Scream (1996) — Does It Hold Up? | feat. John Detoy

Scream 7 is dropping, so we went back to where it all started. Kyle, Seth, and friend of the podcast John Detoy — fresh off the Nateland at sea cruise — sit down to break apart the 1996 original that didn't just survive the 90s, it rewired the entire slasher genre.

We dig into why killing Drew Barrymore in the first five minutes was one of the boldest creative swings in horror history (and how Wes Craven told her animal cruelty stories between takes to get real tears out of her). We talk about Kevin Williamson writing this script in 72 hours in Palm Springs while broke, pitching Teaching Ms. Tingle to nobody, with the Halloween soundtrack playing in the background — and somehow delivering one of the sharpest debuts in genre history. We get into why Wes Craven was the right guy to direct a movie that satirizes Wes Craven, and why him having zero ego about it is actually the whole reason it works.

We also debate whether Ghostface is the weakest major slasher villain physically (two teenagers who get lucky, basically), whether Scream is actually too smart to be called the greatest slasher ever made, and what this movie would have looked like if Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez had taken the job instead. Plus: the Counting Crows / Courtney Cox / Jennifer Aniston love triangle that nobody asked for, Roger Jackson being forbidden from meeting the cast so his voice on the phone would genuinely terrify them, and Matthew Lillard sounding like a surfer from Woodsboro for the entire runtime.

1. Then we run it through the War Zone — our four-category scorecard: Cast, Writing, Directing, and Film Composition. Three yeses and a couple of squeaks. It's a good one.

Foreign.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Movie wars podcast.

I'm Kyle.

I'm Seth.

And we got back with us, friend of the podcast just off the Nateland at sea cruise, Mr. John Detoy, everybody.

I almost said fresh off the ship.

I think as long fresh off the boat.

Yeah.

But yeah, dude, how was it?

It was.

Was.

It was amazing, man.

I mean, Dustin Chaffin, you guys had

him love that guy.

He was hilarious.

Friend of the show.

Yeah.

And it's just, honestly, Nate's got the best fans in the world.

Hell, yeah.

Yeah, it was.

It was a good family experience.

So amazing.

He's.

And I really respect him.

Like, he.

I respect the fact that he's everywhere he goes.

Like, he was just on Bill Maher.

Yeah.

Everywhere he goes, he takes it with him.

He's so.

But like, anytime I. I've only talked to Nate a few times, and he wouldn't remember me for.

But like, the person he is on stage is.

And you can probably attest more than anybody because you're around him a lot, but he.

He is that person off stage.

He takes that with him everywhere he goes.

Is that accurate?

Yeah, it is.

Because I. I think Nate is still figuring out, like, how famous he actually is.

Yeah.

And he's so.

He's so dang surprised about it all the time.

Yeah.

But he's obviously.

He's worked for it, so.

Yeah.

I can't go.

I can't go a week where at least.

I can tell you at least once or twice a week the past, like, since he's become famous, where people bring him up in a conversation or because they know I did stamp.

It's like, what do you think of Nate?

And like, he comes up all the time.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

If you ever want to come on the podcast, Nate, we love you.

We want to have you on.

We'll keep it clean for you always.

He reviews his own movie, the Bread winner.

Yes.

Yes.

That actually be kind of cool.

I'd do it.

It'd be funny.

But anyway, we're so glad you're back, man.

You.

Some of our fans favorite episodes were the ones you did of the Northman.

The Northman and Tintin.

Yeah.

Yeah.

As a reminder, our format is we're going to go through a little film history.

We do the randos, which are the most interesting factoids in film trivia that we discover and research.

Then we do the questions, which are meant to generate fun banter and discussion.

And then we end with the scorecard, the War Zone, which is four categories that we Use to say yes or no to the film.

And today we've got one hell of a movie.

I'm very excited.

I've been wanting to watch this movie for a long time and just haven't had a reason to.

And this is my first time seeing it.

I've seen Scary Movie, which I love.

That Scary Movie is a parody of a movie that is a parody of Wes Craven in general.

And this was so well done.

I. I forgot when I first started it that it was going to be a satire.

And I love the little moments of dialogue where they go full meta, but.

But if you weren't really paying attention, you wouldn't realize that they're literally telling you what's about to happen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so well put together.

Yeah.

It's like an ironic.

It's ironic.

The whole entire thing is so.

And what a bold move, killing off Drew Barrymore in the first five minutes like that.

I feel, because she was.

I know she.

She has had several ups in her career, but I feel like that was the.

The first big up that she had with where she was a household name.

People loved her, and they thought she was going to be the star of the movie and then just gets wiped out in the first five minutes.

Yeah.

Well, it was cool to see that.

Like, no one's safe.

Yeah.

Like, right.

Legitimately.

Yeah.

So.

Well, Scream 7, you think by now it'd be called horse, you know, just.

Yeah.

Just raspy frog in my throat.

Just can't.

I can't scream anymore.

I lost my voice.

Scream 7.

Wheeze.

I had to.

I was sitting here just waiting to stick that in there.

I was like, I don't even know what they're saying.

I gotta jump.

Yeah.

It's crazy to me, though, that Courtney Cox has not been killed in all seven movies.

Yeah.

Nev Campbell.

Yeah.

You know, and this is Courtney Cox during a time where she.

I don't know if this is like a rando that has nothing to do with Scream, but Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston dated Adam Duritz from the Counting Crows at the same time, and they didn't know it.

Oh, that's amazing.

That's crazy.

So that is hilarious.

And they were both doing Friends at the time.

And this is Friends.

Like friends on its apex.

I mean, by 96, Friends is already at the top, and.

And it still has room to climb.

Oh, yeah.

And so Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston are huge.

And then the Counting Crow is one of my favorite bands of all time.

Long December.

And I'm dating Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox at the same time.

And they didn't know it unbeknownst to each other.

That is incredible.

Well, I love.

This is the movie that she met David Arquette on.

I know.

And then there was that one season where for the season opener, she had just married him.

Yeah.

And they changed everybody in the cast last name to ourette because she put our cat.

It was Courtney Cox or cat.

And so they changed everyone's last name.

It was Jennifer Aniston Arquette.

And and is so good.

They were always really good about bringing on the.

The lovers of whoever the actors were dating.

Like when Jennifer Aniston's with Brad Pitt and he's on the show.

What a great episode.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

All right.

This is turning into a friends podcast.

Let's go.

Let's do it.

Movies.

We're only talking about friends from now on.

There should be a friend show.

I'm sure there's like 10.

Oh, yeah, 15.

Yeah.

Let's get into this amazing history, though.

So you already mentioned the Drew Barrymore thing.

There's a whole interesting thing there.

But Kevin Williamson, the writer, and you'll probably recognize his name from Dawson's Creek, I think.

Which rip.

James Vanderbeek.

Yes.

Oh, my God.

48.

Two days with four kids or five?

Five little kids.

Yeah.

Shocking.

But Kevin Williamson was.

He was broke at the time.

It was Palm Springs.

He wasn't even living in Hollywood.

He was living in Palm springs.

There was a lot of stuff in the news about the Gainesville Ripper.

And he actually had written teaching Ms. Tingle was the.

Yeah, that was the first thing he had wrote.

He was pitching that.

No one wanted it.

And then the sequel to Driving Miss Daisy.

Driving Miss Daisy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then.

Yeah, I'm sorry, Ms. Robinson.

And then.

Yeah.

And this.

All the old lady names.

Yeah.

Ms. Tingle.

What a name.

I know, right?

And then what's the other one?

There's another.

The Matt Damon one that got remade as a show.

The talented Mr. Ripley.

Oh, ye.

Yeah.

We could just go through all the multi syllabic name movies.

But yeah.

So he's sitting there and he has this idea.

He's with friends.

They're listening to the.

The Halloween soundtrack and he like has this idea.

Yeah, he got it in the world.

Yeah.

And they were start they were starting to actually ask each other.

Like, they were just.

For some reason, they were listening to Halloween, so they started doing horror movie trivia.

And then, like, all of a sudden, the Gainesville Ripper stuff is happening, and.

And he has this idea.

He writes the script in 72 hours.

Nice.

Yeah, yeah, that's.

Come on, indie people.

We can do it.

We can write a Great movie in 72 hours.

Writer's block is not real.

Cabin in the woods was also written in a single weekend.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Joss Whedon and his writing partner just barricaded themselves in a hotel room for a whole weekend and got it banged out.

That is crazy.

Yeah, yeah.

We just need to go to a day's end.

Yeah, let's go to the night's end down the road.

Snort some.

Snort some Ajax, and there we go.

Yeah, just get in there.

There like a tick,

man.

I'm.

I'm in a good mood today, seriously.

Second cup of coffee.

Let's go tacos for lunch.

Oh, yeah.

You know what the original title of this movie was?

Scary Movie.

Oh, that's amazing.

Up until six months, which is crazy, because they had already picked the mask for Ghostface.

But the mask is the.

It's like a Edvard Munch, the Scream.

That's what it's meant to look like, but it wasn't called Scream when they picked it.

But then six months before the movie was released, they renamed it to Scream, and then, like.

But we have the.

It's kind of a weird coincidence.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah.

When?

Because Scary Movie came out in the late, like.

Yeah.

And they are funny.

Yeah.

Oh, they're the first one especially.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was her problem.

Fact.

My uncle was a background actor in Scary Movie 5.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

And I still haven't seen it.

The stuff.

The stuff of legend.

Well, you probably.

You're probably not.

I mean, by that time, yeah, three was.

Four was terrible.

Yeah.

So Wes Craven wanted out of the.

What he called the horror ghetto, because after he did Vampire in Brooklyn, it bombed.

And he said no twice.

So after he said no twice, they looked at Robert Rodriguez, Sam Raimi, and even Quentin Tarantino was in the mix a little bit.

Okay.

I will say this.

Tarantino would have made this insane.

It would have been a very different movie, but it would have been so good.

It would have been more artistic, for sure.

Yeah.

There would have been a world where I think both could exist.

I think this Scream and a Quentin Tarantino scream can both exist and be awesome.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Like, just even imagine the phone conversation at the beginning in the open scene.

Like, what would he have done with that dialogue?

Oh, my God, who knows?

Talk about sucking toes.

Yeah.

Someone's obviously in a diner.

Just.

You just have Sam L. Jackson as the scream guy hang up on me.

Again, speaking of the beginning.

Rest in peace, Steve.

I'm sorry that, like, you were on screen for three seconds and then you got it.

Rough night for Steve.

Can we all just agree?

Poor Steve.

We never got to know him.

No, no.

But Craven said the only reason he would do it is that they made an offer.

It made him an offer that he couldn't refuse.

And they did.

They.

They made him a good offer and decided to do it.

And then.

So for casting, Drew Barrymore was originally supposed to be Sydney.

Oh.

And nobody really knows the commitment.

Some people think it might have been rehab, but she ended up accum some commitments.

But she was the original champion of this movie.

Like, she wanted to be Sydney.

She loved the script.

She was kind of in a weird.

Oh, she went to rehab.

Well, that was one of the things that they say that may have been happened.

No one knows what her commit was because I don't think it was another film.

Okay.

But she ended up having commitments that.

That let her not be.

Do the whole filming schedule.

And so.

But even though she was supposed to be sitting, but she still wanted to do it.

And so that's where they kind of got into this, like, kind of tricking them.

And it also honestly ended up being an homage to Psycho, because In the first 30 minutes of Psycho, you know, that happens in the shower scene.

So, like, they thought you're their starlet was supposed to be the whole movie.

And that happened.

Drew Barrymore.

And sure, she's on the poster.

Yeah.

So I love it.

Like, I love that.

That was like a little.

Yeah, kind of.

It was a nice move.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And so originally that part was written for.

Or.

No, originally, Sydney was written for Molly Ringwald, but she was 27, and she actually told Kevin Williamson, I'm too old.

Okay.

Good for her.

Yeah.

I honestly, I very much respect when actors.

Because I've actually had to do this before.

I've been sent auditions where I'm just like, I am not right for this character at all.

Like, playing a sophomore in high school.

It's just always funny when they cast someone who's, you know, is really old for, like, a high school student.

Like.

Like, Andrew Garfield is Spider man, which.

He's my favorite Spider man, but he definitely was, like, 32.

When he's too posh, he's too posh.

My dad actually is friends with one of the heads of marketing at son, and they were talking about the.

Because this was back when he was still Spider man, and.

And his friend was just like, yeah, we're hoping to make the next Spider man before Andrew Garfield starts collecting Social Security, so we'll see what happens.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

Or goes through puberty.

Yeah.

38.

Yeah.

Reese Witherspoon was considered too, but she was considered too young looking.

That makes sense.

I like Reese Witherspoon, but, like, I

imagine her from Amer, American Psycho, and she definitely would have looked too young.

Yes.

I would see her more as Tatum in this movie.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

That's Rose McGowan's character, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Nev Campbell screen tested everyone.

They.

Everyone was trying to, like, top her energy, Right?

Like, everyone tried to bring more energy, but they like Nev's energy.

And she already played a character on Was a Party of Five, and her mom died in that show, too.

And so they're like, you already play a person whose mom died, so let's get you in here.

Yeah.

You know, that is one of my favorite lines when.

When Skeet Ulrich is just like.

You know, it's like, when my mom and dad split and she left, and she's like, yeah, your mom left.

My mom's dead.

Yeah.

What a great moment.

She definitely.

She.

I think she actually does have range, but she just doesn't give off a lot here.

Yeah, I think.

I think she's.

Which you don't have to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But she's always got this looked.

She's kind of squinty, you know?

Yeah, exactly.

A little squinty, but it kind of matched the character.

Like, I don't know nothing.

Yeah.

That is one of the few things, like, about movies in the genre that this.

This never had a moment where anyone felt out of place.

Like, everyone really embodied who they were playing.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So I think I've had a hard time finding the origin of the mask, but in the script, it just said ghostly white mask is all it said.

They had designers making gargoyle mask and goblins, and they rejected everything.

And then they found this Halloween mask at a place called Fun World.

It was Fun World.

And I think I had a grandma who I didn't know very well, worked at Fun World.

Amazing.

And Halloween was their super bowl, right?

Hell, yeah.

I mean, Halloween was like, all right, let's do some coke and go to the store.

Peanut Eyed Ghost was what they called it on the label.

That was what it was called.

Peanut Eyed Ghost.

And Bob Weinstein was the one that said.

He said it's goofy and audiences will laugh.

Craven said.

And he knew in his bones that it would be unique.

Yeah.

They licensed it for $100 in a credit in the credits.

Amazing.

So, yeah.

And there's only two different masks that they actually use in the film.

And it's become so iconic.

It has, like, probably the most.

Outside of.

Michael Meyer is like, probably the most iconic mask in horror.

Yes.

Yeah.

And a few more tidbits.

It initially got an NC17 rating, which

is interesting because for no nudity.

No nudity and not that violent.

Even when they got Steve.

You only have to look.

Yeah.

You have to stare.

Yeah.

That the distance was what?

Yeah, that's weird.

It took nine submissions to get it down.

Nine.

Yeah.

I would love to see the first cut and see how much, like, grosser it was.

Yeah.

And this is post Halloween, too.

Yeah.

It's like.

Yep.

And it says the problem wasn't the blood, it was the intensity.

And they.

They only had to cut seven seconds total to get it down to an R. So nine submissions to get seven seconds out of a movie just whittling

off a quarter second at a time.

The big.

The biggest line the MPAA objected to was, movies don't create psychos.

Movies make psychos more creative.

They had a huge problem with that line because they knew the movie was meta.

But now we're actually getting into, like, something that.

And you have to remember, 96, we're getting.

Just getting off Tipper Gore, getting parental advisories on rap records and saying rap is kill, is rat is ruining children.

And there was this huge push for censorship of art.

And, like, so this.

I feel like that's tail ended.

And on top of that, you were.

You were pretty freshly coming out of, like, the serial killer era of the US where we just had, like, Ted Bundy and.

And so many other people like, that had gotten really famous from being serial killers, like, right there.

So I guess that it's stupid, but it does make a little bit of sense.

Yeah.

Do you think that if he had not said that, like, he wrote that based off of the Gainesville murders, they would have been like, it's R. Yeah.

Maybe what it says is Bob Weinstein was.

He's the one that convinced him, and Bob Weinstein said that they'll view it as satire.

Huh?

He was trying to say it's kind of like chink talk.

Tongue in cheek talking.

Cut that.

Matt.

I can't even.

I can't even speak.

Good for you.

Bob Weinstein being the less shitty wines.

I know, right?

That is true there.

Then that is some of the undertone here.

That's probably how Tarantino was getting added to the list too.

Was that the Weinstein's?

Oh yeah, this is Miramax, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, the.

The Weinstein's love Tarantino.

So yeah, that makes sense.

So this movie, $15 million budget and it.

They at first they thought it was going to flop.

It opened 4 4th place at 6.35 million they called it dead on arrival.

Word of mouth exploded.

The second weekend it got 9.1, then 10 million to third and then it climbed to number one.

Oh wow.

After four weeks this is a slow burn.

Yeah.

It stayed on top for nine consecutive weeks.

It stayed in the top 10 and it made 173 million worldwide.

Hell yeah.

That's great.

Nice.

11 times return on investment.

And this is a fun way to categorize it.

Jamie Kennedy's first residual check doubled his entire salary to make the movie.

Amazing.

Wow.

Oh that's so good.

So funny.

Love hearing success stories like that.

Yeah, me too.

Especially like so like Markiplier just put out Iron lung on his $3 million totally self funded budget.

As of recording this podcast on February 15th, it had hit $45 million worldwide.

Wow.

No distribution deal, no studios involved.

Literally just him negotiating directly with theaters.

And he's also about to put it out on fully physical medium so that people can actually like buy it.

So he's quite possibly going to double his money.

Yeah.

From what he's already made just on DVD sales and Blu Ray sales.

Yeah, like we need this more.

We need more independent filmmaking to like crush.

More risk taking that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck giving equity to their entire team.

Yes.

We need this kind of change in the industry and the fact that like with, with Iron lung he's made 15 times his budget.

Not even Christopher Nolan's best performing movie has ever made.

15 times its budget.

Yeah, like this is unheard of especially for in the industry.

What would be a no name filmmaker to make this much money off of a movie?

So we need more of this.

Hollywood, listen to us.

Yeah, maybe your mom was a huge and and she slept with your friend's dad from school.

Yeah.

And it's your fault.

And maybe your Johnny Depp lookalike boyfriend really doesn't like that and wants to kill you now and gets his friend.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The way to cure all this is to share a Movie wars with everyone.

It's so easy.

You go to your app, you go to Spotify, YouTube.

There's a share button.

You mash it kind of like a knife in the gut.

Yeah.

And you mash it and you do it again and you send it to your friends.

And then you scream.

Yeah.

Yes.

And you save your family.

Scream until your horse.

And then you support John to toys Comedy.

Yes.

That's how you do it.

Yes.

Love you.

Share Movie Wars.

Oh, and subscribe to YouTube.

Yes.

We're so close.

We're so close on YouTube.

Yeah.

But some of the most searing comments lately are also on YouTube.

Lord have mercy.

I will say I only get called fat on Instagram.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You've been getting the most.

I'm actually thankful that you.

You finally.

We've been doing this together long enough that you have taken the equal amount of ire.

Because for the longest.

Was it a flip?

A little bit of a flip.

People used to come after me so hard in the comments.

But now you're someone.

What?

Did someone said you're a dweeb?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Dude with the beards.

A dweeb.

And I responded with a gif of the dude being like, well, it's just your opinion.

And then another person said, you are insufferable.

I love it.

Bring it at me.

He likes it.

I'm.

I'm sensitive, so I don't like it.

How do you deal with it?

You like comments?

I just talked to Saf.

He's like, they called me a dumbass.

Yeah, pretty much.

That's.

And we work out, so.

Yeah.

We pump iron.

We do.

I cry in the corner.

Yeah.

To answer your question, with no posts on Instagram, Yes, I do work out.

So go yourself.

I do it four times a week, minimum.

Yes, that's right.

Including today.

Not Kyle's.

Our trainer.

That's right.

From afar.

That's right.

Pectorals.

I just had to say a muscle name.

That's Rando.

Speaking of randos, the murder of Principal Henry was added by Bob Weinstein because they said that they had gone too long.

There was too big of a gap between deaths.

I agree with that.

Yeah.

And so they tossed it in there.

Also, who doesn't want a fun killing of Henry Winkler?

Yeah.

Like, that was so much fun.

Yeah.

And huge shout out to him here.

He didn't want to be credited for the movie, really, because he said he did not want to take away from the young actors.

He wanted them.

Oh, good for you, he said.

And I was doing a little research on that.

So he had had his time.

He was.

He thought it was great that he was getting killed.

Like, he just loved it.

And he's like, give it to the kids.

Yeah.

That humor already.

So it, like, is derivative.

Yeah, yeah.

When he's playing with the mask.

So funny.

I didn't expect it.

I didn't expect him to die.

Like, he was the most random person

to die, but he handled it so well.

Like, he was so good.

Speaking of dying, the guy that played cameraman Kenny nearly actually died on set.

A stunt driver unexpectedly accelerated at full speed when he was lying on the roof to film that scene.

The only way he kept him from dying is the stuntman.

This must be a great stuntman.

Besides the fact that he almost killed him.

He grabbed his cuff, the cufflink of his pant leg, and kept him from flying off the roof.

Amazing.

So it was both his fault, but he also pulled off an amazing miracle.

Yeah.

There you go.

You get off this time.

Yeah, yeah.

It's kind of like.

It's kind of like Denzel Washington in flight.

Like, yeah, he saved the plane, but he was also drunk.

Yeah.

So it's kind of like, shouldn't get drunk for our morals.

Yeah, you shouldn't get drunk and fly a plane.

But that was a pretty cool stunt, bro.

That was pretty cool.

I mean, it was upside down.

That's pretty cool.

In addition to Drew Barry, more voluntary, voluntarily surrendering the role, there's some really funny stuff here.

So she accidentally called 911 multiple times on the phone.

Oh, really?

Maybe this is why she had to go to rehab.

You would think you wouldn't plug the phone in.

Yeah, yeah.

Why are we using a live phone?

You don't use live ammunition.

You don't use live landlines.

Put that on a shirt.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That is a good shirt.

That would be a movie war shirt.

That would be a movie war shirt.

Yeah.

Don't use live ammunition.

Don't use live landline.

And also to make.

This is insane.

And if you've ever.

And I don't know how I've seen Drew Barrymore's talk show.

I don't do it on purpose.

It's usually someone showing me A clip.

She's very cry.

Yeah.

Very emotional.

I love you.

I still love you and I respect you.

To make Barrymore cry more authentically, Craven told her real stories of animal cruelty in between takes, including a boy who set his dog on fire.

Oh, my God.

I could totally see that working for her though, where she's just like.

But.

But the dog.

Oh, no, it just.

Oh, that.

That makes so much sense.

Yeah.

Is.

Is Craven.

Is Craven a crazy dude?

Yes.

I mean, Lord have mercy.

You have to be.

To make a full time horror movies.

Well, and to be.

And to be called the Prince of horror or whatever he got.

You know, and this is also interesting because, you know, this is.

He was interested in this meta thing because he did the new Nightmare movie, which I don't think you've seen it yet, but that's the.

That's the Freddy Krueger meta movie where all the actors play themselves.

Wes Craven plays himself, Robert England.

And it's the idea.

It's like the who.

That movies can bring real evil into the world.

Okay.

And it's kind of making fun of that idea.

So Freddy Krueger gets introduced into the real world through Heather Langenkamp.

Through this vehicle.

Yeah.

And I'm gonna get a lot of hate for this because a lot of Freddy Krueger fans, which I am, hate that movie.

I love it.

And I actually think it's more meta and better than this one.

Oh, okay.

That's good to know.

But it's very good.

I'm.

I'm just putting that out there now.

But they're both great.

It's very good.

You did a trump and then I just did a random.

I only do Jamaican accents or have a.

Those are my two.

Yeah.

And when he does it together, you get Jar Jar Binks.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

And lots of eye blinking.

Yeah.

As opposed to other kinds of blinking.

Roger Jackson did the voice of the.

Of Ghost voice or Ghost.

Ghost Face.

I'm struggling, man.

I started off strong and I'm done.

Now I'm dying.

Roger Jackson did the voice of Ghost Face Face on the phone.

That's so hard to say.

Yeah.

And they were supposed to be a temporary placeholder and they were going to later dub it with actor Tom Kane's voice.

Oh, interesting.

But he kept Jackson's performance because he felt like it was intelligent evil.

And so Peter Jackson was forbidden to meet any cast member in person because he wanted there to be distance.

Like, from what?

Peter Jackson.

Sorry.

Roger Jackson.

Peter Jackson was also forbidden from the set.

Yeah, because he was 8 years old.

He was 8.

He was living in New Zealand at the time.

Stay away from Scream.

Peter Jackson.

These tacos.

These tacos are hitting me just right.

But, yeah, he was.

So Roger Jackson was forbidden for meeting any cast member to pursue genuine fear in their reactions.

I'm having a good day.

At least you guys are laughing.

Was it kind of like similar to.

Who is it in Psycho?

Not in American Psycho, where he wasn't.

They had to do three takes.

He just wanted to.

Yeah.

So that, like.

No, that's interesting.

They did the same thing and we covered another movie where they did that, where.

Oh, Anthony Hopkins.

Oh, yeah, Anthony Hopkins and Silence of the Lambs.

Yeah, same thing.

So they tried to keep distance between them so that the scenes were more hair raising.

I mean, I like that, though, because, like you, there's a certain unfamiliarity you need to have with a character like that.

And when the actors have too much camaraderie, it's really hard to kind of separate yourself from that.

That's why what we did, saving Private Ryan, I really loved that he purposefully kept Matt Damon away from everybody so that they resented the ever living shit out of him when he showed up on screen.

Yeah, like that.

You do things like that.

And I know some people are like, but they're actors, they should just do it.

I'm like, yeah, sure, but they're human beings.

They're human beings and it's your job as the director to make sure that the, the pathway that they take to be able to do those things is the easiest pathway possible.

Possible.

Yeah.

So I like that.

That's really cool.

Agreed.

And this is the funniest rando final rando.

During the kitchen finale, Ulrich and Lillard stay.

Stayed in character between takes.

And so they're, like, pulsing around the room.

They said they were roaming around like caged animals.

And Craven eventually asked them to stop because they were genuinely frightening Courtney Cox,

who's not even in frame.

Yeah, she's not even in the scene.

And she's like, she's in her trailer and she's like, I just, just feel the energy and I just can't do this.

She's literally only done Friends, so she's like, like, this is not how we do things on Friends.

She's like, david Schwimmer can barely act and I can't do the meta thing or the meta thing you're doing right now.

Yeah.

I never quite understand or buy into the romance between her and Dewey.

I, I, I.

For the Longest time I thought she was manipulating him, but then.

But then it felt like it was real.

But then I feel like it started as her manipulating him and it was supposed.

And I'll bet you there's a scene or that ended up being cut out that probably explained it a little better.

But my guess is, character wise, she was trying to play him at first and then thought he was adorable and so went, you know, was like, oh, okay.

Yeah, I. I like him.

Yeah.

So the questions.

The questions.

I love this question.

So I mentioned earlier, Robert Rodriguez, Sam Raimy, and Quentin Tarantino were all considered.

Which of those would you want to see?

Which Scream?

I think he would have.

Again, would have been a very different movie, but I think it would have been a very fun movie.

Yeah, yeah.

I think Tarantino.

Just because, like, they're already breaking the fourth wall multiple times.

I want to see, like, what.

Yeah.

To what levels they could do that.

Yeah, yeah.

I just think just a bunch of

gratuitous foot shots in the middle of it.

I literally think all three of them could have done a great job.

Absolutely.

I think they all.

It's hard to pick one, but I am just curious what Tarantino does with the dialogue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because that's the one thing, is that.

That Kevin Williamson went on to write a lot of, like, teen TV shows.

He just walks on screen randomly and starts saying the N word for no reason.

Yes, yes.

And all of a sudden, just seeding racism into the movie.

Like, we don't have any racism yet.

It's 30 minutes in and there's no racism.

Where is it?

Where are the black people?

Yes.

Come on.

Samuel Jackson's got my back.

But I do think it would have been.

It would have been really interesting to see that.

To see what he would have done.

I think Sam Raimi has already established himself as such a unique horror voice, but Robert Rodriguez.

Because when did From Dusk till Dawn come out?

Possibly the same year.

Yeah, I think it was 96, maybe 97.

But yeah, that was such a grimy, gritty movie.

I still need to see it all.

I've seen bits and pieces.

Tarantino's character in that movie is so just.

I actually think that that would have taken.

It would have taken this teen edge off of Shane or the Sheen off of it.

I don't think.

Think.

I don't know that it would have been a teen movie with.

In His Hands.

Yeah, I know.

It still would have been really interesting.

Yeah.

And then he, you know, because then he went.

Then he started doing the Spy Kids movies.

He kind of walked away from grimy, gritty stuff.

But see, at the same time, the Spy Kids movie, they.

They were the grimy, gritty kids movies of the day.

Like, it.

That I like.

It still feels like a Rodriguez movie.

Right.

So I think, I don't know, I feel like he could have pulled off keeping it a teen kind of movie, but still give it the grit that it needed.

Yeah.

Did you give your final answer?

I couldn't.

Yeah, I did.

Tarantino.

Okay.

Of course, I also feel like Tarantino, like, I thought the dialogue about how they were just talking about Jamie Lee Curtis's tits for like five minutes.

I was like, that would be a Tarantino thing to be like.

I've been thinking about this lately.

I'm gonna put this in the script.

So, yeah, that would have been 25 minute dialogue.

They would have been.

Would have been a monologue.

Honestly.

The entire movie is just the hateful eight.

But only talking about Jamie Lee Curtis's tits.

And there would have been long pauses in between, just like, of people staring at each other.

Yeah.

I love it.

Now I gotta have it.

Yeah.

Just a vignette.

Even if it's just a 30 minute vignette.

Come back, Tarantino.

Let's do this.

Make it 9.5.

It doesn't have to be your 10th movie.

Watch him announce his 10th movie as Scream 8.

Star Trek movie.

Yeah, it's true.

This is an interesting question because.

Yeah.

Which is a long time.

Yeah.

Does that make it the greatest slasher film ever made?

If it wasn't a satire, I would agree.

Yeah.

Simply because it's a satire.

I think it sets it apart from an alien or a Terminator or a Friday the 3rd, 13th or any of those other movies.

Right.

It's the only defining line for me to feel like that it just can't be named the best because it is a satire and it is a meta.

Like you can't.

That can't be the king of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's almost too artistic, as weird as that sounds.

No, definitely like that opening sequence is like, this isn't.

This is almost cool.

And I don't think about that when I think of Slasher So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's like top three.

Yeah.

Because this definitely was way more character driven than most slashers are.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

That it's, yeah.

It's almost a little too good to be considered the best.

Yeah.

Too much development.

It's too smart.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

No, legitimately.

It's legitimately too intelligent.

Compare it to when we did Nightmare on Elm Street.

Yeah.

And Nightmare on Elm Street.

It comes close to, to hitting that too smart level.

But it's, it, it, it follows that line really well.

Yeah.

This.

And I think it needed to in order to do what they did.

It crossed over into being too smart too many times.

Yeah.

Which is probably why it was like you felt okay when you left the theater, I imagine.

Yeah.

You weren't like, I'm gonna go turn every light on.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think you also have to.

And one thing I didn't get a. I forgot to go through in my history was that that horror was in the dumps during this time.

It was 90s horror was not good.

It was leprechaun sequels.

It was like straight to video sequels too.

Seven.

Yeah.

You know, was there to video.

Like, it was that, that was the time we're talking about here.

We all agree the OG Terminator should be considered like sci fi horror, right?

Yeah.

Yes, absolutely.

But then you hit the 90s and horror was at such a downturn that I feel like T2 had to go action in order to survive.

Yeah.

Like, if it had tried to stay as a grounded horror movie, I don't think it could have worked.

Techno noir.

Yeah.

And so I feel like everything in the 90s shifted away from horror and more towards those action.

And especially with the advent of cgi, you were starting to get these like, really out there fantasy and sci fi topics that weren't necessarily horror because even Jurassic park, as much as it is kind of horror, it's still an action adventure.

Yeah.

It's hard.

I mean, honestly too, like, I can't think of like, when it comes to like the development of slasher, like, it were.

It really was a gap.

Yeah.

Like, yeah.

back the slasher idea in, In a very artistic way.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I, I, I give it.

I kind of agree with you.

It's kind of hard to say it's the greatest because it's, it's, it's acting on the Intelligence that it has on all the other ones.

I will say, though, like.

And it's funny.

And I said this on our Nightmare on Elm street episode that every.

Every October, I pick a slasher series to rewatch.

It's usually between Halloween.

I love them, but every time I watch one, I do end up feeling a little gross.

Yeah.

That's kind of like all the characters are really dumb.

Yeah.

It's like.

And then it's just like nudity and it's just like pure violence.

And the violence is cool because, like, the, you know, Tom Savini's a legend and it's like there's all this cool stuff, but there's nothing challenging.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's just.

And it's not supposed to be challenging.

Exactly.

Supposed to be a very contained.

And like I said, even when there's fantastical elements, like you have a Nightmare on Elm street, it's still a very grounded story.

Yes.

It's small town.

Real people, like, you feel like you're relating with these people because they feel like real people.

They don't feel like characters.

This.

Very purposefully and very well done.

Everyone felt like a character.

Yeah.

And that's fine.

It needed this.

It was.

It lended itself well to this movie.

But, yeah, I think.

I think the grounded nature of slasher films is what makes them so good for what they are.

Yeah.

And I think this, again, purposefully and very well done.

Had to leave the grounded nature in order for the satire.

Yeah.

You had to make the boring moments count.

Like when they're in the video.

Yeah.

So, like, like, you know, and like, you don't.

You don't get that smart dialogue where they're having the conversations about horror films and where they're having the conversations where they're, like, dropping in the tidbits of, like, remember, this is what's going on without saying, this is what's going on.

Or like, this is about to happen without physically saying it.

Like, you needed that.

So, yeah, it definitely separates itself.

And I think what I'll close with is, I think what usually defines a slasher is the I.

The, like, the iconic nature of the.

The killer themselves.

Yeah.

And like Jason, Michael Myers and.

And whether they're good or dumb or stupid, however they.

Whatever they are, like, Ghostface gets his ass kicked here.

Yeah.

He's like, Ghostface is not even before, you know, it's two people.

Yeah.

Like, he's not necessarily like, besides his phone game, that's pretty sleek.

Yeah.

That's his most interesting thing.

But, like, he's not like watching him run.

Was I laughed?

Yes.

Which you're supposed to.

Yes.

Because especially after you know that it's Billy and Matthew Lillard's characters.

Like it.

It makes makes sense.

They're.

They're running like Naruto before Naruto.

It's very funny.

That's something actually that I really appreciated about this is.

Is when you do the reveal that they're characters that you've been following along for the whole movie.

And.

And he's.

Ghostface is not out of nowhere some crazy supernatural being that's like way slicker and smarter than the actual characters who are him.

Like I think that was so well done that you do make him get his ass handed to him so many times.

Because they're just normal teenagers who are also serial killers.

Yes.

All of your friends are serial killers.

Normal as serial killers could be.

Just open the yearbook, drop a dart, you land on a serial killer.

So this.

This next question actually kind of piggybacks on that.

So this is kind of a hot take I found online.

Although Scream had revived, it seemed like it would have revived the horror genre because it was such a bad time.

When you look at its predecessor or the ones that came after it's successors.

Successors.

The predecessors.

The successors.

Did it actually save the horror genre?

Because here are the.

Here are the ones that came after.

I know what you did last summer.

Urban Legend Valentine.

And and also it's worth noting that Kevin Williamson wrote I know what you did last summer as well.

Curse Sense.

He wrote that.

Yeah.

It makes sense though because both Those are the two movies that scary movie parents parodies.

Yeah.

Cursed teaching Ms. Tingle finally did come out.

The Faculty, which was also written by Kevin Williamson.

These are all movies that came out after Scream.

I know what you did last time.

Scream three one, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

No, actually 97.

Oh, damn.

Scream two is 97.

Faculty.

98.

Teaching Ms. Tingles.

99.

So here's what I think it did.

I think because yes, the immediate successors were trying to figure out how they did that, which I think is the wrong move.

I think when.

When something blows up and, and goes crazy and.

And kind of redefines a genre, I think it's a bad idea to try to do what they did.

I mean, we just talked about 28 days later later, you have Cabin Fever, you have Hostel, you have a lot of these.

Because Hostel is one of the few horror movies I have ever seen that has actually, like, given me a visceral reaction to what's happening on screen.

Yeah, that Eli Roth is a crazy person, but he is a genius when it comes to body horror.

Like, oh, my God, that and the Green Inferno, which came out like 15 years later.

Great examples of.

Of body horror.

But I think.

I think what happened was everyone saw Scream.

It took off, did really well then.

Then you had a bunch of people try to redo that and I mean, I know.

End up falling victim to the satire that Scream set.

Exactly, exactly.

And so that's when you had people like James Wan and like Eli Ro who were like, okay, let's.

Let's take all the good parts of Scream and the movies that it was commentating on and let's go darker and way more down to earth than anything has ever been.

Do you think the development of technology had something to do with that too?

In what way?

Like, I'm thinking of like, Hostel and like Saw, like just the way that they were doing.

Darker framing for most of that.

Like digital.

Digital.

Yeah, well, those.

I think we're still done on film or on tape at least.

Really?

Okay.

Is not real uprising.

Okay.

Because you can't do that.

So I don't know.

I don't know if.

Because I think a lot of people were just experimenting at that point.

Were like, so enthused by this one movie and so pissed off by the other movies that came after it that they were like, like, how do we do this new?

How do we do this different?

Well, also, like, with all the other predecessors after that too, like, Scream had like, elements of casting that was good.

They had a good stable of directors I like until, like, James Juan came along.

You know, that's.

I like to think that, like, they just.

Everything else didn't have that perfect, like, equation together.

So, okay, is Ghostface the weakest major slasher villain?

Yes, I Mean, physically, yes, physically, yes.

I think character characterization wise, at least based on this movie.

I think he's one of the strongest, most memorable horror villains.

But yeah, he's absolutely.

He's no Michael Myers.

He's not even like a Freddy Krueger.

Like.

Like he.

At Freddy Krueger comes across like a scrawny little piece of.

But he's like supernaturally powerful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is two teenagers, Rangers.

This is two high school seniors.

And yeah, they're nimble, but they're morons.

Yeah, they're stupid.

That they very obviously, like, got lucky.

Like just watching him try to cut people.

Like, it's how I would do it.

If you're like, stab Kyle.

Yeah.

Like, I don't know.

Yeah, they're not very good at it.

I'm not good at it, which is a good thing.

But like, you know.

Yeah.

So, yeah, you don't want to up level here.

Yeah, yeah, it's not.

Yeah, we're glad you're bad at stuff stabbing.

Yeah.

I have been a horrible stabber.

Predecessor successor.

But yeah, he.

Super.

Actually, some of the.

Some of the worst parts of the movie to me are watching Ghostface just kind of futs around, you know, it's like.

And as much as I, like I complained about Jason, just like he can just walk and catch up with you even though you're sprinting full speed and he'll teleport to where you are, even though we don't know if he's supernatural.

Same with Michael Myers.

Like Michael Myers in the sixth one.

All of a sudden he's the.

The cursed bloodline of a cult.

You know, when he's.

It's like there.

And I like that there's none of that here.

There's no.

Like, we're gonna try to lean into Supernatural.

There's none of that here.

And I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But there's like the hint at it.

They're like, oh, this could be.

And then it's like, no, it's just two kids.

It's a major deviation from all the other slashers to not have any.

Any tendril of Supernatural.

Especially for Wes Craven's history.

Yeah, yeah.

Like his history is all Supernatural.

Yeah.

And Freddy goes all over the place.

I mean, all those movies like.

Like, kind of like they suffered the fate of the other ones.

It's like all sudden we have new genealogies.

Yeah.

You know, and.

But all right, last closer.

Little closer question here.

Who or what won it for you?

Who or what lost it for you?

I think overall, the.

The Casting is truly what won this movie for me.

Again, I don't think a single person brought less than 100% to whatever role they had, however big or small.

I believed again, even though everything was a little bit more of a caricature than most of most of the movies in this genre, I believed everyone.

I believed that they were who they said they were.

Yeah.

And I didn't expect any of the twists.

And I feel like a lot of times when you can predict a twist, it comes down to two things.

Either predictable acting or predictable writing.

And this really have either.

Like, I was not expecting it to be two people by the end of it.

Like I. I was very much taken off guard by that.

So I really think ultimately the casting, little bit of writing, but ultimately the casting is what won it for me.

I think weirdly though, what also lost it for me was a little bit of the writing.

Like, I feel like at times it went a little too meta.

Yeah.

And it kind of took me out of it for just a minute.

But there wasn't, there wasn't much in this movie that took me out of it.

It was only a couple of times here and there, there.

So there wasn't much that lost it for me.

But the casting especially won this crazy amount for me.

Yeah.

I would say the casting too, I think like the sense of reality too.

Because like when they're running around a house, you know, and they're like, it's very reality, but like, you don't know what this house, what the layout is.

Yeah.

I liked that because like when they're chasing around, like, oh, they're realistically, you know, I would be like, hey, go find this person.

I'd be like, I don't know where the hell I'm going.

So I like.

So I'm going to go check every room.

And that's why I took so, so long.

Some of these chase scenes.

And I like that.

I also, I think what lost it for me is like, I just, I think about when she dials 911 from her computer.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was a little bit of a cop out.

I was like, what?

Yeah, it took me out for like probably a few minutes, honestly.

Yeah, that was weird.

And then the writing kind of brought me back in.

Yeah, I thought the writing actually brought me back in.

Cuz see, that was the thing.

I would go back and forth with the writing.

Like, other times I'm like, this is insanely well written.

And then other times I'm like, okay, you're going a little too far.