Caffeinated Clint
More than a decade ago Wes Craven transformed horror forever with the divinely intelligent, appreciably self-referential and deliciously plotted “Scream”. A couple of sequels later, not to mention the odd spoof (“Scary Movie”), and Craven’s returned to the fold to give audiences another bout of Ghostface.
After ten years, how did the idea of Scream 4 come into fruition and will there be a Scream 5?
Craven: How did it come about? I don’t know, how do these things come about… Bob Weinstein, of the two Weinstein brothers, is kind of the Godfather of Scream. He’s the man who bought the original script from Kevin. I think he and Kevin were talking he felt it was time. I think he originally told us after Scream 3 that there weren’t going to be any for a long time, that we didn’t want to give the idea that we were just knocking them out just to make money. And of course there was the “Scary Movie” sequence, so we needed to get some distance from that… But I think that at the end of the decade, there was just the perfect time to turn around and look at the first decade of the twenty-first century. It was quite distinctive from others and certainly the presence of the electronic media being brought down to the people, to the level where everybody is online. That’s totally different. It was time to take that into account, and at the same time the cinemas were changing very much. My step daughter’s 20 years old, she’s watching movies on her computer or her phone. The whole business, as you well know, is changing dramatically and the way the fans follow the movies and participate in the movies and make their own movies to emulate those movies is profoundly different. And it was time to make a “Scream” that could perfect all this newness.
There were a lot of rumors flying about the script, it changing or being worked on. Is it true? How did you feel about it and were you satisfied with the results?
Craven: We’re all pleased the way the script turned out. It was result of Kevin’s original master script and Aaron did a decent amount of work on specific scenes and areas of it. I wrote some of the film myself but it’s very much Kevin’s concept, characters, situations…framework.
What sort of lengths did you go to in order to keep everything under wraps?
Craven: Keeping things secret was kind of spy work, you know it was… everything from when we did original casting… with hundreds of young actors reading pages from the script, we couldn’t have them reading pages from the actual script. So we had them reading pages from Scream one, which was kinda bizarre. But, I don’t think we ever read with actors the actual pages from the script. So there were a lot of things like that that were kinda annoying, but necessary to keep things secret.
None of you have played these characters for a while, – was it easy to get back all the mannerisms and get your head back into the franchise?
Campbell: Yeah (laughs). I mean, yeah. It’s been 15 years now we’ve been doing these characters and so it’s not difficult to jump into. I mean, I had fun watching the films again before we started doing this, just to get a sense of it. It’s still really nice to see they’ve held up really well. But no, it wasn’t difficult to get into the characters. For Sidney, it’s just imagining her circumstances and doing it.
Cox: You always play it so real. Neve was good.
Campbell: Yeah, thanks. So were you.
Cox: Aww. Yeah. (laughs)
You seem to hit on some new rules of the internet age, that even I wasn’t aware of. How did you and Kevin [Williamson] go about identifying and creating those rules?
Craven: Well we both spend a lot of time on the internet, as I think most of our lives revolve around that now… I don’t know (laughs), we’re just clever fellows. No, you know old folgies like myself, and to a lesser extent Kevin, use all those things now like it or not… so, once you start using them you have to think of the possibilities of how they could be misused too.
Have you been thinking about how they affect the way we watch movies now?
Craven: Oh, very much, you know? I mean, look, if you’re in a theater today, people are texting all around you, you have the little glowing screens everywhere. That’s just one example. And I know how annoying it can be (laughs).
Do you think horror movies will always be bound by “the rules” or is there a way to break it?
Craven: Well, I think that the very essence of the “Scream” films is that we do break the rules. We establish or state what the rules are, then we immediately break them. And that started right in Scream one- if you say, “I’ll be right back,” then you’ll die; and that person is one of the killers. If you have sex you’ll die and Neve’s character has the first sexual encounter of her life and she’s one of the survivors. We like to establish what the rules are but really they’re cliché’s and as soon as they’re stated in the “Scream” films, we break them. And it makes the audience not know what to expect next; if they think they know what the rules are, we immediately say “no, you don’t”.
What are the challenges of bringing this story to a newer audience?
Arquette: It’s really interesting the way we’ve done these for fifteen years, and the connection we’ve all made, and that this fourth film is sort of bringing to life the first one and having fun with it, and there’s been 10 years in between the different horror films, the technology changes. I don’t know; it’s just really exciting. I think with the new cast coming along to this, it was really interesting to see because they’re kinda reflections of us when we first got there, and it just brings an electricity that I felt on the first film, with this. And I think the people with that generation are then going to discover the old stuff.
And what was it like working alongside newcomers Hayden, Emma, and the others?
Campbell: Oh, it was great. Except Courtney and I would look at each and be like, “We could be their mothers.” (laughs).
Cox: Grandmother (laughs).
Campbell: But they were great. They came with so much enthusiasm, to the project, and people asking whether we had to show them the ropes and they’re professionals in their own rights – they’ve had long careers already at young ages and they came in and did a great job.
Wes, everyone knows you’re the master of horror? Are you concerned about how audience will react to your latest?
Craven: Worrying about what people think, you know it’s like … we do a film like “My Soul to Take” and people think it sucks, that hurts. We put a lot of work into it and into the film… but you go on, it’s part of it. The good feeling about doing this film was getting back with old friends, working on something I thought was really good and having a chance to be more recognizable to an audience. And, you know, save my career (laughs).
What’s the “secret ingredient” that Craven adds to his films to make them so scary?
Cox: He’s just an amazing filmmaker. Yes, he is the master of this. He’s made three of these films, now four, of this particular film, and he’s always watching. He’s so current on everything. I don’t even know what Myspace is. He’s watching things, and learning, he’s constantly bettering himself, his mind. He’s amazing. And the way he directs Ghostface, the way he has him tilt his head, it’s so eerie. Wes is just a choreographer when it comes to Ghostface, and I don’t know, he’s just a great director.
Campbell: Shots and timing and music.
WC: Marco Beltrami,
NC: Marco did all of the films and Wes found him on the internet and he’s now become this phenomenal composer, just very successful. Wes just has a really great eye and ear and taste in people and in casting and writing and all the people who get involved in the film. He’s also just phenomenal with timing and with humor and with scaring people.
Arquette: He actually made a swinging house plant very scary in this film.
When watching horror films and you come to a scary part, are your eyes open, partially closed, are you a screamer?
Cox: The last two (laughs).
Arquette: I just get a chuckle out of watching the audience too. I love when you go to a horror film with real horror fans and everyone’s there watching and getting involved, screaming. That’s when it’s the most alive and exciting for me. Wes brings that out in these films.
NC: It’s a rollercoaster ride, these films. I think they’re great; they’re fun to watch. I’m the kind of person that if I see horror films I’m covering my eyes and I’m screaming and I’m crying, I’m doing all of it. But, like David was saying, they’re just great fun.
– Kat Gelato
