AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
It's 1996. Sidney Prescott is on the front porch, wireless phone to her ear, with the antenna up.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SCREAM")
NEVE CAMPBELL: (As Sidney Prescott) Nice try, Randy. Tell Tatum to hurry up, OK? Bye now.
ROGER JACKSON: (As Ghostface) If you hang up on me, you'll die just like your mom. Do you want to die, Sidney?
RASCOE: Ghostface appears almost immediately after, and then again and again and again, through a series of "Scream" films that's still ongoing. Ashley Cullins has written a new history of the "Scream" franchise called "Your Favorite Scary Movie," and she joins us now. Welcome to the program.
ASHLEY CULLINS: Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
RASCOE: Kevin Williamson and Wes Craven created "Scream." What did each of them bring to this movie and then to the series?
CULLINS: Both of them brought just a deep, pure love for the horror genre. And this was coming at a time when people weren't really taking horror seriously. And so Kevin, when he wrote this movie, was essentially trying to just write the kind of movie he wanted to see. So he built out this story that was a true slasher, but also brought attention to all of the tropes that had become so exaggerated over the years. And then Wes Craven, who actually declined several times to make this movie - he brought his understanding of human psychology and how to scare people. And the combination of their two talents just created something absolutely brilliant.
RASCOE: "Scream" was an enormous success. But at first, the bigwigs were hating the direction of the movie, including, like, that classic first scene with Drew Barrymore. Talk to me about that.
CULLINS: Yeah. So anytime they're making a movie - right? - the executives who aren't on set get sent dailies, which is just raw footage, so that they can kind of keep tabs on how things are going. They're just seeing Drew Barrymore walking around holding a telephone. And so Wes Craven knew what he was building. Everyone around him knew what he was building. They could feel it was going to be great. But the studio was a bit like, this isn't scary. So they cut together the opening sequence to show them, and that did the trick. They were like, OK, we see it.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SCREAM")
JACKSON: (As Ghostface) You never told me your name.
DREW BARRYMORE: (As Casey Becker) Why do you want to know my name?
JACKSON: (As Ghostface) 'Cause I want to know who I'm looking at.
BARRYMORE: (As Casey Becker) What did you say?
JACKSON: (As Ghostface) I want to know who I'm talking to.
RASCOE: I was really struck by the lengths the team went to to avoid leaks when it came to making the sequel.
CULLINS: Yep. There were no expectations when they were making the first movie, right? And so when you're shooting a sequel out of a cannon, not only are there expectations, but there's also fandom wanting to know everything and wanting to know the mystery. And they came up with some really creative solutions. My favorite was the paper that they printed the scripts on. There's actually a picture of it in the book. It was this, like, maroonish-brown stripe down the middle. So when you're looking at it in person, you can just barely read it, but it's impossible to photocopy. It shows up black.
RASCOE: Oh, wow.
CULLINS: They had secret codes written in the margins in case something did get out, that they would know who it was that leaked it. It's just so fun to think about how that must have felt at the time. Probably ridiculous and, like, a bit of a headache...
RASCOE: (Laughter).
CULLINS: ...But also a little bit like being a spy.
RASCOE: Yeah. This coincided with the rise of internet fan culture - right? - and the rise of the internet. Is that the way that the internet kind of shaped "Scream" at that time, or were there other ways that it kind of had an impact?
CULLINS: Well, when you just look at sort of the way that each of these movies examines culture, in the second movie, she gets a prank call because people have heard her story. And she looks at the caller ID.
RASCOE: Yeah.
CULLINS: And caller ID was, like, just becoming a thing.
RASCOE: Yeah.
CULLINS: And then by the third movie, they're making movies about the movies. And by the fourth movie, people are starting to become internet famous, and there's commentary on social media. And that actually was, like, a little bit maybe too ahead of its time because they - you know, they were live-streaming things and the killer wanted to be famous for being a victim. And that time period - that was, you know, like, the early 2010s - was just before everybody really went nuts with social media.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SCREAM 4")
RORY CULKIN: (As Charlie Walker) Well, if you want to be the new new version, the killer should be filming the murders.
ERIK KNUDSEN: (As Robbie Mercer) It's like the natural next step in a psycho-slasher innovation. I mean, you film them all real-time, and then before you get caught, you upload them into cyberspace.
CULKIN: (As Charlie Walker) Making your art as immortal as you.
RORY CULKIN AND ERIK KNUDSEN: (As Charlie Walker and Robbie Mercer) Not to implicate him.
RASCOE: What do you think about how the use of comedy in the movie shaped it as a scary movie and just, like, you know, as a movie overall?
CULLINS: It defuses the tension, right? It gives you a little bit of a break from being scared, which makes it more rewatchable. Also, it disarms you. You're not tense, waiting for something to happen, and they catch you out of nowhere. And it makes the scary parts scarier.
RASCOE: "Scream 7" is set to be released in February. What are you hoping for out of that one?
CULLINS: I am just so glad to see Kevin Williamson directing it. No spoilers here, obviously, but I was able to visit set, and the atmosphere felt a lot like what people had described to me when they talked about being on Wes Craven sets. There was an energy there. That gives me very high hopes for this movie.
RASCOE: You interviewed so many people involved with the movies and fans of the movies. But obviously, you weren't able to talk to Wes Craven because he died in 2015. What would you most want to ask him?
CULLINS: I would want to ask him if he's happy with how his career went because it was a sore spot for him. He saw himself as a director, not as a horror director. He was a storyteller. He'd - you know, "Music Of The Heart" starring Meryl Streep was, like, his passion project. And I don't know that he ever really felt appreciated for how brilliant he was as a filmmaker during his life, because people just didn't take horror all that seriously. But now they do.
RASCOE: Now they do, yeah.
CULLINS: So if he could see how people talk about him now, I would be really curious to know if that changes how he feels about his filmography.
RASCOE: That's Ashley Cullins. Her book is "Your Favorite Scary Movie: How The Scream Films Rewrote The Rules Of Horror." Thank you so much for speaking with us.
CULLINS: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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