For horror buffs who grew up with the likes of Jason Vorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and the other slasher killers of the 1980s, Wes Craven’s “Scream” was the best thing since sliced cheerleaders at a slumber party in a sorority house. We’d all tired of clownish teenagers making bad decisions like they’d never seen a scary movie before, and the film’s trailer summed up its premise perfectly: This time, our knife-fodder characters knew all the tropes and there were certain rules one had to follow to survive. It was a witty and inventive twist on the hackneyed old formula, and the cherry on top was that it starred Drew Barrymore.
Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson had an even bigger surprise waiting for eager gore hounds when “Scream” arrived in December 1996. The film opens with Casey Becker (Barrymore) at home alone and settling down to watch a horror movie with some popcorn when the phone rings. Although she starts out mildly flirtatious with the anonymous caller, she grows increasingly more frantic and terrified when it becomes clear that not only is she being watched, but that her life is in danger unless she can answer trivia on slasher films. Sadly, her movie knowledge isn’t quite up to snuff, and she gets brutally stabbed to death by the masked murderer.
Williamson took inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” (which infamously kills off its own star, Janet Leigh, early on), and it remains one of the great attention-grabbing openings in horror cinema. Barrymore is superb in the sequence as well, believably acting like someone in mortal fear. And Craven had an absolutely devastating method of helping her successfully tap into Casey’s terror — one that involved reminding her of a horrific true story about a dog being burned alive by their owner.
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Wes Craven found out how to make Drew Barrymore cry for real
Drew Barrymore as Casey toying with a knife on the phone in Scream (1996) – Woods Entertainment/Dimension Films
“Scream” was regarded as a major comeback for Wes Craven and gave him a chance to subvert the slasher subgenre he helped make so popular in the ’80s with “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” He’d already tried the meta slant with “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” in 1994, but that was only modestly successful. Nevertheless, it set the tone for “Scream,” and he nailed it this time around. It wasn’t just some silly spoof of slasher movies; rather, it had genuine scares to go with the meta laughs, particularly in the opening scene featuring Drew Barrymore.
“Scream” was also a comeback for Barrymore, who was originally slated to play Sidney Prescott, the chaste hero of the film. Yet when she saw the screenplay, she wanted to play the short-lived character in the opening scene instead. With the movie being billed as a Drew Barrymore vehicle, Craven had to make killing her off really count, and Barrymore insisted that she didn’t want to fake Casey’s tears.
The method was brutal but very effective. The night before cameras rolled, Barrymore told Craven about a story she’d read involving a cruel dog owner who had burned their pooch alive. As an ardent animal lover, the article had really stuck with her, and she burst out crying just relaying the tale to the director. Craven now had an excellent tool he could use while filming the scene; in the film’s DVD commentary, he revealed the magic words: “I’m lighting the lighter.” Julie Plec, Craven’s assistant, recounted the results to The Ringer in 2021: “You just hear Drew screaming and howling, and I’d be like, ‘What the f*** is going on in there?’ And it was Wes, like, amping her up.”
Killing the star early paid off big time for Scream
A group of teens gather to watch a scary movie in Scream – Woods Entertainment/Dimension Films
Emulating the shock death of Janet Leigh over 30 years earlier in “Psycho,” the opening scene of “Scream” paid dividends for the rest of the film. The movie’s execs bought into the risky move and leaned into keeping the secret, making Barrymore the face of the film in its trailer and publicity material. As Richard Potter, then the Director of Development at Dimension Films, explained to The Ringer:
“We’re sitting around, you kind of see it dawn on each person: ‘No, that’s a great idea.’ Because you’re going to see the trailer and the commercials, and you’re going to be sure she’s the star of the movie. There’s no way she’s going to die. When she dies at the end of that sequence, you’re going to go, ‘Anyone could die.'”
Despite only appearing on screen for around 12 minutes, “Scream” reinvigorated Barrymore’s career. Her early exit also made room for a new generation of up-and-coming actors. There’s Neve Campbell as the main protagonist, Sidney Prescott; a pre-“Friends” Courtney Cox as the opportunistic reporter Gail Weathers; David Arquette as Deputy Sheriff Dewey Riley; plus Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Kennedy, Rose McGowan, and Liev Schreiber, all enjoying sharply-written roles.
“Scream” was a box office hit, and many of its stars returned for the inevitable sequel. (There’s since been several additional follow-ups and a TV series.) Its success also spawned inferior knock-offs like “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and “Urban Legend,” with “Scary Movie” crassly spoofing the send-up a few years later. But nothing in the slasher genre since then has quite matched the impact of Drew Barrymore crying about that poor dog.
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