31 Days of Horror: Days 24 – 25 – Scream (1996) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

I usually like Wes Craven’s movies, but when I think of my favorite American horror directors, his name never even makes the long list.  I like his 70’s classics “The Last House on the Left” (1972) and “The Hills Have Eyes” (1977), but they’re so gritty and disturbing that they can be hard to watch (this is particularly true of the former).  Although I’ve never disliked the other movies he’s known for—“A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Scream”—I’ve never really been fans of them either.  When I saw “Nightmare” for the first time as a kid, it scared me so badly I had to sleep with a light on for several months, but when I watch it as an adult I’m always annoyed by the ridiculous ending.  My problems with “Scream” have less to do with the movie itself than with all the terrible imitations it inspired, mostly notably the “I Know What You Did List Summer” series.  I decided, however, to revisit both movies this month, and I enjoyed them much more than I ever did in the past.       

I started with “Scream,” in which high school students are murdered by a ghost-faced killer who taunts his victims with horror trivia questions. When it was released in the mid-90’s, it revived the slasher subgenre and gave new life to the horror genre in general.  Craven pokes fun at the conventions of the slasher film while also working within them to create a movie that’s self-reflexive without taking itself too seriously.  “Scream” is filled with references and allusions to other horror movies, and in one scene, Craven mocks himself by having a character say that her life is starting to sound like something from a bad “Wes Carpenter” movie.  It remains enjoyable through multiple viewings because although the identity of the killer is no longer a mystery, it’s still entertaining to watch the clever ways Craven keeps this identity hidden until the end.  When I watched “Scream” in the past, I always wanted it to be something it’s not: a true 80’s style slasher.  This time, I accepted it on its own terms and had a lot of fun counting the number of allusions I recognized.     

In “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” Freddy Krueger, a man with burned skin, a red and green sweater, and a glove with knived fingers, terrorizes the teenagers of Elm Street in their dreams.  They soon learn that if he kills them in their dreams they’ll really be dead.  This is one of the most terrifying concepts for a horror movie I’ve ever encountered, and for the most part, it’s well executed.  The murder scenes are gruesome, particularly the first one, in which a guy watches helplessly as the bloody pulp that used to be his girlfriend thrashes around under the sheets as Freddy rips her to shreds in her dream.  My favorite scene is when the main character Nancy falls asleep in class and in her dream sees a body bag containing the bloody corpse of her dead friend walking down the hall.  She follows and then has her first experience with Freddy.  In the past, I was always bothered by the ending.  It adds a certain silliness to “Nightmare” that prevents it from being the gritty horror movie it deserves to be.  I didn’t particularly like it this time either, but I can accept what Craven was meaning to do.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen any of the “Nightmare” sequels, with which Craven had little involvement, but I remember them being pretty bad.  He retained more creative control of the “Scream” franchise, and the fact that they are all pretty good (even if the most horrifying thing about “Scream 4” is Courtney Cox’s botoxed face) is evidence that Craven has managed to stay relevant, unlike many of the horror directors who started making movies back when he did.