Scream
Director: Wes Craven
Cast: Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Jamie Kennedy, Roger L. Jackson, Skeet Ulrich, Drew Barrymore, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, Liv Schreiber, W. Earl Brown, Kevin Patrick Walls, Joseph Whipp, Lawrence Hecht
A year after the murder of her mother, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is terrorized by a new threat; a mysterious masked killer, who wields a knife and wears a creepy ghost mask, who is on a deadly quest for revenge. His phone calls usually consist of one question - “What's your favorite scary movie?” – followed up with scary movie trivia and ending with the loss of innocent lives scattered around the sleepy town of Woodsboro, California. Will Sidney survive the nightmare that is seeking to obliviate the next generation, or will Ghostface finally have his revenge?
Revenge is a powerful catalyst in this film, and nowhere is the essence of revenge reflected more perfectly, than in the characters of Billy and Stu and how their lust for revenge is what drives them to become the Ghostface killer.
While their attacks are on inconsequential pawns in this game, Casey Becker and Sidney Prescott stand out as the two victims who are the primary focus of Billy and Stu’s quest for revenge, with Sidney being their primary target…the Scream Queen. Stu satiates his lust for revenge when he and Billy murder Casey Becker, after Casey dumps Stu, for handsome quarterback, Steve. Billy and Stu intercepted Steve before he arrived at Casey's house for their date, and they brought him to the house to use as bait when they are tormenting Casey. He was already tied up and gagged and sitting out of Casey's view from the window and while one of the killers had her distracted on the phone, the other one put Steve in the chair. Yes, they taped him to the chair and Stu gutted him when Casey got the trivia question wrong, but if you look closely, you will see a bleeding wound on Steve's forehead and temple...seemingly indicating that Billy and/or Stu took Steve by surprise by whacking him over the head to subdue him. Because Steve is an athlete, he works out and is physically strong, so it would have been difficult for the killers to subdue Steve unless he could not fight back. Casey is the only victim, besides Sidney, to see her loved one being threatened before Billy and Stu attack her. And unlike the other four victims, if we are paying attention, we notice that of all the kills that Billy and Stu make, Casey’s is the only one (apart from Sidney, herself) that the killers take their time with when it is playing out.
Billy’s revenge motive is two-fold. The secret affair that Sidney’s mother, Maureen Prescott, had with Billy’s father, Hank Loomis, was the catalyst which destroyed Billy’s family and made his mother abandon him… and this was the reason Billy sought his revenge on Maureen and murdered her. His motive for killing Casey – while in part, was to make Casey pay for dumping Stu in favor of the football jock – was to unnerve Sidney on the eve of her mother’s murder. Casey was Sidney’s friend in school and Billy knew that murdering Casey so close to the one-year anniversary of Maureen Prescott’s death would only serve to rattle Sidney’s already fragile emotional psyche before he kills her. We see that their ploy succeeded when Sidney tells Tatum that the murders feel like creepy déjà vu of her mother’s murder. We also see Sidney shy away from watching the news when Gale confirms the déjà vu by connecting the current murders with the murder of Sidney’s mother, one year prior, and we see Sidney looking wistfully at a photograph of her mother, clearly feeling the pain of this loss. Billy uses Sidney’s mother to threaten Sidney again when he calls Sidney while she is waiting for Tatum. This first attack is a sincere effort by the killers to murder Sidney, because they know her father has already been taken out by this point, and he asks Sidney if she is alone in the house. When Sidney confirms that she is alone, Billy threatens Sidney that if she hangs up on him, she will die, just like her mother died. Like Casey, it was not enough for Billy to merely murder Sidney…he wanted it to hurt first. Sidney sealed her fate when she disrespected Billy’s mother by telling Billy that his mother leaving him was not as traumatic as Sidney losing her mother when she was murdered. For Billy, this insult was a reflection of the insult Sidney’s mother inflicted when she destroyed Billy’s family and his mother abandoned him and he deals with the daughter in much the same manner that he dealt with her mother after Maureen insulted him.
While the deaths of Tatum, Principal Himbry and Gale’s cameraman, Kenny, are tragic, they are all killed because of Billy’s quest to take his revenge on Sidney. They were merely pawns in Billy’s creepy game, and their deaths were strategically played so that the killers could isolate Sidney for the final act. Principal Himbry was killed so that the killers could distract the majority of the partygoers and get them away before they finally sought their revenge on Sidney when she arrives at Stu’s house, with Tatum, for the party. I would also like to propose a new theory as to why we see the killer twice (once at Tatum's house watching from the bushes when Tatum and Sidney are talking on the porch and then again, at the grocery store. I would theorize that this is not a random person behind the mask, but Billy or Stu, spying on Sidney to see when she would be alone, so they could attack her again. Notice when they call her during the first attack, the killer on the phone asks if she is alone in the house. They did not ask Casey this question. Stu overheard Tatum telling Sidney that she was not going to leave Sidney's side after the killers attacked Sidney the first time. That is why he invited Sidney and Tatum to his house party under the guise that she would be "totally safe with them" and why he looked so triumphant when she agreed. They killed Tatum off because they needed to isolate Sidney for their final act (i.e., killing Sidney) and they knew there was NO WAY in HELL that Tatum would allow Billy to be alone with Sidney. This loyalty to her best friend cost Tatum her life. Both times that the killer was there spying, Tatum was with Sidney in those moments.
Consider this though... Stu killed Tatum. We see Stu wearing the red silk robe when he and Sidney run into Billy at the front door…and he is also wearing this robe when he sends Tatum to the garage for the alcohol. This is something he could easily change out of when he was becoming Ghostface. He could have easily had the Ghostface costume stashed somewhere near the garage door, but hidden from the partygoers, and he told Tatum to get more beer, knowing this is where she would have to go to get the beer, and this location is well away from the party, and the partygoers are drunk and distracted watching horror movies anyway, so no one will hear the attack on Tatum. Stu follows Tatum to the garage, locks her in, and then changes from his robe, into the Ghostface costume and emerges to face her when she tries escaping through the garage door... and when he realizes that Tatum is a worthy opponent, and she is fighting hard to save her own life, as he tries to kill her, he uses the garage door to crush Tatum’s body. Her life ended because she was so protective of Sidney, and the killers needed her gone. Then, he goes back in, where he changes again, back into his robe, and rejoins his guests as the host of the party, with no one the wiser about missing Tatum. As he is bidding his other guests farewell at the door, Billy returns, and shares a pointed look with his partner, saying that his part is done, and probably giving him kudos for killing Tatum, and signaling to Stu that now, they can begin their assault on Sidney, at last... because from this point on, the attacks from the killers focus on Sidney. The phone call that Randy answered was actually Billy, enacting his part of their well-laid plan to draw their guests away from the party. He was responsible for murdering Principal Himbry and leaving his body on display and calling the party to draw away the crowd, because Billy could not risk being seen at the party until Tatum had been killed, because if Tatum saw Billy, she would “draw blood” as Sidney so poetically put it, and absolutely insist on having Sidney leave with her immediately, Dewey escorting the girls home, and that would foil their master plan. Stu was responsible for killing Tatum. Remember, school was cancelled early, and they announced a 9:00 curfew. That meant the school was empty and it was just Principal Himbry working when Billy attacked him. The killers worked perfectly in tandem, first working together to kill of Casey and her boyfriend, Steve, then separately, to kill off their chosen victims and then reuniting at the Macher home, where they would proceed to deflower and murder Sidney as a team. Kenny was the only kill that was not pre-planned because he and Gale turned up to the party uninvited, and he got in the way when Ghostface was hunting down Sidney. Casey Becker was the only other victim who not only saw the face of her attacker, but her death was the only other one with both killers working together, instead of just one, because hers is the only one besides Sidney's attack that is more elaborate than just killing. They toy with Casey, as well, taking their time with her and making her death both frightening and painful. This was done for two reasons....to get revenge on Casey for breaking up with Stu… and to completely unnerve Sidney just before the anniversary of her mother's death, knowing that such a gruesome tragedy would also bring the connection to the murder of Sidney's mother, one year prior, which would also unnerve Sidney. The killers did not just want Casey and Sidney to die... that would be too easy… they wanted it to hurt first, in the worst way possible, and they wanted to take their time and relish the kills so their lust for revenge would be satisfied. Unfortunately, for Billy and Stu, Sidney is not made out of sugar… she is made of steel and when the killers set their sights on her, Sidney fights back hard to protect herself from this masked murderer. Her reluctance to be sexually vulnerable with Billy stems from Sidney’s past trauma of seeing her mother sexually violated and murdered in front of her. Sidney was there when Billy murdered her mother, and while she is uncertain of the killer’s identity, Billy is a living reminder of her trauma, and she does not feel safe trusting him with her heart… a good instinct, considering who really murdered Sydney’s mother.
The killers attacked Sidney not once, not twice, but three times before the final act and they were trying to kill her in all three moments. They abducted her father when Billy visited her at the beginning of the film. That is why we hear the glass break before Billy pops up in Sidney's window and Billy turns on the music... his partner in crime was kidnapping her father while Billy distracted Sidney with his romancing. And while Billy painted Sidney as the fragile victim in his perfect movie, in truth, Sidney is a strong and courageous survivor. She did not let the killer’s win. I am proud of the Scream ladies (Sidney, Gale, Casey, and Tatum) for fighting back when the killers attacked them. The two men were just instantly killed, but the ladies did not make it so easy.
It is easy to see why Scream is renowned for revitalizing the genre of horror movies when it was released in 1993. Scream is my favorite kind of horror movie… rich with suspenseful and chilling storytelling, and while there is a bit of gore, the carnage was not excessively vulgar or unnecessary and each death was well-played. I thought it was very intelligently written and creatively executed and very well-acted. While the casting is stellar across the board, both Neve Campbell, who plays Syndey, and Skeet Ulrich, who brings a chilling and almost carnal essence to Billy’s character and they both made me genuinely believe what their characters were feeling. Being a lover of suspenseful storytelling, I enjoyed how they scattered little clues throughout the story that painted a vibrantly detailed and vivid picture of the mystery as it was unfolding. There was a perfect balance of power between Sidney as the protagonist and Billy and Stu as the villains. While Sidney does have trauma from her mother’s death, she is not a fragile victim. When this masked monster threatens her, Sidney fights valiantly to protect herself from the killers who are hunting her.
© 2025 Keriane Kellogg. All rights reserved
Director: Wes Craven
Cast: Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Jamie Kennedy, Roger L. Jackson, Skeet Ulrich, Drew Barrymore, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, Liv Schreiber, W. Earl Brown, Kevin Patrick Walls, Joseph Whipp, Lawrence Hecht
A year after the murder of her mother, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) is terrorized by a new threat; a mysterious masked killer, who wields a knife and wears a creepy ghost mask, who is on a deadly quest for revenge. His phone calls usually consist of one question - “What's your favorite scary movie?” – followed up with scary movie trivia and ending with the loss of innocent lives scattered around the sleepy town of Woodsboro, California. Will Sidney survive the nightmare that is seeking to obliviate the next generation, or will Ghostface finally have his revenge?
Revenge is a powerful catalyst in this film, and nowhere is the essence of revenge reflected more perfectly, than in the characters of Billy and Stu and how their lust for revenge is what drives them to become the Ghostface killer.
While their attacks are on inconsequential pawns in this game, Casey Becker and Sidney Prescott stand out as the two victims who are the primary focus of Billy and Stu’s quest for revenge, with Sidney being their primary target…the Scream Queen. Stu satiates his lust for revenge when he and Billy murder Casey Becker, after Casey dumps Stu, for handsome quarterback, Steve. Billy and Stu intercepted Steve before he arrived at Casey's house for their date, and they brought him to the house to use as bait when they are tormenting Casey. He was already tied up and gagged and sitting out of Casey's view from the window and while one of the killers had her distracted on the phone, the other one put Steve in the chair. Yes, they taped him to the chair and Stu gutted him when Casey got the trivia question wrong, but if you look closely, you will see a bleeding wound on Steve's forehead and temple...seemingly indicating that Billy and/or Stu took Steve by surprise by whacking him over the head to subdue him. Because Steve is an athlete, he works out and is physically strong, so it would have been difficult for the killers to subdue Steve unless he could not fight back. Casey is the only victim, besides Sidney, to see her loved one being threatened before Billy and Stu attack her. And unlike the other four victims, if we are paying attention, we notice that of all the kills that Billy and Stu make, Casey’s is the only one (apart from Sidney, herself) that the killers take their time with when it is playing out.
Billy’s revenge motive is two-fold. The secret affair that Sidney’s mother, Maureen Prescott, had with Billy’s father, Hank Loomis, was the catalyst which destroyed Billy’s family and made his mother abandon him… and this was the reason Billy sought his revenge on Maureen and murdered her. His motive for killing Casey – while in part, was to make Casey pay for dumping Stu in favor of the football jock – was to unnerve Sidney on the eve of her mother’s murder. Casey was Sidney’s friend in school and Billy knew that murdering Casey so close to the one-year anniversary of Maureen Prescott’s death would only serve to rattle Sidney’s already fragile emotional psyche before he kills her. We see that their ploy succeeded when Sidney tells Tatum that the murders feel like creepy déjà vu of her mother’s murder. We also see Sidney shy away from watching the news when Gale confirms the déjà vu by connecting the current murders with the murder of Sidney’s mother, one year prior, and we see Sidney looking wistfully at a photograph of her mother, clearly feeling the pain of this loss. Billy uses Sidney’s mother to threaten Sidney again when he calls Sidney while she is waiting for Tatum. This first attack is a sincere effort by the killers to murder Sidney, because they know her father has already been taken out by this point, and he asks Sidney if she is alone in the house. When Sidney confirms that she is alone, Billy threatens Sidney that if she hangs up on him, she will die, just like her mother died. Like Casey, it was not enough for Billy to merely murder Sidney…he wanted it to hurt first. Sidney sealed her fate when she disrespected Billy’s mother by telling Billy that his mother leaving him was not as traumatic as Sidney losing her mother when she was murdered. For Billy, this insult was a reflection of the insult Sidney’s mother inflicted when she destroyed Billy’s family and his mother abandoned him and he deals with the daughter in much the same manner that he dealt with her mother after Maureen insulted him.
While the deaths of Tatum, Principal Himbry and Gale’s cameraman, Kenny, are tragic, they are all killed because of Billy’s quest to take his revenge on Sidney. They were merely pawns in Billy’s creepy game, and their deaths were strategically played so that the killers could isolate Sidney for the final act. Principal Himbry was killed so that the killers could distract the majority of the partygoers and get them away before they finally sought their revenge on Sidney when she arrives at Stu’s house, with Tatum, for the party. I would also like to propose a new theory as to why we see the killer twice (once at Tatum's house watching from the bushes when Tatum and Sidney are talking on the porch and then again, at the grocery store. I would theorize that this is not a random person behind the mask, but Billy or Stu, spying on Sidney to see when she would be alone, so they could attack her again. Notice when they call her during the first attack, the killer on the phone asks if she is alone in the house. They did not ask Casey this question. Stu overheard Tatum telling Sidney that she was not going to leave Sidney's side after the killers attacked Sidney the first time. That is why he invited Sidney and Tatum to his house party under the guise that she would be "totally safe with them" and why he looked so triumphant when she agreed. They killed Tatum off because they needed to isolate Sidney for their final act (i.e., killing Sidney) and they knew there was NO WAY in HELL that Tatum would allow Billy to be alone with Sidney. This loyalty to her best friend cost Tatum her life. Both times that the killer was there spying, Tatum was with Sidney in those moments.
Consider this though... Stu killed Tatum. We see Stu wearing the red silk robe when he and Sidney run into Billy at the front door…and he is also wearing this robe when he sends Tatum to the garage for the alcohol. This is something he could easily change out of when he was becoming Ghostface. He could have easily had the Ghostface costume stashed somewhere near the garage door, but hidden from the partygoers, and he told Tatum to get more beer, knowing this is where she would have to go to get the beer, and this location is well away from the party, and the partygoers are drunk and distracted watching horror movies anyway, so no one will hear the attack on Tatum. Stu follows Tatum to the garage, locks her in, and then changes from his robe, into the Ghostface costume and emerges to face her when she tries escaping through the garage door... and when he realizes that Tatum is a worthy opponent, and she is fighting hard to save her own life, as he tries to kill her, he uses the garage door to crush Tatum’s body. Her life ended because she was so protective of Sidney, and the killers needed her gone. Then, he goes back in, where he changes again, back into his robe, and rejoins his guests as the host of the party, with no one the wiser about missing Tatum. As he is bidding his other guests farewell at the door, Billy returns, and shares a pointed look with his partner, saying that his part is done, and probably giving him kudos for killing Tatum, and signaling to Stu that now, they can begin their assault on Sidney, at last... because from this point on, the attacks from the killers focus on Sidney. The phone call that Randy answered was actually Billy, enacting his part of their well-laid plan to draw their guests away from the party. He was responsible for murdering Principal Himbry and leaving his body on display and calling the party to draw away the crowd, because Billy could not risk being seen at the party until Tatum had been killed, because if Tatum saw Billy, she would “draw blood” as Sidney so poetically put it, and absolutely insist on having Sidney leave with her immediately, Dewey escorting the girls home, and that would foil their master plan. Stu was responsible for killing Tatum. Remember, school was cancelled early, and they announced a 9:00 curfew. That meant the school was empty and it was just Principal Himbry working when Billy attacked him. The killers worked perfectly in tandem, first working together to kill of Casey and her boyfriend, Steve, then separately, to kill off their chosen victims and then reuniting at the Macher home, where they would proceed to deflower and murder Sidney as a team. Kenny was the only kill that was not pre-planned because he and Gale turned up to the party uninvited, and he got in the way when Ghostface was hunting down Sidney. Casey Becker was the only other victim who not only saw the face of her attacker, but her death was the only other one with both killers working together, instead of just one, because hers is the only one besides Sidney's attack that is more elaborate than just killing. They toy with Casey, as well, taking their time with her and making her death both frightening and painful. This was done for two reasons....to get revenge on Casey for breaking up with Stu… and to completely unnerve Sidney just before the anniversary of her mother's death, knowing that such a gruesome tragedy would also bring the connection to the murder of Sidney's mother, one year prior, which would also unnerve Sidney. The killers did not just want Casey and Sidney to die... that would be too easy… they wanted it to hurt first, in the worst way possible, and they wanted to take their time and relish the kills so their lust for revenge would be satisfied. Unfortunately, for Billy and Stu, Sidney is not made out of sugar… she is made of steel and when the killers set their sights on her, Sidney fights back hard to protect herself from this masked murderer. Her reluctance to be sexually vulnerable with Billy stems from Sidney’s past trauma of seeing her mother sexually violated and murdered in front of her. Sidney was there when Billy murdered her mother, and while she is uncertain of the killer’s identity, Billy is a living reminder of her trauma, and she does not feel safe trusting him with her heart… a good instinct, considering who really murdered Sydney’s mother.
The killers attacked Sidney not once, not twice, but three times before the final act and they were trying to kill her in all three moments. They abducted her father when Billy visited her at the beginning of the film. That is why we hear the glass break before Billy pops up in Sidney's window and Billy turns on the music... his partner in crime was kidnapping her father while Billy distracted Sidney with his romancing. And while Billy painted Sidney as the fragile victim in his perfect movie, in truth, Sidney is a strong and courageous survivor. She did not let the killer’s win. I am proud of the Scream ladies (Sidney, Gale, Casey, and Tatum) for fighting back when the killers attacked them. The two men were just instantly killed, but the ladies did not make it so easy.
It is easy to see why Scream is renowned for revitalizing the genre of horror movies when it was released in 1993. Scream is my favorite kind of horror movie… rich with suspenseful and chilling storytelling, and while there is a bit of gore, the carnage was not excessively vulgar or unnecessary and each death was well-played. I thought it was very intelligently written and creatively executed and very well-acted. While the casting is stellar across the board, both Neve Campbell, who plays Syndey, and Skeet Ulrich, who brings a chilling and almost carnal essence to Billy’s character and they both made me genuinely believe what their characters were feeling. Being a lover of suspenseful storytelling, I enjoyed how they scattered little clues throughout the story that painted a vibrantly detailed and vivid picture of the mystery as it was unfolding. There was a perfect balance of power between Sidney as the protagonist and Billy and Stu as the villains. While Sidney does have trauma from her mother’s death, she is not a fragile victim. When this masked monster threatens her, Sidney fights valiantly to protect herself from the killers who are hunting her.
© 2025 Keriane Kellogg. All rights reserved