All American Bad Boy: Why 'Scream' is the Ultimate Slasher Film

The seductive yet sinister voice, the long black grim reaper-like gown, the big black boots, the malicious mind games, and the terrifyingly long stretched-mouthed and stretch-eyed white mask are enough to induce great fear in anyone. This was especially true for me as I watched Wes Craven's Scream movie for the first time at seven years old. There was something about the ghost face persona that pulled me in as a viewer, and I felt both absorbed by the scenes unfolding before me and absolutely frightened out of my mind.

The killer, or "ghost-face", has a rather unique style. He likes to start with a casual, innocent, and almost flirtatious call to his unsuspecting victims. The call soon turns completely sinister as he begins to reveal his true intentions and plays a sort of vicious psychological game with the victim. He then reels the victim in and gives them a sense of hope that they may be able to survive. Tragically, the game is not designed to benefit the victim in the slightest. No matter what, the aim is to kill them.

Beginning with the opening scene of Wes Craven's Scream movie, the viewer is immediately thrown into an all too real nightmare. Drew Barrymore's character, Casey hopelessly tries to survive as she's being maliciously stalked while home alone, toyed with, and eventually savagely murdered. The opening scene, or better yet, the opening kill was so suspenseful as we watched Casey play the killer's game to no avail, run for her life, and become seconds away from getting help before the killer tragically catches her and kills her.

The haunting scream of Casey’s mother when she sees her daughter's body badly mutilated and hanging from a tree near their home has to be one of the most memorable and absolutely horrifying scenes I've ever watched in a film. That opening scene was a perfect start to the movie that is Scream. This by far is my favorite scene of the film as it sets the tone for the rest of the movie.

Now, there are five main points that separate Scream from other slasher films, making it absolutely terrifying, and proving why it is an absolute classic:

1. Ghost-face surprisingly has so much personality. He is extremely calculated and witty, a pro at gaslighting, and has a clever yet dark sense of humor. The viewer is entertained by the many dimensions of the masked killer. Sometimes he's a flirt, sometimes he's a bit funny, and sometimes he's threatening to "gut you like a fish". The viewer is kept on their toes by such a dynamic character. What is particularly disturbing about this is that everyone who puts on the costume begins to embody the same exact persona. Although this is mainly by design, the ghost face persona is perfected nearly too well by anyone who decides to wear it. It almost seems as if the ghost face costume has its own unique personality, independent of the person wearing it.

2. The movie doesn't simply rely on predictable jump scares or gore to make it a good quality horror movie. In fact, I'd say the psychological games played on the main protagonist, Sidney Prescott, is the most fear-inducing and unsettling aspect of the film. The viewer watches in utter horror as we see Sidney being tormented and relentlessly preyed upon throughout the entirety of the film.

3. Released in the mid-1990s, Wes Craven's Scream completely took slasher films to a whole new level by introducing a new and terrifying element; the killer(s) are young, seemingly sane, teenagers from the small town of 'Woodsboro'. The usual storyline of the killer being an insane middle-aged man or a dark figure from an ancient scary tale was put to bed with the releasing of this film. The mere idea that a deranged mass murderer could be an average high school student, blending in with everyone else, is alarming. The concept was new, fresh, and absolutely horrifying.

4. The main protagonist, Sidney Prescott, actually has common sense. During the suspenseful scenes where ghost-face is after her, Sidney always manages to fight back and eventually escape. All too often in horror films, the characters are very clumsy and hardly ever make the best decisions when they are trying to escape their doom. Sometimes this can make a horror film seem not realistic enough. In this movie, Sidney even critiques how women in horror movies are often portrayed as being air-headed and "running up the stairs when they should be running out the front door". This film takes a completely different approach, a more realistic approach, which ultimately makes the film that much more chilling.

5. The huge plot twist of there being more than one killer is enough to put this film in the horror/slasher hall of fame. The amount of suspense built up leading to the scene where the killer is revealed is considerable, and then to have two different killers with two separate motives... Iconic!

You see, no other movie played with my psyche quite like this one. This movie is the reason behind my late-night heebie-jeebies, the explanation behind why I refuse to answer unknown calls after 8 pm, and the rationale behind why I feel a greater sense of fear come over me when I'm home alone and think I see ghost-face in a shadowy corner from my peripheral vision. I've watched this movie hundreds of times. I even know the movie word for word, and yet, I still would never watch this movie alone. It's simply far too disturbing. And after having countless nightmares and self-induced scares, I can actually pinpoint a more subtle, sixth, reason of what makes Scream so disturbing...

6. There is a saying stating that "Today's fiction is tomorrow's reality". While I was writing this article, I began to realize that almost every element within this movie is quite realistic. Actually, this movie has become more realistic over time. In point 4, I mentioned that this film introduced a new and alarming element. This being that the killers were seemingly sane high school students that no one would suspect. While that element was new then, it isn't new now.

And if that is not scary, I don't know what is.