It was a dark and stormy night. As thunder crashed and lightning lit up the deep black sky, the rain hammered on the roof-- Okay, so it wasn’t quite like that, although this would have been a perfect backdrop for the evening.
I curled up with my sister and grandmother in the living room, preparing to watch a movie. My grandmother announced that we could watch anything, a real treat for my sister and I as our mom was fairly strict about what we watched.
As we scrolled through the free movies she got on her on demand service, eighth grade me thought it was high time I watched a scary movie. All of my friends were doing it, and I just wanted to fit in. I selected Wes Craven’s Scream, a movie that my mom would definitely not approve of. If I was being really honest, I didn’t want to watch it either. At the time, I couldn’t even watch a horror movie trailer without lying in bed awake at night, jumping at shadows until exhaustion forced my eyes shut. I swallowed my fear, however, and decided on the horror flick.
At the beginning of the movie I was greeted with a friendly face: Drew Barrymore. I had seen her in many other movies, so I was put at ease. Nothing could happen to her-- she was the star, right?
Wrong, oh so very wrong. If you've never seen the movie, I don't want to spoil it, but within the first twelve minutes of the movie, I was already thrown a huge curve ball. It was something I never saw coming, and I was totally shocked. More importantly, I was totally hooked.
As we progressed through the movie, my sister, grandmother and I all took turns guessing who the murderer was. I was riveted to my seat the entire time. Maybe it was Deputy Dewey, who is a young cop who just wants to look out for his friends (the main characters in the movie). Or perhaps it could be the sheriff, who was wearing the same shoes as the killer. Between the three of us, we guessed just about everyone in the cast except for the killer. Not one of us guessed right, and I was in awe at how entertaining the movie was, despite it being scary.
As it turned out, none of my friends actually liked scary movies, but Scream is still one of my favorite movies and continues to inspire me today. It was my introduction into the horror genre and was a catalyst for my obsession with them. I learned everything I could about Scream and the genre as a whole, and what I found made the movie all the more special to me.
Wes Craven had revolutionized and revitalized the genre by taking a chance on a little known screenwriter, Kevin Williamson, who could barely pay his bills at the time he wrote the screenplay called Scream. Williamson became a major screenwriter with the movie, and Scream became the highest grossing slasher film ever in the United States. The horror genre got a fresh start. Scream was something entirely new, making all kinds of references to movies like Halloween and Prom Night.
I was inspired by Williamson’s tale of success. I remember him saying in an interview once that he could’ve written something else that would have sold better than Scream, but he wanted to pay tribute to the genre that he loved.
Somewhere amongst my growing affection for horror, a thought crept into the back of my mind: I want to do that. I want to impact the movie world just like Scream had twenty years ago. Becoming a filmmaker became my backup plan for life, a hobby that I would have and maybe make a few extra dollars with. As the years rolled on, it came closer and closer to the time I would need to think about a major for college.
I abruptly changed my mind from my lifelong dream of becoming a veterinarian. I also didn’t want to be a doctor, lawyer, police officer, or psychologist. The problem was that I could not picture myself doing any of those things. My backup plan became the only thing left on the list of options. At first, I suppressed this thought and searched for something else that I could go to college for. After all, you can’t really make a living making movies because it’s such a hard business to get into. I wrestled with this for a long time.
I couldn’t find anything I was interested in doing for the rest of my life, so I reevaluated; what was something that I was passionate about, and had been passionate about for most of my life? The only thing I could come up with was movies. I was afraid to go into film because I didn’t want to fail. Then, another thought snuck its way into my mind: look what happened with Scream.
If I hadn’t watched Scream, I cannot say for sure what I would plan to major in now. I think I would have gone with my original school of thought that I could never make it big. I don’t think I would have ever gotten into horror, a genre that is filled with movies that continue to inspire me. I don’t think I would have taken a media communications class through my school, either, where I learned to love all filmmaking.
The truth is, I may not make it big in my career, or even get to make movies. I have come to accept this fact, but I have fallen more and more in love with filmmaking. I am finally excited to do something for the rest of my life, and it was all thanks to Scream.
