Anatomy of a Scene: Drew Barrymore meets her quick demise in the ‘Scream’ opening sequence
Before the release of Wes Craven’s 1996 cult favourite, Scream, the horror genre was facing a decline in popularity. The genre blossomed in the 1970s and ’80s with the release of films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween and Friday the 13th. Yet, by the ’90s, the genre lost much of its originality, often relying on remakes and sequels to established classics.
Luckily, Craven, a horror legend known for creating the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and early exploitation horrors like The Last House on the Left, used his skills to revitalise the genre. By mixing self-aware comedic satire that directly addressed and subverted horror cliches with genuinely gruesome gore and thrills, Craven created a classic with Scream. The film follows Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott, an intelligent high-schooler who becomes the target of a mysterious killer who wears a Ghostface costume. As Ghostface goes on a ruthless killing spree, Sidney’s friends and family subsequently get caught up in the chaos.
The film revolutionised the genre due to its innovative script, which often referred to popular horror movie tropes in a meta fashion, both embracing and mocking them. Moreover, Scream wasn’t afraid to lean into its silliness, making it endlessly entertaining upon rewatches, even when you already know the identity of Ghostface. The characters have been iconified into popular culture, with Drew Barrymore’s blonde-bobbed Casey Becker becoming one of Scream‘s most memorable figures.
Yet her role in the film only lasts around 12 minutes before Ghostface brutally murders her in the opening sequence. By including such a grisly kill at the beginning of the film, Scream establishes itself as genuinely scary, despite the comedic lines quipped by Ghostface down the phone to the unsuspecting teenager. Arguably, since its release, Scream‘s opening sequence has become one of the most iconic in cinema history.
The film opens with Casey answering the phone to a mysterious voice. After she asserts that he has the wrong number and hangs up, he rings again. Casey is a little annoyed but keeps talking to him as she makes her popcorn for a lonesome movie night, which leads the man to ask her the film’s most quoted line, “Do you like scary movies?” Straight away, Craven establishes that Scream is a horror movie about other horror movies, and to survive, the characters must know the rules and regulations of being in one.
The pair namedrop Halloween and Craven’s own A Nightmare on Elm Street. When Ghostface calls the latter “scary”, Casey replies, “Yeah, the first one was, but the rest sucked,” bringing attention to the film’s meta nature. However, despite the humour these lines evoke, tension mounts through shots of the bubbling tinfoil on the stove and smooth camera movements that frame Casey as though we’re following her, reflecting Ghostface’s voyeurism. The first genuinely horrifying moment comes when Casey asks Ghostface why he wants to know her name. He chillingly replies, “Because I want to know who I’m looking at.” The camera zooms closer to Casey as a picture of realisation forms on her face.
As she scrambles to lock all the doors, an intense score that uses spine-tingling strings akin to those used in classic horrors such as Psycho heightens the atmosphere of uncertainty. Casey throws childish threats down the phone, reassuring the voice that her boyfriend Steve is “big and he plays football” before turning on the patio lights to find him tied up outside. From here, horror movie trivia becomes potentially life-saving knowledge, yet Casey answers Ghostface’s question about Friday the 13th wrong, leading to Steve’s violent demise.
Craven tricks the audience into assuming that only Casey’s boyfriend will die – after all, they can’t possibly kill off the biggest name on the cast list, right? However, a struggle ensues between Ghostface and Casey as she attempts to escape from his sight and, eventually, his grip. She is stabbed multiple times on the lawn, the phone still in her hand, and her parents are just metres away as they pull up in their car. Finally, her mother finds her outside and lets out a guttural scream. The camera cuts to the gruesome image of Casey hanging from a tree, her guts spilling from her stomach.
Scream shocked audiences with the ruthless murder of Barrymore’s character just 12 minutes into the film, suggesting that any character could die at any point. In turn, this scene set the tone for the whole franchise, which went on to kill off some of its most beloved characters continually. It was actually Barrymore, an already-established actor, that requested to play Casey. She explained, “In the horror film genre, my biggest pet peeve was that I always knew the main character was going to be slugging through at the end, but was going to creak by and make it. What I wanted to do is to take that comfort zone away. So I asked if I could be Casey Becker so we would establish this rule does not apply in this film.”
