Line #8 Fridge/Scream


1	[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]
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3	!! The Films
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5	* Although some basic horror movie ground rules are laid out in the first film, ''Scream'' was originally intended to be not only be a satire of the slasher genre, but a deconstruction of it, and the biggest deconstruction seems to be the notion of 'purity=survival' in regards to the hugely prevalent FinalGirl trope. In fact, the characters that lay the groundwork for said rules in the film lean on this idea so heavily that Billy goes to great lengths to pressure Sidney into sex just so he can try to prevent this trope. Unfortunately, Billy and Stu's strict adherence to the rules of slasher films means that they were doomed from the get-go, for one simple reason: regardless of the circumstances, there is almost ALWAYS a FinalGirl, and having one that's GenreSavvy as well is never a good idea. By the final act, Billy and Stu are injuring each other more than they're injuring her, haphazardly revealing their entire scheme, stating that horror movies are scarier when nobody knows the killer's motive only to reveal their motives in the very next sentence, leaving Sidney unsupervised, getting distracted by noises, and other such death-defying acts of GenreBlindness; by the time Stu is uttering the words "I'll be right back," it's clear to just about everybody ''but'' the killers that - virgin or not - ''they're'' AloneWithThePsycho and not the other way around.
6	** Additionally, Billy and Stu's insistence on de-virginizing Sidney so they're "allowed" to kill her. While the cliché of the FinalGirl states that she's pure and virginal and doesn't do any of the wicked things the other girls do that get them killed, this is a case of UnbuiltTrope, as many original Final Girls were "wholesome" only by comparison. [[Film/FridayThe13th1980 Alice]] was implied to have had or be having an affair with Steve, and participated in the [[StripPoker Strip Monopoly]] game. [[Film/FridayThe13thPart2 Ginny]] was explicitly in a sexual relationship with Paul, and missed most of Jason's rampage because she was in town drinking at the bar. Even [[Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet1984 Nancy]], while not having onscreen sex like Tina, is the closest her film comes to having a MsFanservice. In short, even by the stringent rules of the slasher genre, Sidney's sexual activity or lack of same has little bearing on her suitability to qualify for FinalGirl status.
7	*** Apparently, Randy was a lot more genre savvy than Billy and Stu in that regard. In the third film, it's revealed that he created a video about trilogies, suspecting that he might not make it past the second film because he lost his virginity in between the first and second films (thus having broken two of the three rules he established in the first film, as he was drinking during the third act of the first film, in addition to the off-screen sex he had). That means he realized those details and remembered that Alice died at the start of the second film, meaning he was aware that he might have been doomed from the start of the second film.
8	* In many slasher pics with teens who are so stupid and useless, we find ourselves rooting for the killer. But in Ghostface's first ever kill, we don't just see Casey run and get cut down; we watch, stab by stab, how she's just trying so ''hard'' to survive, even completely unarmed, while her parents search in terror for her. Even as the killer drags her to the tree, we hear a few rattling breaths, and realise how hard it can be to just stab somebody to death. This killer is more monstrous than any before; he has attacked the very essence of the human spirit - the determination to live.
9	* Near the end of the first film, Billy stabs Stu to make it seem like they were both victims. However, instead of just superficial wounds, the latter gets seriously wounded. That might be just an indication of Billy's unstable mental state, or... maybe he judged the severity of wounds based on what he had seen in a number of slasher films, where people have a bad tendency of surviving wounds that would be lethal in reality.
10	** Or, alternatively, he was always planning on screwing Stu over and being the sole survivor.
11	*** Lending credence to the 'sole survivor' possibility, the look of surprise on Stu's face implies that he never knew that Billy had an actual motive for killing Sidney's mother. If this is true, then it's entirely possible that Billy only went along with the 'real-life slasher movie' premise to get Stu on-board as an accomplice, and probably saw him as more of a loose end than anything else.
12	*** In ''Scream 3'', Roman states that Billy roped Stu into his crimes so he'd have someone to sell out in case he got caught. Billy probably figured that since they were going to frame Sidney's dad for the murders, he didn't need Stu anyway.
13	* The fact the ''Stab'' movies are so popular is an illustration of how sick the culture is in the ''Scream'' world. They're, essentially, true crime slasher movies. An illustration of this cultural sickness may be how all of the students wanted to see their principal's horrifically maimed body, instead of, you know, being disgusted by the very idea of it.
14	* What may be obvious to some but struck me as interesting was the reason movie tropes are so important is that everyone is indirectly or directly tied to film somehow, except for Billy and his mom. Most of the killers want to be touched by fame, so they go to an obvious but psychotic source. Likewise, many of the people around the killers are fame-obsessed themselves.
15	* Ghostface, no matter the identity, is a terrible killer. His victims are constantly kicking him and damn near getting away. Who is the one person Ghostface kills nice and smooth, no muss, no fuss? Billy, in Scream 1. A hint to the viewer that his death isn't what it appears.
16	** Also, if you watch closely, the knife has no blood on it when Ghostface is done "stabbing" Billy, then he wraps the knife in his other hand, and suddenly there's blood on it. You can even see Ghostface putting something (presumably a fake blood packet) in the sleeve of his costume, before looking at Sidney and dramatically wiping the blood from the knife.
17	*** Even more tellingly, Billy's shirt is completely unharmed by the knife.
18	* In Scream 4, after Jill is revealed to be one of the killers, she goes through a lot of trouble to pull off a WoundedGazelleGambit. It makes you feel a tad bit sorry for her that the whole thing would go bust, and probably sooner rather than later, given that she grabbed the IdiotBall immediately before she started kicking the crap out of herself. Her newfound fame would have vanished, and she would have likely ended up in jail or institutionalized if she was lucky. Anyone who watches Lifetime (and certainly a detective or forensics expert) knows that shooting a man in the groin is not a defense wound. It's a revenge wound. Gazelle Gambit fail.
19	** Of course, she probably ''could'' have passed it off as a wound Charlie inflicted, claiming that the two had both been the killer and that Charlie double-crossed Trevor, being jealous of Trevor's relationship with Jill. She ''did'' think pretty much everything else through, after all.
20	** Jill makes a lot of idiotic mistakes that even people with a limited understanding of forensics would gawk at:
21	*** First of all, and most importantly, ''the bitch's DNA is in the fucking costume''! When police search the house and bring the costume in for evidence, Jill's spit, hair, skin cells, or blood is going to be in that outfit. Plus, Jill's the only person who could fit in such a small costume.
22	*** Second, her story on what happened wouldn't make sense. Okay, so basing this off on how she set up everything: the killers revealed themselves to be Charlie and Trevor, killed Sid then beat Jill up, Charlie shot Trevor, and Trevor stabbed Charlie, since the knife's by his side. See the problem? Trevor couldn't have killed Charlie because he was already dead, and Jill had put the knife in Trevor's hand to frame him as Ghostface. Plus, since Trevor was tied up by Jill, he would have had marks on his wrists, and the ties Jill cut off him are still on the floor, making it obvious that he's a victim, not Ghostface.
23	*** ''Another thing'', Trevor's too big to have killed Charlie: Charlie was stabbed directly in the heart and in the stomach by someone of similar height to him, Jill. Trevor is taller than both of them, and if he stabbed Charlie, he probably couldn't stabbed Charlie in the exact spot that killed him.
24	*** Third, Jill gets a cloth for grabbing the gun, to avoid leaving prints it, then slides it over to Charlie's body. Thing is, her prints are '''still''', on the gun after she used it bare-handed. She didn't even bother to put the gun in Charlie's hand, which she would've needed to do, since she shot the gun, leaving her prints on it along with her sweat and skin cells. Not only that, but since Jill shot the gun and not Charlie, she'd have gunpowder residue all over her hands, but he wouldn't.
25	*** The most obvious and damning evidence that goes against what Jill intended to make the crime scene look like is the blood. Jill shot Trevor while he was lying down, and his blood from his groin and his blood and brains from his head are still in the kitchen. But Jill moved him, leaving a trail of blood starting from where he died across the floor, and planted evidence that he beat her; it's obvious he was killed and moved, but he couldn't have beaten Jill since he'd been shot already.
26	** Well, she did get what she wanted. Her FifteenMinutesOfFame, literally.
27	* At first it seems strange that Ghostface doesn't kill Gale, even though he had a chance, instead choosing to wound her. It makes a lot more sense once you realize that Jill not only wants to steal Sidney's "celebrity victim" fame, but also her friends.
28	** Not only that, Gale is the one who is primarily known for her books based on the actual events. So, keeping the woman who documented the original murders alive to document hers makes sense in that regard.
29	* The supposed EndingFatigue in ''4''. They discuss how the original ending in the first film will be the false ending in this one. They say that the party is the false ending. However, the original film's ending was the house, therefore the house is the false ending in ''4''. Thus the extra bit at the hospital.
30	* Billy's callous disregard for Maureen's death, evidenced by him telling Sidney (her daughter) that she should just "get over it already" makes perfect sense, considering that he's the one who killed her.
31	* As noted above, Ghostface is a lot worse at killing people than other slashers. Why is this? Because the ''Scream'' series is a deconstruction of slasher films! The victims are not TooDumbToLive, unlike other slasher victims.
32	** That and the killers are actually human and not NighInvulnerable supernatural beings like [[Franchise/FridayThe13th a hydrocephalic zombie]], [[Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet a fire-scarred nightmare demon]], or [[Franchise/{{Halloween}} whatever Michael Myers is supposed to be]]. And the reason they seem to be able to [[OffscreenTeleportation teleport]] is the fact that there's usually at least two of them.
33	* One has to wonder why every Ghostface has the same personality under the mask. It's because the post-Billy and Stu Ghostfaces have seen the ''Stab'' films, and therefore know how Ghostface acts.
34	* How was it that Casey's boyfriend got overwhelmed when he's a big jock? Because there's two killers there - Stu and Billy! Billy pressured the lower-IQ Stu into thinking he should kill his ex-girlfriend, then used him to help with everything else!
35	** This also means that Casey was doomed no matter what her answer for the final question. One killer at the front door, one at the patio doors, and they would burst through the opposite door to the one she guesses. There was never any chance of her guessing right and the killer just fairly calling off the terrorizing.
36	*** This is backed up by the reveal later on in the film, as Stu and Billy says their game is "We ask you a question, and if you get it wrong, you die. And if you get it right, you die." It shows that they don't play fair, and that even if Casey had gotten all of the answers right, her and Steve were doomed to be killed anyway.
37	* During Randy's rules for horror movie sequels, Dewey cuts him off as he starts explaining how to make the sequel into a franchise. Why? Keeping the same character as the lead helps build a franchise, and if Dewey let Randy finish, it would spoil the fact that Sidney lives throughout the series.
38	* "They're all the same: some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door. It's insulting." The first victim in the film is, of course, portrayed by [[Creator/DrewBarrymore an award-winning actress]], and is killed after escaping the house. Meanwhile, the first place Sidney flees to when confronted by Ghostface is into her room to barricade herself. This shows that Sidney may not have initially been as GenreSavvy as she thought, and that her ActionSurvivor tendencies may have initially been given time to develop thanks to the killers' insistence that Sidney ''had'' to be the last person to die in order to satisfy both Stu's pathological desire to adhere to slasher tropes and Billy's need to fulfill his RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the girl he blames for destroying his family.
39	** The reason she runs upstairs is that she'd locked the door, thinking that Ghostface was outside. When he attacks her, she manages to fight him off long enough to go for it, but she's forced to run upstairs when he corners her. This does add another layer to the whole encounter, though; she mentions that the girl always runs upstairs instead of out the front door, and then Ghostface actively manipulates her into a position where she's forced to run upstairs anyway. Not only do the killers abide by slasher rules, they manipulate events so that their intended victims are forced to do so, too.
40	* The garage door / cat door death is by far the silliest death in a movie that is otherwise full of simple knife killings, and seems kind of out of place. But in a meta sense, it fits in perfectly with a movie that parodies slasher tropes, as slasher movies compete so much over creative murder methods that almost every slasher film has "that one kill". That's what the garage scene is for the first Scream.
41	** In a movie packed with deaths that make you want to cry and beg for the victim's life, the cat-door death is the one that that stands out - you see Ghostface tilting his head, and even with the mask on you can imagine his face. He's not thinking how easy this is, he's thinking, just like you are, "Seriously, dude?"
42	** Also, while it is a bit silly, it's also completely horrifying. Once the garage door starts, Tatum's survival chances drop to zero, and the rest is just marking time until she actually dies. Being caught and unable to escape, seeing your death coming ever closer. . . [[FridgeHorror brrr.]] And it falls into tearjerker category as well when you realize that Tatum's last word was her screaming for her mom.
43	** And, even in a meta sense, there's the fact that Tatum's death wasn't originally scripted as being killed by a garage door while being stuck in a cat door, but was meant to be a fist fight between her and the killer. So, the only non-knife and "silliest death" death in the entire film is entirely due to Kevin Williamson "throwing it in" because the garage door had a cat door in it.
44	* The main theme of ''Scream 4'' can be summed up as "originals vs. remakes". The killer, Jill, is pushed for most of the film as the remake version of Sidney, and her motive involves trying to steal her cousin's fame and replace her in the public eye. In other words, it's one of the most common criticisms of movie remakes made manifest -- the remake is out to defile the original film and usurp its place in the public eye. Sidney almost says as much:
45	--->'''Sidney''': You forgot the first rule of the remake, Jill: ''Don't fuck with the original.''
46	** Also, while intended to be the start of a new trilogy, it failed in that respect. None of the reboots of the slasher franchises ''Scream'' was poking fun at have revived their franchises as planned either. The meta commentary goes ''super'' meta.
47	** Even more when ''Scream 5'' came out, tackling the idea of "requels". . . new films in a new continuity that ignore previous, generally less-well-recieved sequels and revisit the original. ''That'' was successful enough to earn a sequel, and a third installment of essentially a new trilogy is planned, meaning that the remake premise of ''Scream 4'' was just a flash in the pan, as was the general trend of horror remakes.
48	* In ''Scream 4'', the [[DeadStarWalking opening victims]] of ''[[ShowWithinAShow Stab 6]]'' are on a much lower rung of the ladder of fame than those of previous films. Creator/DrewBarrymore in the first film (and her counterpart Creator/HeatherGraham in the first ''Stab'') was a genuine star at the time, while Omar Epps, Creator/JadaPinkett, and Creator/SarahMichelleGellar in the second and Creator/LievSchreiber in the third were all rising stars and the most recognizable names in the cast outside the core PowerTrio. Creator/LucyHale and Shenae Grimes, on the other hand, were TV TeenDrama actresses not much more famous than the rest of the cast of an average ''Scream'' (or ''Stab'') movie. Then you realize that this is ''Stab '''[[FranchiseZombie 6]]'''''. Either Hale and Grimes were the only famous actors they could get and the rest of the cast was stuffed with unknowns, or they had started to abandon the DeadStarWalking conceit of the franchise; either way, it's a sign of the growing {{sequelitis}} that gripped the ''Stab'' movies, even on top of the highly rushed nature of the scene. (As for the question of ''Scream 4'' [[HypocriticalHumor doing the same thing]] with Aimee Teegarden and Creator/BrittRobertson... well, when you've just featured Creator/KristenBell murdering Creator/AnnaPaquin in ''Stab 7'', you've already hit the quota by then.). Also, the Bell/Paquin combo in Stab 7 means that either they were in-universe resorting to stunt-casting famous actors, or were trying as hard as possible to change it up by revealing Bell to be playing the killer (an out-there casting choice and a sign they were going off-base, since typically slasher movies don't open with the killer being revealed).
49	* In the first movie, Sid asks how you gut someone and Stu describes the act in rather gruesome detail, which causes Billy to chide him for being insensitive. Given that Stu and Billy are the killers, it's clear that Billy is trying to stop Stu from saying something that could incriminate them.
50	** Earlier, he also says "nobody ''said'' that you did" with his eyes widening as if to say "shut the fuck up!"; likewise worried that Stu is focusing on his "innocence" too much.
51	* Jill refers to Sidney as the "sole survivor" of the Ghostface killing sprees, but this isn't true. Gale and Dewey both survive all of the movies alongside Sid ([[spoiler:until Dewey died in the fifth]]), Randy survived the first movie, Cotton and Joel survived the second, and Kincaid survived the third. Not only is Jill a sociopath who doesn't think she needs anyone else, but she fails to understand the story she is "remaking"; Sidney didn't get through all of this alone. Every step of the way, she had friends that supported her and came to her rescue, one of whom even went as far as leaving a video for her to help her in a future battle with another Ghostface. This misunderstanding of Sidney's story comes back to bite Jill in the ass in the climax of the movie; Sidney's friends come to her rescue, while Jill's desire to be the sole survivor means she has no one to watch her back when Sidney ultimately kills her.
52	* In the second film, Randy [[BeamMeUpScotty misquoting]] Ripley's "get away from her, you bitch!" line from ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' and going so far as to try and correct somebody who got it right was, by Creator/JamieKennedy's admission, a goof. However, it inadvertently establishes that [[KnowNothingKnowItAll Randy may not know as much about movies]] as he thinks, foreshadowing his death from making an obvious horror mistake in backing up towards the door of a mysterious van.
53	* Another noticeable detail about Mrs. Loomis admitting to killing Randy because he badmouthed Billy. When you look back at the scene when Randy is on the phone with the killer, presumably Mrs. Loomis, he tries to talk to the killer about movies to stall him. However, the killer doesn't talk remotely about movies in any way during the whole scene, which foreshadows her disinterest in Mickey's plan to blame the movies for the killings at the college. Also, if it had been Mickey, he wouldn't have passed up trying to one-up him in film discussion before killing him, as we saw him try to do in a party scene.
54	* In the first film, Billy, after Sidney asks for a motive, states that Norman Bates didn't have a motive. Though many chalk it up as a mistake on either Kevin Williamson's part, or even on Billy's behalf in character and serving he's not as GenreSavvy as he thinks, it is actually Fridge Brilliance when you take into account that Norman Bates doesn't have a motive. Mother is the killer in the films, and she has the motive. Fans of the film series, though they know the twist about Norman and [[SplitPersonality Mother, treat Mother and Norman as separate people (much like how Mother and Norman are treated in the actual book the film is based on). So, Billy is technically right, as Norman never had a motive to kill anyone, while Mother did.]]
55	* For ''Scream 2'''s ending, some see it as an EsotericHappyEnding due to the song used having a rather upbeat tempo. However, many people miss that the use of the song is really acknowledging what happened in the end. The song "She Said" by Collective Soul is not really out of place, [[LyricalDissonance as the lyrics are about a woman who is getting older and regrets the things she lost over time]], much like Sidney is. This technically could be seen as a bit of foreshadowing for the events in ''Scream 3'' and who she is seen as during the first part of the film. And to add to that, the song features the meaningful lyrics "And her mother's to blame / For the way she is today" (as thematically, Maureen Prescott, her mother, was [[UnwittingInstigatorofDoom unintentionally responsible for what Sidney goes through in the films]]).
56	* The fourth movie puts the 4 in place of an "a" in the title, making it look at first glance (if you're really not paying attention) that it says "Scream", and when the title card appears in the opening, the film's title briefly says "Scream" until the "a" morphs into a four. Remakes usually keep the title of the original movie, but shoving the four in the title establishes that this film isn't a true remake, and that the film is going to deconstruct the idea of remakes.
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58	!! The TV Series
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Context Fridge / Scream