Alright, so we all know longtime horror maven Wes Craven is set to skulk down the suburban streets of Woodsboro for the fourth time on April 15th. After coming off possibly his worst directorial effort in MY SOUL TO TAKE, and considering the spate of production woes on SCREAM 4 – what with script issues, reshoots (debunked), relationship drama, etc. – it’ll be interesting to see if Craven and original scribe Kevin Williamson can revive their franchise in the same way SCREAM reinvented the endangered slasher subgenre back in 1996. Remember, Williamson wrote SCREAM 2, which wasn’t all that bad in its own right. And compared to SCREAM 3, just a laughably abysmal end-piece, which Williamson did not write, part two in the trilogy is f*ckin CITIZEN KANE. That being said, I think we’re all rooting for the dudes to incite some halcyon day horror and give us what we want: a mainstream slasher joint with balls! So let’s show them how to sate us. Here now is a look back at the best kills seen in the SCREAM franchise!
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!
#10. Parker Posey – SCREAM 3 (2000)
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Admittedly, all of the kills from SCREAM 3 mentioned on our compilation are done so out of pure hilarity and not much more; a sort of “so bad they’re good” tip of the cap. And since her character is so damn annoying, her gory comeuppance is not only welcomed, it’s downright stupefying. If you’ve forgotten, Parker Posey plays an actress tasked with portraying Gale Weathers in the fictionalized STAB 3 film. Sure, it’s mildly amusing to watch Posey trade verbal barbs with Courteney Cox, but her death sequence takes the f*ckin’ bakery. Ensnared behind a wall of one-sided interrogation room style mirrors, with Gale and Dewey feebly trying to help her on the other side, Ghost Face first impales Posey in the back leaving nary a scratch. Then the blistering Dewey line: “Look Gale, the mirrors are moving,” followed by gut slashing from Ghost Face, to Dewy then shooting through the mirror to find Posey’s corpse drop to the floor. Not only suffering the indignities of being stuck in the gut, the boyfriend of the bitch you’ve been arguing with all movie (a cop no less) does you in via gunshot? Wow, sir!
#9. Jenny McCarthy – SCREAM 3 (2000)
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Here’s another fatality of headshaking proportions. While on set, locked in a prop room festooned with row after row of Ghost Face ensembles, Jenny McCarthy (never looking better, mind you) does her best to put up a fight. Okay, it’s about as potent as a eunuch. After hiding among the black cloaks and dialing the studio instead of the police, McCarthy is accosted by Ghost Face, knocked to the floor, at which point she grabs a rubber machete and lops it across her assailant’s body to no avail. She then picks up a golf club and gives two healthy lunges that couldn’t be more inaccurate. The best part? Ghostie then decks the girl plum the grill with a fierce left hook that spins her around and sends her face crashing through a door window, her body bent over the wooden frame like she’s ready to get f*cked from behind. And that she does. Ghost Face jousts the girl’s backside with his trusty hunting knife, leaving her facialized in blood. Cartoonish, sexually charged, utterly ludicrous, I think we’d all rather see McCarthy scream in bed than a bad sequel!
#8. W. Earl Brown – SCREAM (1996)
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Ah, nothing like a swift throat slashing. During the fevered third act of Craven’s inaugural SCREAM, Sidney is on the lam as all of her classmates are gorily falling by the wayside. When she decides to seek refuge in the news van parked outside of Stu’s party-house, technology seems to be just as adversarial as Ghost Face himself. You remember, as Sidney and Kenny the cameraman survey Ghost Face’s movement inside the house, “a 30 second delay” causes them to let their guard down just enough for death to commence. What’s so effective about this kill is the simplicity, the brusqueness. Framed tightly, as soon as Kenny whips his head around toward the front door to spot his maker, a quick blade across the throat is as much of a sucker punch to the audience as it is a death blow to the dude himself. Also, Craven holds on Kenny for a moment, we see him emote, his eyes twitch, blood seeping from his neck onto his white undershirt…all of it feel as close to the real thing as perhaps any kill in the entire canon. Damn technology!
#7. Liev Schreiber – SCREAM 3 (2000)
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I can just see the conversation between Liev Schreiber, Craven and Bob Weinstein. “Look, I’ll appear in another goddamn Scream movie under one condition: kill me the f*ck off before the damn credits roll.” Kudos Liev, I’d have done the same. As such, in yet another gauchely insulting death sequence, Cotton Weary finally gets the final curtain call. After fending off a febrile co-ed who thinks he’s the killer, Cotton sustains a golf club whack to the ear, a stab wound to the arm, then a bookshelf to the dome that catapults the f*cker across room like he was Randy Savage. And if that’s not enough, he then he gets loped plum in the heart with Ghostie’s blade. Not to be outdone, he’s told “It was a simple game Cotton, you should have told me where Sidney was…now you lose!” The look on Schreiber’s face is priceless. It’s like he’s thinking, “bitch I’m a future Tony winner, what the hell I’m doing in such embarrassing dross.” He then gets stuck once more for good measure, though it’s a 90s style cutaway to the title card. Still, it’s an amusing way to kill of one of the franchise mainstays.
#6. Sarah Michelle Gellar – SCREAM 2 (1997)
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O Buffy, wherefore art thou not? The same year Sarah Michelle Gellar took over Kristy Swanson’ mantle as TV’s teenage vampire slayer, the poor girl was getting insidiously toyed with by our pal Ghost Face. In a drawn out cat-and-mouse sequence, Gellar’s Cici ambles through her sorority house, gets tormented by eerie phone calls, and when is finally face to face with the masked (wo)man, does what any college educated person should do: run upstairs! What I particular dig about the way Cici is dispatched is how brutally tossed through a glass balcony door she gets. F*ckin’ rag-dolled! And if that’s not bad enough, the poor girl gets savagely lanced twice in the back while on all fours. But she’s a fighter, so Ghost Face finishes her off once and for all by casting her off the third story veranda, where she splatters on the pavement below. Even more amusing, just as Cici’s being dismounted from the ledge, in the bottom right corner of the frame you can see an eager crew member’s head pop up out of the f*ckin’ blue. Straight comedy!
STAY TUNED FOR PART 2!