2. General
information• The genres that Scream falls under are Horror(slasher), Thriller and Mystery
• Its screening time consists of 1hr and 51 mins
• The 1996 film inspired a whole franchise of films and spin offs including: 3
follow up films, a tv series, the comical spin off “Scary Movie” and the
upcoming film “Scream 5”
• The film was set in the fictional town Woodsboro, California
3. Brief Production History
and Trivia
The budget for this film was 15 million usd.
As Woodsboro is a fictional town, the location of the movie was filmed in the Californian town
Santa Rosa. Some specific places can be pinpointed down to Santa Rosa High School, Sonoma
Community Center, Healdsburg Police Station and Healdsburg Town Square.
Cult horror/slasher director Wes Craven,who directed movie franchises such as A Nightmare On
Elms Street,The Hills Have Eyes,The Last House on the Left, also did this film. In addition to
directing the movie, he also had a cameo as a janitor (called Fred) dressed in Freddy Krueger’s
hat and sweater. The production team consisted of the companies Dimension Films and Woods
Entertainment.
The main cast consists of; Neve Campbell (Sidney Prescott),Courteney Cox (Gale Weathers),
Skeet Ulrich (Billy Loomis), Drew Barrymore (Casey), Rose McGowan (Tatum) and Matthew
Lillard (Stewie). Drew Barrymore was originally set to star as Sidney, but then changed her mind.
Instead requesting to play Casey Becker as this would give the impression that anyone could die
in the movie (as she was a big star at the time) because she dies in the opening scene.
Even though in America it is rated R, it was originally given an NC-17 as it was seen as too
gruesome for an R rating and also because Wes Craven initially refused to cut anything. But after
being edited and resubmitted 9 times, it then got an R rating.
Screenwriter Kevin Williamson loosely based scream off the Gainesville Ripper, an American
serial killer called Danny Rolling. Who terrorized the town of Gainesville Florida and murdered 5
students from the University of Florida over the course of a few days with a knife to send a
message to Gainesville. The students were Sonja Larson, Christina Powell, Christa Hoyt, Manny
Taboada and Tracey Paules. He later received the death penalty. He also took inspiration from his
favourite movie, Halloween.
4. Critical reviews(general)
Scream has both a 78% Tomatometer review and a 79% audience score on Rotten
Tomatoes. On IMDb it has a rating of 7.2 stars out of 10.
Two different sites gave two contradicting answers on how the Scream movies out
of the franchise are ranked, but one thing they could settle on was that the original
Scream is the best out of all of the Scream movies.
Despite it having an age rating of 18, the majority of reviews suggested it is suitable
for people 13+
Some awards Scream won consists of: "Best Movie" at the MTV movie awards in
1997 and "Best Horror film", "Best Actress"(Neve Campbell) and "Best
Writer"(Kevin Williamson" at the Academy of Science Fiction , Fantasy & Horror
Films.
5. Critical reviews(then vs now)
I asked someone if their perception on the movie
has changed from when it first came out and their
response was “It seems more comical and less
suspenseful from when it was first released. I’d give
it an 8.5/10 for when it first came out, but now I
would give it a 6/10”
6. Release information
• A few taglines used to market the film include "Someone's Took Their Love Of
Scary Movies A Step Too Far", "I'll Be Right Back" and "Someone Has Seen Too
Many Scary Movies”.
• Scream was premiered on the 18th of December 1996 in Los Angeles, which then
followed with it broadly being released to the rest of the American public on 20th
of December 1996, then in the UK on the 2nd of May 1997 and then 16th of May
1997 in Ireland.
• The movie has been given the age rating of 18 in the UK/Ireland and R (nearly an
NC-17) in the US, because it “Contains strong, bloody violence” This would
probably get a lower age rating if it was first made in this era as people are more
desensitised now compared to 20-30 years ago.
7. Bibliography• (release dates) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117571/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_dt_dt
• (Gainesville Ripper) https://www.nine.com.au/entertainment/latest/gainesville-ripper-real-life-murders-inspiration-
scream-movies/c2e36b90-a6a7-4f7f-82f5-3fa4887d4a94 https://www.nine.com.au/entertainment/latest/gainesville-
ripper-real-life-murders-inspiration-scream-movies/c2e36b90-a6a7-4f7f-82f5-
3fa4887d4a94https://youtu.be/6t6XWTA4SP4
• (Taglines) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117571/taglines?ref_=tt_stry_tg
• (rating) https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1074316-scream
• (genres, budget and running time) https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3580855809/weekend/
• (movie franchise)-first site-https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/scream-ranking-the-movies-in-order-of-quality/ -second-
https://collider.com/best-scream-movies-ranked-worst-to-best/#scream, google search, -tv trailer-
https://youtu.be/qqzgSjZQlLo -scary movie trailer- https://youtu.be/HTLPULt0eJ4
• (production companies) end credits from movie
• (wes Craven) https://film.list.co.uk/listings/wes-craven/
• (budget)https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Scream#tab=summary
• (where it was set) from the movie
• (location)https://www.republicworld.com/entertainment-news/web-series/where-was-the-neve-campbell-starrer-
scream-movie-filmed.html https://www.movie-locations.com/movies/s/Scream-1996.php
• (trivia)https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/58039/15-things-you-may-not-have-known-about-scream
• (reviews)https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1074316-scream
• (awards) https://youtu.be/b3rDSMey5D4https://youtu.be/b3rDSMey5D4 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117571/awards
