Behind the Screams

Earlier this year, The Weinstein Company announced it had plans to make Scream 4. I was a huge fan of the first three, in fact the original Scream is one of my favorite movies of all time, but this has the potential to be a huge mistake. While the original Scream films were sleek, sexy and riveting, it’s hard to believe anything they do ten years later will have the energy that made the first three successful. If they are interested in doing another horror movie, how hard could it be to give it its’ own story. Kevin Williamson (who created Dawson’s Creek) wrote the original Scream because he knew there was an audience for this type of movie. Now the audience has been bombarded with slasher films to the point where none of them feel special. Anyway, in honor of Halloween, here are a few things you may or may not have known about Scream. Of course beware of spoilers.

• To keep Drew Barrymore crying, Wes Craven would tell Drew Barrymore stories about animal cruelty, and would often hop up and down like a bunny to remind her of a story he told about a man who tortured rabbits.


• Rose McGowan (Tatum) was the only major character that was never the killer in any draft of the script.


• The janitor dressed as Freddy Kruger is director Wes Craven.


• Liev Schrieber, who plays Cotton Weary, was supposed to have a larger role in the film. In the original draft, he is released from jail and it is him who takes the gun from Stu and shoots Billy. In the final version, it is Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) who does this.


• Billy’s last name, Loomis was used both Psycho and Halloween.


• In another homage to Alfred Hitchcock, Drew Barrymore was promoted as one of the stars of the film. Just like in Psycho, Scream kills off the “lead character” in the first part of the movie.


• I did not answer my phone for three weeks after the seeing this movie for the first time.


• Skeet Ulrich was designed to look like Johnny Depp in Nightmare on Elm Street.


• Wes Craven hid the phone voice of the killer from Neve Campbell the entire time they filmed the movie, even though he had to be onset for all their scene.


• The cat who runs through the cat door (which Tatum tries to escape through) was selected because it had the same color hair as Rose McGowan.

All info obtained through Scream Collectors Edition DVDs, Internet Movie Data Base, Entertainment Weekly, ect.