No./7 Horror that goes straight for the heart
The Scream directors on a love letter to Wes Craven’s original
ONE MIGHT WONDER why the fifth film in the Scream series is not titled ‘Scream 5’, or even ‘5cream’, but simply Scream. It’s not a reboot or a remake. But there is, its directors insist, a good reason. “It’s about paying respect and letting people know we’re honouring everything the series is with this movie,” says Matt Bettinelli-olpin, who directs alongside Tyler Gillett. “The world that Wes [Craven] and Kevin [Williamson] built, it’s a big universe. This movie is an encapsulation of all that. It felt like the best way to honour that was to show people, ‘Yep, it’s the Scream that you know and love, and it’s going to be something else moving forward.’”
The new film, the first in 11 years, brings back almost all the core team. Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette all reprise their roles. Series creator Kevin Williamson has helped shape the story. Wes Craven, however, who directed the first four films, sadly died in 2015. For many fans, a Scream without Craven is hard to imagine, but Bettinelli-olpin and
Gillett are as keen as anyone to see this film respect his legacy.
“This movie is a love letter in every way,” says Bettinelli-olpin. “For both of us, Scream would be on not just our top five movies that we love, but movies that shaped who we are as filmmakers.” You can certainly see the influence in the pair’s last movie, Ready Or Not, which has the comedy-horror tone that Scream basically invented. “The most important part of bringing this franchise back to life,” adds Gillett, “was making sure the people that were so close to Wes, and so involved in the fabric of what the series was, were involved and gave us their blessing.”
That began with Williamson, whom new screenwriter James Vanderbilt consulted when crafting his script. “There are definitely his fingerprints on the story,” says Bettinelli-olpin. And then it was persuading Campbell, Cox and Arquette to join a cast of fresh faces in a story that brings Ghostface back to slice and dice a new generation. “There was no version of this story, for us, that would work without the three of them,” says Gillett. “They are the beating heart of these movies.” Whether those hearts will all still be beating by the end of the film, only Ghostface knows.