My Scream Adventure!

My SCREAM Adventure! By Ryan C. Showers, Always and Forever A Scream Fan

The Scream movies instantly become my favorite movies since I saw them when I was in sixth grade. I’ve seen the numerous times; it’s to the point where I could do an entire reenactment of the entire series as a one man show. They’ve come to define who I am, I’m Ryan: Scream fan. The three films have inspired me to discover my passion, which is writing and creating stories that will be told. I’ve even mapped out entire outlines for the duration of the second trilogy, Scream 5 and Scream 6. This is the story of how it all came to be and how the Scream series has impacted my life.
The weekend of my sixth grade Christmas break began, it was December 22nd. My mom, is a single mom, works a lot, so naturally my sister and I spend much of our time out of school with my grandparents. This day my grandpa took us to Pizza Hut for lunch. Our local video store is directly across from the Pizza shop, and after I finished eating I asked if I could walk over to get a movie. I didn’t know what I was looking for or that my selection that day would have such an impact on the rest of my entertainment life. I couldn’t find anything I interested in, but walking out of the store my eye caught onto the Scream VHS cover.
I always had read a section in the People’s Magazine’s celebration of the ‘90s page of Scream. I read it and reread it because it had Courteney Cox and Drew Barrymore interviewed. I knew (and loved) them from Friends and Charlie’s Angels. I figured hey why not get it, I have two weeks off. So I got checked out and not really knew the rollercoaster ride I was in for. It was just a simple choice I chose on a boring day.

My grandparents took us home just as we were in the middle of a HUGE snow storm. They stayed at the house with me and my sister because they didn’t want to chance the weather. I went back to my room, put the VHS in the player, and began to watch Scream 1. I was immediately drawn into the dark, scary nature of the opening scene and while I hadn’t really had much exposure to horror movies at that age, the scariest movie I had seen was Candace Cameron Bure‘s NightScream, I recognized the jokes, especially the ones about Halloween because more or less of Jamie Lee Curtis. When Freaky Friday came out I went through a phase with it and begged my mom to let me watch more movies of Jamie Lee Curtis, she wouldn’t let me watch Halloween.

I had such a fun time watching Scream, and those two hours flew. Near the end I was literally standing on my bed cheering at the TV for Sidney to win in the end. After I finished it, my mom arrived home and that night we had to go to a Christmas party, the biggest one in town. I kept asking all the kids my age and the older teenagers if they ever saw Scream. Mostly all of them replied, yes and it’s not scary. I was embarrassed that a movie everyone deemed “not scary” was all I could think about. I later found out, many years after, that none of them actually saw it. They confused Scream with Scary Movie. Why, the mix up, why?

The next day, I woke up around 8:30am, and I called the video store asking if they had Scream 2 and Scream 3. They held them for me as I got dressed and ready for the day. When my grandpa came to pick me up I lied to him and told him that the video store called and said they had something for me, so he took me down to the store. When I got to my grandparents house I rushed to the basement and put Scream 2 in the VCR. I loved the sequel, just as much as the original; they were tied. I had a great time watching it and literally gasped when the second killer was revealed.

My mom picked up my sister and me and took us home. I was so eager to start the third movie, but first I got on my mom’s computer to Amazon.com to look at the DVD covers. I wanted them, I was drawn to these group of movies for some reason. My mom’s best friend’s family was coming home for Christmas from out of state that night, and she planned for us to go out with them for dinner. I set Scream 3 aside for my friends. We ate at a restaurant in town and while I was thrilled to see my friends, all I thought about was Scream and my curiosity of how it would end. We left the restaurant and they came up to our house to hang out with us and I remember how much I wanted just to go up to my room and ditch my friends, but I didn’t.

After they finally left, it was around 9 o’clock. I went back to my dimly-lit room and began Scream 3. I can’t even explain to anyone how much I fell in love that night. I laughed with Jennifer’s Jolie’s funny jokes. I couldn’t take my eyes away from the screen when Neve Campbell was on screen, I loved Sidney the best in this film. I couldn’t stop “awwwing” at the wonderfully developed romance between Gale and Dewey. I was scared *beep* when Sidney’s mother talks to Sidney in her dream and breaks the window (that scene remains to me today the scariest scene I’ve ever seen). I said “ah-ha!” when Sidney sees the replicas of her house on the Stab 3 set. I watched soap operas since I was in kindergarten, so I was enthralled in the soap opera-esque mystery of Maureen Prescott. And when the last 20 minutes came on, my eyes were glued to the TV, my body kept still in the same position with suspense and shock. I had such an adrenaline rush in the Scream 3 ending. I loved the tricks with Sidney carrying two guns, the bullet proof vests, and the classic twist that is the brother. I was uplifted by the happy ending the concluded the series. It became my favorite movie within an instant and remains my favorite to this day. I made a bold opinion that day about Neve’s acting and I stand by that opinion to this day, which is that her acting in Scream 3 is the best this franchise, genre, or film in general will ever see.

I realized something while looking at the box that night though, all three movies were Rated R! I had never knowling seen a Rated R movie before, and I didn’t look on the back of the cover at the video store. I was scared my mom would be angry, but she wasn’t at all. I told her when I woke up the next day and she said it was no big deal and she was proud of my honesty. The next two days were Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I took the two days to rewatch them all over again and fell more in love. I made my little sister watch the scene where Tatum died, with the garage door. I was just on cloud nine. I told my mom that I wanted to buy them and she agreed to go over the day after Christmas shopping and get them with me. I bought Scream 1 from Circuit City, Scream 2 from Suncoast in the mall, and no one had Scream 3, so when we got home my mom ordered it for me from Amazon.

When school resumed, I couldn’t stop bragging about the Scream trilogy. I even brought my DVDs to school one day to show everyone. I even made a sign to hang on my desk that said “Scream 3” with Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox-Arquette, and David Arquette’s names on it with a big red “3” going through the middle of the word (all hand-crafted by me). I spent most of those next few school months watching the trilogy, enjoying them, and losing all my fear in scary movies. The Scream trilogy was the prime focus point of my life at that time. For an English project, we had to make “Personal Symbols” that described who we were. I didn’t know what to possibly do, so I printed out a picture of Ghostface, Sidney, Gale, and Dewey, cut them, pasted them, and made my English project.

My sister and I are very close, so naturally she grew to love them just as I did. With a few of her friends in the summertime, we started “Scream Marathons”, where we would stay up and watch all three Screams in a row and after it was over, we’d do Scream Awards which were like the Oscars in Scream version. We’d go into a “voting booth” and everything. I also made a Myspace page for our Marathon group, called it our website. To this day, I rarely watch Scream unless it’s in a marathon form.

The next fall/winter, I discovered my favorite time to watch them. Most people just like to watch scary movies in Autum because of Halloween, that’s not even my reason. My reason is because it’s the simplest time of the year, I have the most energy during that time of the year too. School’s starting again, summer’s ending, you get back into a routine, the leaves fall, it gets colder, it’s a wonderful time. And I always loved watching Scream in the winter because our Christmas decorations are up, and it’s just a blast to watch them with the lights out and with all the Christmas stuff around you. You get the sense of family I guess. There’s something about leaves and snow that just clicks.

I often browsed online for Scream stuff. I always have had a fascination with DVD covers and what they come in as well as the movies themselves. I love box-sets too and looked for one. I soon found out all the US box-sets were out of print, but I found a box-set I LOVED that came from England. I didn’t know it came from England and my mom gave me premission to order it. Well they wouldn’t ship it to the US, so there was a big deal with my mom and the seller, but it was all worked out and my mom calls it a learning experience.

Scream introduced me to all the older horror movies as well as the movies it inspired. I even had my grandma take me DVD shopping the weekend of Halloween to buy all these movies for my Christmas presents. I was introduced to Halloween, Halloween II, Halloween H20, Halloween Resurrection, Alien, Aliens, Alien3 , Alien Resurrection, A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Friday the 13th, I Know What You Did Last Summer, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Wild Things, and Urban Legend. Scream was what sparked my love for Sarah Michelle Gellar, my favorite actress after Cox (The Scream series just made me love her more). Without Scream, I would’ve never been introduced to my two favorite shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Around the time of Scream 4 rumors buzzing was the time when I realized I may get another gift to add with my other three. I saw a fanmade poster of Neve in the center of two Ghostface killers, and trust me it looked real. I fell for it. The rumors slowly died, as did my hope we’d get a Part 4. One day while I was at church, my Priest announced he was going to Rome to a place to pray and if anyone had any special prayers to put them in a box by the door and he will pray for them while he would be there. I’m ashamed to say this, but I was a kid okay. I wrote on a piece of paper after mass: “That Scream 4 will be made.” I snuck it into the box and forgot about it until a few months later when Scream 4 was announced. Once the release date was set, I started two countdowns: one on a big piece of poster paper on my wall and another as my phone signature for texting. I marked off one day, everyday until April 15th 2011.

After the script had been finished, the actors had been contracted, and casting of the new characters began more Internet rumors fly around. People were under the suspicion that the surviving trio would have trivial supporting roles, and likely die and have the new younger cast take over the “new trilogy”. People were acting like this is the way it was going to be and nothing else. I panicked. I didn’t want a Scream where Gale, Sidney, and Dewey weren’t the lead roles! I started saying to myself that the wish I made in church that day had come back to bite me in the ass. I had a big breakdown that night that my favorite thing in the entire world would be ruined by Scream 4 something I had been anticipating for a long while.

I didn’t believe these rumors that Sidney was no longer the main character, while multiple websites and HECK even Scream fansites started calling Emma Roberts the main character! I didn’t believe it. I kept saying Wes wouldn’t do this to us. That wasn’t the only thing I panicked when I heard the rumors that Gale died. Gale’s always been my favorite character and this broke my heart. I decided not to believe that rumor either, and in the end, both of my worst nightmares stayed as nightmares and didn’t come true. I was right the entire time which gave me peace of mind. Gale didn’t die and the surviving trio were the leading roles and the sole survivors.

During the year-long countdown to Scream 4, I did purchase the Ultimate Scream Collection, another box-set that was out of print. I got it off eBay correctly this time. It came and I was thrilled. That next fall and winter I did a Scream marathon almost every weekend, I was so pumped for Scream 4. My best marathon I ever had was a weekend in October, I had a horrible day at school because someone put a lock on my locker that wasn’t mine. I had to stay after school to get it taken off. I was a wreck, but my grandpa helped by getting me my favorite pizza from Pizza Hut and my sister and I did a marathon that night. It was magical. My mom also got me both of the Entertainment Weekly magazines in which Scream was on the cover for from eBay. When the first trailer was released at the Scream awards, I exploded with joy and woke my sister up on that Sunday morning to show her. But I can’t say my anticipation for Scream 4 was all jolly…

I went on the IMDb messaging boards for Scream 4 and was attacked because of my opinion of Scream 3 being the best. I had no clue Scream 3 was hated by a group of Kevin Williamson fans that were bitter because Kevin wasn’t given the writing credit on the poster. I just ignored them at first, but after months of taking grief I finally stood up to these morons on the computer about Scream 3. I mean, they weren’t voicing their opinion, they were attacking me for not sharing the same thoughts as them. I went from a quiet church mouse on IMDb to a ferocious animal in defense and I don’t regret defending Scream 3; I regret getting on those message boards in the first place. The world was so much simpler before Internet chatrooms like that, you could form your own opinions without being attacked. What I learned that I really love Scream 3 for what it is and not the technicalities that mattered to all these other “fans”. Another reason this Scream 3 hate came to as such a surprise to me is that my sister, my grandma, my friends, everyone I ever watched them with always liked Scream 3 the best. It was a mystery to me. I’ve learned not to let these pricks bother me. I know it sounds like a dumb problem, but a problem is problem!

One of my favorite activities I accomplished in the months proceeding Scream 4, was I timed all the characters screen time in each of the three movies to get a more accurate view on how the cast list should really be ranked. Some may call it having no life, but I call it a Christmas/Thanksgiving break hobby. I originally just calculated the surviving trio in each film back at the end of summer due to ridiculous accusations that Sidney was a supporting role to Gale and Dewey’s lead roles. And you know who were these accusers? People who disliked the movies and love Kevin Williamson, what do you know? Even without the screen time status, it’s ridiculous to say anyone but Sidney is the leading role in any of the four movies. If you ejected her out of any of the three movies, there would be no movie. Even in the sequels when she’s not on screen every second of every scene, in Scream 3 in particular, she’s talked about incessantly. And to back up the argument, Neve did have a good five minutes more than Courteney and David in Scream 3, just like I had predicted. With all this evidence, you would think people would wise up and realize Sidney is Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3, and Scream 4. No one else. Every other character is what we call supporting roles. I’ve already found screen times for the five main characters in Scream 4 (Sidney, Gale, Dewey, Jill, and Kirby), I look forward to timing the rest over Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.
I found that Neve’s screen times were as follows: 42 minutes (Scream), 37 minutes (Scream 2), 33 minutes (Scream 3), and 26 minutes (Scream 4). Courteney’s screen times: 14 minutes (Scream), 22 minutes (Scream 2), 28 minutes (Scream 3), and 16 minutes (Scream 4). David has always been the least important member of the trio and it shows here: 10 minutes (Scream), 16 minutes (Scream 2), 26 minutes (Scream 3), and 13 minutes (Scream 4). To find out all the other characters times in the original trilogy check scream-trilogy.net, a website who was gracious enough to publish my hobby, or just ask.
Through the several Scream 4 pre-screenings I found out every detail about the movie before I saw it, something I sorely regret. All the surprise was ruined for me, especially with the identity of the killer. If I don’t write Scream 5 and Scream 6, I will not be looking for spoilers. But in all honesty, I was a bit disappointed with Scream 4 on the first viewing. I didn’t hate it, but I just thought it would’ve been so much better. I thought the ensemble was too big, and there wasn’t enough character development like there was in the first three. I thought the running time was too short, they cut too many scenes they filmed out. I thought Wes’ direction was very off-tone with the consistent tone and heart of the first three. The way people died bugged me, it was almost as if they used a handheld camera just for the death scenes, they looked like something from The Evil Dead, not from the first three Screams. And Marco’s score took a major turn for the worst after he was at his peak in Scream 3’s score. With all these flaws, I felt insulted I wasted a whole year of my life thinking about Scream 4, counting down to it, so I convinced myself to just act as if I loved it. I even told people I liked it more than Scream 2 when Scream 2 was better in my mind. I don’t know why I did this, but I did for two weeks before I started ranking 4 below 2 like I should’ve from the start.
It’s not that I disliked Scream 4 completely, I saw it three times opening weekend, and twice again in theaters before it left. My favorite thing about Scream 4 was Courteney Cox’s Gale Weathers performance. It was on par with her Oscar worthy Scream 2 performance. She supplied so much energy and enjoyment to Scream 4. I also adored how they used it’s theme (remakes) to remake the entire first trilogy. They take aspects and scene situations from all three movies and tie them together and show us that the new generation doesn’t appreciate good quality films anymore. I also loved false openings, false endings, false everything! I let Scream 4 sink into my brain which has let me take baby steps to love it. I think if Scream 4 would’ve been at the video store the day I rented Scream 2 and Scream 3, I probably wouldn’t have found anything wrong with it. I think it was just trying to accept something new into what I based my life around. By the first week of summer, I honestly loved Scream 4. Something changed gradually for the better. It will still take some rewatches for me to accept it undoubtedly as a part of the series, but that will come with time.

After I finally accepted Scream 4, I wondered where Wes and co. would take us to conclude the series with the next two films. Ideas sprouted in my head for Scream 5 and Scream 6, after reading many fan ideas on the Internet. I wrote two three page outlines that next week for fun an emailed them to a Twitter friend of mine. Nothing ground breaking, just figuring out the roots of my stories and where the survivors were in the line as well as who the killers were and why. He loved the ideas and told me he’s love to read the expanded story. So I expanded them a tad more with scene ideas and different, new characters. It still resembled nothing of a true script or movie, just ideas and meanings. I took it one step forward and wrote out each scene for both Scream 5 and Scream 6. Each outline was around 13 pages and I felt accomplished. My Twitter friend gave my his honest opinion on them, and he loved them, enough to call Scream 6 almost flawless. I also have shown them to one of my close older friends in my daily life, and she agrees with my Twitter friend: that I should pitch them to Harvey Weinstien, Bob Weinstien, and Wes Craven. My confidence level in myself and my writing have gone sky high because of this.
I’m a bit hesitant to approach the Weinstiens about my ideas. I mean, it’d be a dream to do this, but maybe that’s all it is: a dream. I’d have to find and agent in New York and then send them through them and my family is moving right now, so it is hectic, especially for a single mom of two. Not many people know about my Scream 5 and Scream 6 ideas and that I may want to pursue them, because I think most people will find the idea preposterous and ridiculous. The odds aren’t in my favor, not even being eighteen yet, but I have faith in some fraction of the possibility that it may happen. It would be my dream to be sitting at a table with Kevin Williamson and Ehren Kruger writing Scream 5 and Scream 6 as a group.
My family is currently in the process of moving to a new house, and my sister and I were allowed to design our own rooms. I used Black Swan’s theme of Black and White (Black furniture + trim and white walls), and I’ve had Scream 1, Scream 2, Scream 3, and Scream 4 posters framed and are going to be hung on my walls. It’ll be the perfect touch to welcome me into my new home. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my Scream adventure, I love these three, now four, movies and I feel the six and a half page homage was needed. Hey detective, what’s your favorite scary movie?
RCS, ✔ Verified fan of The Scream Saga