Michael's Horror Lase-O-Rama: Scream (1997, Dimension Home Video)

Source: LDDB.com

Movies Make Psychos More Creative.

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I'm not going to recap the plot of Scream. If for some reason you've not seen the film, you're better off going in not knowing a damn thing about it. If you're old enough to have seen this, either when it came out in theaters in December of 1996 or on home video later, then you already know the scoop.

Likewise, if you want to know why Scream is one of the most important horror films of the 20th century, I've covered that topic elsewhere. Suffice it to say Scream is the single highest-grossing horror film in history, and it earned that distinction honestly: it's top-notch entertainment that re-defined what horror films could, and maybe should, be.

Few genres have the power to influence cultural behavior like horror. While romantic comedies are there to make us laugh, dramas are there to make us cry, and action films are there to make us feel like the heroes we know we aren't in real life, horror exists to point out the flaws and weaknesses of society. Horror movies remind us that bad things can happen to perfectly good people -- all it takes is for you to leave your door unlocked, take a stroll through the woods alone, or, in Scream's case, simply pick up the phone.

Though they made all the money in the world and swept the Academy Awards, Titanic didn't inspire anyone to swear off cruise ships, Avatar didn't get anyone gung-ho to join the military, and Return of the King didn't substantially impact the nation's supply of heavy plate armor and orc-killing broadswords.

But all it takes is a movie like Jaws to keep a giant swath of the population off the beaches. All it takes is a movie like Psycho to create a nation of shower-averse Hippies like @blewitt. All it takes is a movie like Scream to get people signing up for Caller ID en masse.

Horror, when done right, can fundamentally alter an entire society's perceptions and behavior. Scream was one of those cultural touchstones, though it's doubtful that anyone from writer Kevin Williamson to director Wes Craven to the actors themselves had any idea just how huge it would be.

There's A Formula To It. A Very Simple Formula!

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Scream's success stems partly from being a clever, intelligent story, and partly from being in the right place at the right time. Horror cinema had been on a downward trend for a decade, and no sub-genre of horror had been shamed harder than the Slasher. Psycho didn't invent the Slasher film, but it gave audiences and creators alike an effective template: a guy suffered some form of abuse through either deliberate neglect or misfortune, which caused him to snap and start killing people until he is stopped -- not by the police or someone in authority, but by the very victim or victims he is stalking.

The takeaway from Psycho should have been that you could tell a convincing tale of depravity with a bit of blood and a few bodies around to shock the audience every so often. Directors like John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper understood this. It's what makes Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre such effective films even now, some forty years after their releases, despite there being almost no blood to be seen in either movie.

Unfortunately, what many others took away from Psycho (and especially Halloween) was that 'maniacs hacking up innocent victims' stories can be shot just about anywhere, with a cast of unknowns, and make back more than its shoestring budget after only a few weeks in theaters. Thus, from Halloween descended an increasingly-demented array of whacked-out killers, often outfitted with various farming implements or tool shop regulars, doing horrible things to characters so two-dimensional they could illustrate a Geometry textbook.

As long as there was enough fake blood and real boobs, people would pay money to see it.

As long as the killer didn't truly die at the end, people would pay more money to see the sequel.

And if they missed it during its cinematic run (assuming it even had one outside of New York's infamous 42nd Street), it could become one of several dozen other titles on offer from the shelves of the local video rental store.

From this thinking we got eight sequels to Friday the 13th, five additional entries in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, and four increasingly absurd follow-up features starring Michael Myers in the 1980's alone. In roughly ten years, the Slasher movie went from 'breaking down your door' excitement to more like a house guest who has outstayed his welcome, but whom you can't pluck up the courage to throw out because you know it would hurt his feelings. The Slasher, by the mid-90's, was a direct-to-video joke, something you watched because you didn't care about the story, you just wanted to see some girl with huge hooters do a nude scene before meeting the business end of a pitchfork, machete, or ax.

Scream fixed all that with one swift, brutal throat punch in 1996. And there's no better way to experience this than on LaserDisc.

You Already Cut Me Too Deep. I Think I'm Dying Here, Man!

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Before Scream's theatrical release, Wes Craven spent months wrestling with the MPAA. Craven, no stranger to this battle thanks to his twenty-plus year career making horror films, expected this, but following the MPAA's demands would have completely neutered the movie's impact in his impact. Craven would slice a bit here, trim and bit there, resubmit, and get told to make further alterations or lose full scenes all together. And make no mistake, Scream needed an R-rating; if the MPAA imposed the harsher NC-17, it was the kiss of death -- theaters usually didn't screen them, and video stores didn't carry them. Craven and the ratings board found themselves at loggerheads, neither side willing to budge.

Finally, in an effort to push through what he felt was the most important scene in the opening act, the moment Casey's parents find their daughter's body, Craven lied to the MPAA and said he had only shot one take, and had no alternate elements to put in its place.

The MPAA caved on the cut, but requested the offending sequence be time-compressed (sped up) so as to be on screen for a briefer period. Later, producer Bob Weinstein at Dimension Films stepped in to talk with the MPAA, going to bat for Craven by explaining the film relied on satire and homage to drive home its point, something which the gore served to underscore, and the MPAA allowed it through almost completely unaltered. The end result was Craven lost twenty seconds' worth of footage between his original director's cut and the theatrical edition.

Now twenty seconds might not seem like much, and in the grand scheme of things it seems downright nit-picky, but I've always been a believer that if there's a director's original vision for a film, one should have that option to view. When it comes to Scream, the only North American release to offer that is the LaserDisc. To date, this is the only format to feature Craven's director's cut of the picture; the VHS, DVD, and even Blu-Ray editions of Scream are all the theatrical edition. So unless you've seen this edition of the picture, or you've imported a Japanese DVD for your region-free player, you've never actually seen the movie Wes Craven intended for you to see.

Beyond the extended footage, the picture and sound quality are top-notch (as should be expected on any 'disc released in the late 90's), and it also includes a commentary track from Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson. This is the same one included on the Special Edition DVD, so you may have heard it already, but it's still a nice touch especially now that Wes Craven is no longer with us.

"I'll Send You A Copy." BAM! Bitch Went Down!

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Scream has been one of my grail 'discs since I got back into the hobby . As much as I enjoy the movie, and with as many times as I've watched it over the years, I'd yet to see the full director's cut. Fortunately for me, earlier this year, I made contact with a seller on Facebook and scored it for an even $20. Given that I've seen other copies sell in excess of $50, I was more than happy to take a chance on it at that price, and I was not disappointed.

So the good news is that if you already have the player, getting a copy of Scream's director's cut won't wreck your wallet, unlike some of the other 'Discs I've looked at in the past. If you aren't familiar with the normal cut of the film, you'll be hard-pressed to even notice the additions -- twenty seconds in a film running 111 minutes is a fairly insignificant insertion. But for those geeks like me who love this movie more than is probably healthy, if you're going to watch the movie, you might as well watch the whole thing, right?

You're Not Scared, Are You?

Five obscene phone calls out of five.