Film review
Scream (1996)
Director: Wes Craven.
Genre: Action horror
Plot:
When a girl
is killed, a small town is sent into fear. A killer known as ‘Ghost face’ beings
to reign terror on teenagers. The group of teenagers contemplate the
"Rules" and “conventions’ of horror films as they find themselves
living one.
Two
scenes that impressed me were:
The opening
scene really impressed me, with it's use of slow to fast montage. This keeps you
on the edge if your seat. For example the slow montage of the girl
on the phone, pacing with long takes and setting the scene. To the fast paced
action of quicker takes and music when the killer says that they are in the house.
The ending is also a very strong scene. It fits the horror convention of having a stereotypical final girl in Sidney, who stops the killer and gets out alive. But also it has an open ending, as it cuts to a news reporter outside the house. This doesn't give us closure on events in the film, a classic convention of the horror genre. However, I feel they did this because they wanted to leave the franchise open to allow sequels. Something that is very common in the genre.
Gere
checklist:
The film use
conventions of the genre really well, because it main focus is the horror
genre.
Mise-en-scene; the film hits the entire checklist
because again it is a film that focus on the rules of horror. However it does serve twists.
For example the final girl preforms one of the sin of the horror movies
(relations) but still survives, which is against the stereotype. Both body
horror (Camera-man getting his neck slit open) and restricted narration (Tatum getting
crushed by garage) is used. Its interesting to see a blend in the death scenes during the films. But, this movie
deliveries it scares more through montage rather than body horror. The creepy
location only makes an appearance in the last 40 minutes of the film with the
farm house finale, but it sense of isolation delivers to a stunning finale for the
film. Also low key lighting is used a lot on Billy who is the killer. Just this little touch of lighting keeps the audiences guessing about the true nature of him through the whole film, giving it another layer of enjoyment. They use parallel music during the
movie, the best example would be the music used when the killer is chasing
Sidney through her house. With fast paced music reflects the action on
screen.
Editing; Collision cutting is used really well
in places too deliver jumps. The best example would be the moment in the
first scene where we see the girl frozen by fear sitting in the corner. It is
silence, but then a chair coming smashing through the window. This moment of
slow to fast montage sets a un-ease feel for the quiet moments in the rest of
the film. Close up are used really well especially to show emotion. When Sidney
is on the phone the close up really shows her shock and horror when she
finds out who is really on the other end of the phone. P.O.V shots work well in the
action scene. In the car crash scene we get to see the car hit the tree through
the eyes of the driver. This scares the audience as they can’t look away and
do anything about this incident that will likely cause violent death. Also
handheld camera is used well in action with chase scenes that put us into the eyes of the victim.
This helps us feel emotional attached to the character, and see the struggle
that they are going through.
Themes; Sex and taboo both feature in the film,
especially through the relationship of Sidney and Billy. Billy is trying to
push Sidney into having sex with him. Sidney is a virgin and is nervous of the
idea of it. They talk about this is her bedroom when Billy says their relationship
is "dull". Violence is other theme that features a lot. The killer kills and
tortures these innocence people like they are in a film, why also taking a sadistic
pleasure from it. The cameraman gets killed by ‘ghost face’ and he isn’t even a
target, he just gets caught up in the crossfire. His death really shows the sadistic pleasure that the killer gets from taking a life. Loneliness is also a key theme.
The killer Billy tells us in his final monologue, that his mother left
home because she discovered about an affair on going between Sidney’s mum and
Billy’s dad. He feels alone because his mother left him and blames Sidney and
her father for the fact he has been
left by her and no longer has her around.
Narrative; Like most horror the ending was open.
We see the killer get shot so he is clearly dead. But after that we never
discover what happens to Sidney. Is she in trouble with the law? We never find out. I feel this was done so if the film was successful,
there was the option for sequels. This eventually did happen.
Ideologies; The main ideology from the film was
feeling outside the CDI. The killers talk about how they planned all the
killing from watching horror movies, people don’t watch horror for tips, they
watch it for enjoyment. Stuart: “watch a few movies, take a few notes. It was
fun!”
Aspects I
would include in my own trailer:
I really
enjoyed the stereotypical characters. Because they knew their stereotypes, and
didn’t try to be different. However they all had their own twist. The final
girl had sex-(Sidney). The stoner was behind it (Stu). The female victim never
show any flesh (Tatum). The cop is dim, but has his moments of brilliance and bravery (Dewy).
Also the use
of montage and collision cutting was superb. It had me on the edge of my seat and build suspence well when it all went quite.
Aspects I
would avoid in my own trailer:
However I
feel they never delivered any big jump. So they didn't use collision cutting to its best
ability. The moments from slow to fast montage were not sudden enough. And I only
jumped a few times, because of the brief pause between that change happening.
The best example of this was the first time Sidney ran into ‘Ghost face’. They
had all the build-up, slowed it right down. But then cut to a short over Sidney
shoulder which allowed us to see were the killer was coming from. I feel it
would of worked better if he jumped out more sudden and closer to her. Rather
than letting us see where the killer was coming from.
My
favourite aspects of the film:
I really
enjoyed the playing/questioning of the genre convention as a whole. It’s cool
to hear character talking about ‘rules’ and mentioning different horror movies, it makes the
movie different. The stereotypes are trying to avoid the stereotypical. However
I don’t want to recreate this in my horror. Scream worked well because
it was a one off, can’t remake/re-do it. It a really cool idea, but I cannot put it in my trailer as people will just say I'm ripping off Scream. I need to focus on scaring my audience
without being ironic.
Historical context; The historical context of the film
reflects the killing of the ‘The Gainesville Ripper’ who preyed on students
during the 90’s. Using this real life event by the film creator was very smart.
It was a good idea to use a real killer who targeted the target audience as a
villain. This is a perfect example of Janet Staiger ‘audience studies’. The
audience of the time would react to ‘Ghost face’ more because the Gainesville Ripper was in
the news around the date of the film release. It the same effect that Ed Gein
has on Psycho audience when it was first released
Institutional context; the horror genre was dying. The
genre has been filled with direct to video films that weren’t very good. But,
then in 1996 Scream was released. It was a slasher movie that knew the
rules. But wasn’t affair to change them. They twisted characters and locations,
but kept the killing and terror very conventional. A great example of the twist
of conventions is again found in the opening scene. You have all the classic
stereotypes. Low key lighting of the house shows how it is isolated from the
rest of town. The male gaze (Laura mulvey) of Casey is introduced- played by
Drew Barrymore. Which was very strange, because she was killed off within the
first minutes of the film. It was like Psycho
with the death of the blonde haired victim Marion played by Janet Leigh. This death showed the audience that this horror movie was going to be differnet to the others. It pays great respect to the classics like; Friday
the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. While still
standing on its own. Screamed caused the resurrection of the genre, while also redefining it. It was exactly what the genre needed at the time of its released. Without Scream the genre could of
died out, at least with the bigger, more mainstream audiences.
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