern comedy slasher. How many of the movies listed are that?
The Scary Movie franchise was prime beneficiary of Scream, and kept its profile high due to its association.
Ironically the most remarkable thing about Scream is that it was a successful franchise that left almost no mark on the genre.
TheSkullPrince
Member
Like everyone has said, Scream my not be innovative, but it reinvigorated a stagnant genre which desperately needed it and it most definitely should not be overlooked when mentioning horror/slasher movie classics.
And yeah it's my favorite slasher film.
And yeah it's my favorite slasher film.
H20, Urban Legend and I Know What You Did Last Summer clearly owed a lot to the success of Scream. The others were just teen horror films, but Scream resurrected that genre so although they are not post-modern comedy slashers, as you put it, their existence, or at least how they were marketed, is indebted to Scream. Also I don't think you should overstate the comedy and post-modern aspects of Scream - it had a sense of humour but it was an excellent slasher / horror film in it's own right. Calling it a comedy implies it was something lesser.
deadscreensky
Member
Glad this was the first post.
Scream was a fun movie, and obviously influential, but not particularly innovative.
If you want a slasher film that does both of what you ask about, there's Just Before Dawn. As a matter of fact, I think the only death that occurs at night in that film is when the remaining killer finally gets his.
And boy howdy, does he ever.
Mortimer Brewster
Member
Scream is a good movie no doubts but it is hardly innovative even with the meta horror sub genre, As mentioned before New Nightmare served as the testing ground for a number of ideas that Craven and Williamson then polished in Scream. Even going back to the the 80's American Werewolf in London, The Howling and Fright Night all had various degrees of meta humor built into them. And don't get me started on Jason Lives.
Hyrule Warrior
Member
It is such a damn shame that 4 did not do better. I had kinda been done with horror movies by the time 4 came out, but I thought 4 was just a perfect sequel. It should not have worked since it had been so long since the previous movie, but it was great. I thought it just did everything right, and had that same feel of the first movie, while being clever and original when needed.
B
bomb
Unconfirmed Member
I think it's hard for Scream to be innovative when it came out 70+ years after the first horror films but it does a lot of things right. The phone calls were classic. Also having the horror nerd dropping horror knowledge throughout the film.
It would be a better thread calling it one of the more important/needed horror films ever. . It was soooo 90s but it realy did bring horror films back from the dead.
It would be a better thread calling it one of the more important/needed horror films ever. . It was soooo 90s but it realy did bring horror films back from the dead.
Host Samurai
Member
Great movie that offered something different during a really bad downtime for horror movies. 90's horror was terrible till Scream came out.
I would argue that this was ultimately its biggest contribution to the genre, in terms of getting mainstream eyes back on it. It's fair to say that the genre lost itself in the first half of the 90s, what with the horrible deaths that the slasher franchises suffered with their then final installments, along with The Silence of the Lambs inadvertently spawning a veritable Mad Libs of a sub-genre that owed more to thrillers than it did horror and the home video revolution relegating a lot of the better films in the genre of that time period to Blockbuster shelves with no real critical backing even if they were good. In comes Scream, and suddenly people actually care about seeing horror films again in a theater. I would personally pick The Blair Witch Project as being an ultimately more influential film, but I will credit Scream for making that film's arrival a lot easier than if it instead suffered the fate of, oh, I don't know, The Mangler.
MagnaderAlpha
Member
I liked Scream, but I HATED what it wrought. That whole "style" of MTV gen horror/pre-CW "soap opera" horror with popular young actors/actresses that pretty much spanned the mid-90s (after Scream) throughout the majority of the 00s (even trying to inch into the early 2010s) was my bane. I'm glad we've mainly moved from that type of shit. Trends can be a bitch, which also perfectly echoes the reason why pre-Scream 90s horror was failing. That post-80s trend aiming to milk bullshit sequels and horrible concepts until horror was on its death bed.
I do think the innovative label applies.
Horror is a genre that often stales, people get bored by it because it focuses to much on shock and little in storytelling, thats why you will always hear from fans that "horror is dead".
Which is why this movie had to have done something right, beyond just deconstructing tropes, because it ignited the genre like never before. This is specially true because the movie was never advertise as a "parody" or " satire", and most people didn't realize what the movie was doing back in the day.
Horror is a genre that often stales, people get bored by it because it focuses to much on shock and little in storytelling, thats why you will always hear from fans that "horror is dead".
Which is why this movie had to have done something right, beyond just deconstructing tropes, because it ignited the genre like never before. This is specially true because the movie was never advertise as a "parody" or " satire", and most people didn't realize what the movie was doing back in the day.
Mariah Carey
Member
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deadscreensky
Member
I don't remember there being that lack of awareness you state. Obviously some viewers will miss anything -- I remember a few years before Scream I was talking to a teenager who didn't pick up on the fact that Batman and Bruce Wayne were the same person in Batman 1989 -- but even the most mainstream reviews recognized it. Your average viewer might not know much about postmodernism, but the movie is fairly blatantly about horror movies and audiences recognized that. This brief TV commercial even hints at it, with the "this isn't a movie" dialogue.
I do remember a lot of praise for the opening death being surprising and innovative, though obviously that was an old horror movie trick too.
Again, Scream is a good movie, and was very successful, but I'm having a lot of trouble considering it innovative.
Mariah Carey
Member
...Scream had every horror movie that wasn't trying to look like The Sixth Sense/The Ring try to look like it for a good 10+ years afterward, made stars out of its whole cast, revived by extension an entire spoof genre, ignited a gritty/ torture porn direction done in response to it, inspired a "home invasion" subgenre of movies that are essentially the first scene of Scream stretched over an hour and a half, and I swear every year there is a new indie movie claiming to be "The New Scream" come out. Yeesh, you could make a case for Scream being a top 10-20 most influential movies of the past 20 years, let alone just horror.
Count Dookkake
Member
Fans of meta horror like scream are strongly encouraged to watch Demons, Anguish, and In the Mouth of Madness.
Forsaken82
Member
Scary Movie is a parody. Scream is just self aware
I would like to say yes you are... but there's always someone else.
Those two franchises are wildly different. It is extremely hard to confuse the two imo.
Phobophile
A scientist and gentleman in the manner of Batman.
Scream was pretty postmodern. But the biggest gripe about postmodernism I have is that often, it only works the first time you do it. Subsequent efforts of the same or similar subject matters end up coming off as rehashes or trite.
I think the brilliant part of Scream, from someone who was barely old enough to see it in the theater back when they'd let you in if a parent bought the ticket, is how much of the past it drew upon in setting viewer expectations, how many explicit call backs it had to other horror films, and how the movie seemed to keep defying and upsetting viewer expectations.
The brilliance of Scream is that it came after the Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street series had somewhat fallen off or descended into self-parody. They were in rotation on your HBO and other premium networks as late night schlock between an 80s A-list thriller and the late night softcore p-no movies. They were essentially white noise.
Ideal circumstances for meta-commentary on the genre to thrive.
The brilliance of Scream is that it came after the Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street series had somewhat fallen off or descended into self-parody. They were in rotation on your HBO and other premium networks as late night schlock between an 80s A-list thriller and the late night softcore p-no movies. They were essentially white noise.
Ideal circumstances for meta-commentary on the genre to thrive.
The kill scenes in the series are horrid. They utterly failed to capture the tension of the movie chase scenes through the sets. I like the show well enough in a "fuck this shit, but at least it's stupid entertainment"-way, but on that level it simply can't compare at all. Having a few bloody murders on MTV doesn't change that.
The first movie is a masterpiece in my book. The second one retained the tension, but sadly the big Scream-set pieces, the first scene and the showdown can't compare with the ones of the first Scream.
What? Wouldn't the very first work in a given genre to be meta also, by definition, be innovative since it was the first?
I'm not saying that's Scream. But you can't say "can't", now can you?
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