Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 30 of Scream (1:21:31-1:24:13)

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



SCENE 30
Length: 2min 42secs
Primary Characters: Gale Weathers, Deputy Dewey and Randy Meeks
Pop Culture References:

• Halloween (It continues to be played on the TV)

It's this very scene that makes me chuckle with wonder at what Courteney Cox's Friends cast members must have thought of the movie she ha spent her summer vacation making. I like to imagine everyone of the cast returning from their summer vacations and discussing what they did; someone probably holidayed in the Caribbean or the French Riviera while others made failed attempts at capitalising on their newfound TV fame with a dull romantic comedy and then Courteney would have been there saying how she made a horror movie called Scream in which she had to run around from a masked killer who was murdering teenagers. And then she would've told them about the actor she met on the set... :(


I love looking at Gale run in this little shot as she wears her skirt and her heels.


I guess Dewey was very sure that the killer was inside the house, since he just left Gale to run around by herself. This shot kinda feels like a shot from Halloween, which is apt since by this stage the film was using John Carpenter's Scream score outright for its own usage.


I actually think this moment works particularly well. We all know that Halloween is playing in the house, but Craven and co have ramped the tension up so much with that last chase sequence that it's easy to forget and to think the sound coming from the TV is real. As fake scares go, it is certainly a bit better and more original than a cat jumping out from a shadow.











My favourite shots from this ensemble of images are shots #3, #4 and #7. Love the look of "oh shit, where is Kenny?" on Gale's face in that third shot, the imagery of her Hollywood shoots surrounded by pooling blood in the forth and, well, who doesn't love that seventh shot with the blood on the windscreen wipers. I do find it amusing that Gale tried to wipe the blood away from inside the windshield as if it was condensation or something like that.

Poor Kenny though. I like that Stu, in killer mode, was so proud of his unsuspecting kill on Kenny that he decided to take time out of stalking his victims (he easily could have just gone straight back inside the house and given Randy the ol' stabby stabby salute through the skull like he intended before he heard Sidney screaming (which, by the way, Randy did not hear, and yet there he is?) to prop him up on the news van to be violently discovered by someone. Throat slashing just isn't enough!


For some reason this specific shot seems very unfamiliar to me. Like, I've watched this films hundreds of times so I have obviously seen it, but until I screencapped it it had never really registered with me. I like how Randy is there trying to get up and figure out what is going on.


"Oh god, Kenny I'm sorry, but get off my fucking windshield!"
Love this line and Cox's reading of it. It's that wink of comedy and yet it feels so natural and organic. I mean, it would be kinda annoying to have a big ol' dead man on your windshield as you're trying to escape from a serial killer.






Okay, and now I have to call "Shenanigans!" on writer Kevin Williamson. I don't understand this moment. Gale is trying to escape, sees a bloodied Sidney (where that blood came from, I'm not sure, since the very last moment we saw her running away from the killer in the news van she did not have as much blood on her face!), and swerves to avoid her. Gale then goes careening off the road and into a tree, yet what does Sidney do? She runs back towards the house? That doesn't make any sense! You'd think you would try to go get whoever it was and try to escape together.

Furthermore, and this pertains to a later sequence, but we'll discuss it now, when Stu and Billy are surprised by Gale in the kitchen showdown they say she "looked dead" (in a manner of speaking) and yet... how? I've never understood that. The killer wasn't following Gale in her van (as far as we're aware) and the only one who saw her take the van into the bushes was Sidney. It's always confused me and it's the only plot hole that I can find in the first two movies that genuinely bugs me every time I watch them.

Can someone provide a tangible reason for any of this? Please?!?


Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2, Scene 3, Scene 4, Scene 5, Scene 6, Scene 7, Scene 8, Scene 9, Scene 10, Scene 11, Scene 12, Scene 13, Scene 14, Scene 15, Scene 16, Scene 17, Scene 18, Scene 19, Scene 20, Scene 21, Scene 22, Scene 23, Scene 24, Scene 25, Scene 26, Scene 27, Scene 28, Scene 29