Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 6 of Scream (0:19:12-0:21:13)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!


SCENE 6
Length: 2mins 1sec
Primary Characters: Sidney Prescott, Billy Loomis, Tatum Riley, Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard) and Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy)
Pop Culture References:
  • Basic Instict (reference to female serial killers)
  • Jerry Lewis (Randy appears to imitate him)


And so we start this scene with yet another glorious crane shot of the school. Isn't this school yard just the most gorgeous school? Good grief, my high school was a lot of grey slabs of concrete and patches of badly torn up grass lawns. No water features as far as I recall (although I have blocked a lot of that out.)


This is one of my favourite scenes as well as an important one. We're introduced to two vital characters in the form of Stu and Randy. Randy has always been one of my very favourite characters from the entire trilogy. When I first started going to Scream message boards (after Scream 2, but before Scream 3) my handle was "Randy's Twin" because I saw myself in him. I wasn't like him, really, but in the universe of this franchise I was certainly closer to Randy than Billy or Stu. It's a bit sad to see what happened to Jamie Kennedy. Even sadder to realise he's more well known for his prank comedy than for this trilogy. :( Sadface.


The dialogue in this scene is totally brilliant. It does many things in forwarding the idea that these character have actually seen horror movies as well as sneakily, and yet with big bold neon arrows, leading us into the direction of who the killers are.


"The killer could easily be female; Basic Instict?"

Notice how nobody mentions Friday the 13th in response to Tatum's argument that a woman could have been the killer. Some people call that silly, I say it's smart. Referencing Mrs Vorhees so soon after she was brought up initially in the opening scene would have rung too many alarm bells.

TATUM: "They didn't ask me if I like to hunt."
STU: "That's cause there's no way a girl coulda killed 'em."
TATUM: "That is so sexist. The killer could easily be female; Basic Instinct?"
RANDY: "That was an ice-pick. Not exactly the same thing."
STU: "Yeah, Casey and Steve were completely hollowed out and the fact is it takes a man to do something like that."
TATUM: "Or a man's brutality."
SIDNEY: "How do you gut someone?"
STU: "You take a knife and you split 'em from groin to sternum..."
BILLY: "Hey, it's called tact you fuckrag."

I love last line there for some reason. Almost like Billy's saying "Dude, shut the fuck up! You'll give us away!"


But, naturally, this scene belongs to Randy who instantly enters my heart due to his line reading of "It would certainly improve your High School IQ" as well as, basically, everything else he says.


"Besides, it takes a man to do something that that"

Oh, Randy.


"You better leav'r alone. Hahah. LIVER ALONE. Hahaha. Liver... liver... live... It was a joke."

OR WAS IT?!?

Yes. Yes it was.

Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5

3 comments:

Jonathon said...

TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH!
lol, just kidding. maybe.

This is my 2nd favorite scene in Scream. (First being Tatum's demise. Can't wait to see what you've got to say about that.)

I've been a fan of the Scream trilogy since I was 6.
SIX! Scream is THE movie that got me into movies.

I love what you're doing here and I am now an avid follower of your blog. Great job so far.

PS. Randy does own this scene but this scene introduces Tatum's sass so well. Rose McGowan's best work, imo.

Anonymous said...

So glad we finally have some Randy, by far my favorite character in the Scream trilogy. I love the dialogue in this scene.

MonsterTrucker31 said...

I love love love that you did/are doing this! Been coming to your blog for awhile and have read a few of your Scream 2 scene-by-scenes and decided I had best read them from the beginning.
I really hate to be "that commenter," but I saw a few quotes I had to correct (love this movie and have probably seen it as many times as you have!).
Tatum: "Or a man's mentality"
This makes a lot more sense than brutality and fits right in with Tatum's wit!
"It would certainly improve your high school queue"
Not entirely sure on the meaning of this line, or whether it's queue or q, but the way I see it, Randy is saying that Stu killing Casey would have helped his standing in the social hierarchy of their school.
Can't wait to finish the rest!!
Cheers!
JC in MT