Wes Craven was the horror film master when it came to telling brilliant stories on-screen that made the audience fear for the characters' lives. With Nightmare on Elm Street under his belt, Craven tapped into a whole new version of fear by making the audience unable to fall asleep at night, but perhaps one of the most well-known horror film trilogies Craven completed was Scream.
Scream was released in 1996 and became the horror box office film telling the story of young Sydney Prescott who was hunted by a serial killer seeking revenge for what her mother did. At first, the killings in Woodsboro were random until Sydney realized the killers were two people she knew and trusted. Discovering her mother's past, she is essentially the one paying for the sins of her mother by having to deal with this huge burden of a killer known as Ghostface that wants her dead for what happened.
Much like a television show, when going into a film, knowing there is potential for more than one project, the introduction to a trilogy or a sequel is vital. In the first film, Scream was subtle and the whole appeal of the project was based around the idea of the "classic horror film". Take for instance, the character, Randy (Jamie Kennedy). He becomes an essential character to the trilogy because he is a movie buff and he loves horror films. In the first film, he's watching Halloween with his friends. Randy explains the first rules of a horror film.
1. Virgins survive. Essentially in the first film, you aren't allowed to have sex or you will die.
2. No alcohol or drugs of any kind. Those who drink and do drugs in the film will also die.
3. Under no circumstances, do you leave a room and say "I'll be right back". According to Randy, you will not be right back. You will be dead.
Those particular rules set the bar for a low opening film to a trilogy. The rules aren't strict and seem somewhat ridiculous in a way, but the first film has to set an easy story to lead up to an even bigger one. For the audience, Billy and Stu were average serial killers. The murders were incredibly average, but the standards have to be something that a trilogy can beat. For instance, go into, Scream 2, and Sydney has now moved on with her life at college. She has new friends, but a part of her past can't escape her because the Hollywood world has decided to make her old life a movie. Once Craven set that up in the second one, the rules changed.
The rules became guidelines for the entire trilogy which is what made it successful. Craven took classic horror film genre and built an entire universe around these characters and this particular killer. Going into the second one, with the two killers from the first one gone, Craven connects Mickey (Timothy Olyphant), a psychotically obsessed horror film lover and Billy's mother. One is driven by the horror film genre while Billy's mother is driven by revenge. The death scenes are slightly amped up, but not to the point where it doesn't outdo a possible third film. Randy, our rule guider, adds the new rules.
1. Body count is always bigger.
2. Death scenes are more elaborate.
3. This rule was to be explained in the film, however, Dewey ends up cutting Randy off in that scene. But the rule was "Never ever assume the killer is dead." That rule pertains to when Mickey comes back from the dead to try and kill Sydney but she shoots him.
Now what makes this trilogy so successful isn't the death count, the death scenes, or even the fact that Sydney, Gale, and Dewey all continued to play their roles throughout the entire trilogy, but it is in fact that the Ghostface killer turns out to be an even bigger role than the fans expected. The audience finds out in Scream 3, that Billy, Stu, Billy's mom, and Mickey were all just pawns to the original killer's plan. Sydney discovers the mastermind behind all of the murders, the entire set up, who turns out to be her long-lost brother, Roman (Scott Foley). To understand the concept of the storyline, at the beginning of the third film, Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber) dies in the first scene. Cotton was a suspected murderer of Sydney's mother because she had an affair with Cotton.
Roman had framed Cotton from the beginning and was finally ready to finish the final movie. The rules did change in the third one and even though Randy died, he left behind a video message to tell Sydney and her friends how the trilogy works.
1. You've got a killer who is superhuman. Shooting him won't work, stabbing him won't work. You either have to decapitate him or blow him up.
2. Anyone including the main character can die this time.
3. The past will come back in the final installment of the trilogy. The past will haunt you.
All of these rules remain true and serve the greater storyline throughout the entire trilogy. Sydney essentially receives all of the answers she is looking for by the third one and most of what Roman is doing is connecting her to her mother's past. Roman is making Sydney suffer for what her mother did to him when he was younger. Nothing serves a great thriller better than family dysfunction. The killer became an entity of his own.
He turned smarter. The voice altering technology transformed from this creepy familiar voice that fans came to know, into by the third film, a voice imitation device. The killer was able to sound exactly like everyone in the film and trick them into thinking they were talking to their friends. He still had the deep, scary voice asking that one fun question "What's your favorite scary movie?" Craven coined the entire Ghostface character that fans now wear as a Halloween costume, but fans enjoy.
After a few years, the trilogy was no longer a trilogy. Scream 4 had been released and the original characters, Sydney, Gale, and Dewey all returned for one last time. However, the storyline was not as strong because Roman was an excellent closer. Sydney's cousin essentially tries to recreate the horror film admiration theory, but Sydney of course wins because Sydney isn't the stereotypical female in distress character. In both the first two films, her and Gale took down the killers. Sydney killed Roman essentially. The female leads were not damsels in distress, but rather strong protagonists. When it came to the killer, Sydney always fought against him. Her survival instincts kicked in with every situation.
Craven was a master of the trilogy with Scream, Scream 2, and Scream 3 because he followed and established his own rules for his characters and created a tasteful horror film that set the bar high for the genre itself. Scream stood on its own and was a cult phenomenon for the years it was released and to this day, still remains as a horror film classic.
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