You and your wife left her alone, and this happened to your daughter while you were gone.
The movie is called Scream. Do you think that you're not gonna be screaming at some point during it?
As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked. You have been warned.
Individual Pages:
Examples:
- The first fifteen minutes are considered one of the scariest scenes ever made for a reason.
- Even knowing in advance that Casey and Steve are going to die, the buildup of tension, the progression of the phone calls from seemingly innocent to malicious, the despairing Hope Spot as Casey's parents pull in and she's mere feet away from them, and the grisly ends met by both characters are enough to jar one out of their seat. Now, imagine seeing that in a theater in 1996, thinking that Drew Barrymore was going to be the Final Girl...
- The brief glimpses Casey and the audience get of Ghostface when he first charges into the house and snoops around the kitchen, not knowing who or even what it was. Considering they mentioned supernatural killers like Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, who knows what was going through Casey's head...
- The exact moment when it becomes clear that the guy who called Casey's house isn't just some dumbass making a prank call but is actually watching her through her windows marks the moment when the slowly-building tension of the first few minutes snaps into outright horror.Casey: Why do you want to know my name?Ghostface: Because I want to know who I'm looking at.
- The moment when the horror truly begins is when Casey finally gets fed up with the caller, only for him to go full-on aggressive.Casey: Listen, asshole—!Ghostface: No, you listen, you little bitch! You hang up on me again, and I'll gut you like a fish, understand?!Casey (frightened out of her mind) Is this some kind of joke?Ghostface: More of a game, really. Can you handle that...blondie?
- Casey's death is one of the most brutal deaths in modern horror movies, as she is stabbed in the lung which keeps her from calling out, and you see the bloody knife rise and fall over and over again. Her mother can hear her last words over the phone - it's a 90's cordless. She's only a matter of feet away, and she's gasping out for her mother with her last few breaths. The music changes from terrifying to tragic...Casey's Mother: Casey? Baby? (hears rattling gasps) Oh my god, I can hear her!
- The parents honestly don't have it any better. Look at the picture above. That's your daughter. Some sick fuck did that to your little girl.
- And speaking of Final Girls, the final confrontation between Sidney and the Ghostface killers, Billy and Stu. Billy's Dissonant Serenity when he's discovered is particularly bone-chilling.
- Ghostface Suddenly Shouting the first time he calls Sidney:Ghostface: IF YOU HANG UP ON ME, YOU'LL DIE, JUST LIKE YOUR MOTHER! Do you wanna die, Sidney? Your mother sure didn't!
- The scene where Tatum goes to the garage to get beer. The door slowly creaks shut behind her and she turns around to see Ghostface standing right behind her. She flirts with him mockingly until he pulls out a knife and cuts her arm. She wrestles her arm free, fights him and then decides to try to escape through the cat-flap in the garage door. Ghostface makes the garage door open, crushing her head like a sponge ball.
- The "everybody's a suspect" scene. It's scary enough that what Randy says could be the truth, but gets worse when Billy confronts him about it in the video store. What's more, both he and Stu scare Randy into admitting that he too has a perfect motive, if he was the killer. And this is before Billy and Stu are revealed as the killers.
- Ghostface's murderous pursuit of women has uncomfortable rape undertones to it. Especially once you find out that Billy killed his girlfriend's mother because he held her responsible for his parents breaking up and his mom leaving him-and Mrs. Prescott was found not just brutally murdered, but with evidence of rape, too, even though that's not the case due to her affair with Cotton. It can leave anybody shivering.
- Stu's motive for wanting Casey dead is that she dumped him, a bone-chilling reflection of something that happens all too often in Real Life.
- Roger L. Jackson's Ghostface voice. In the opening, it sounds calm and normal, until it turns unnatural and almost raspy when he yells.
- The fact that Billy and Stu disemboweled three people. Screw the Teens Are Monsters trope, those kids are ANIMALS!
- Billy and Stu stabbing each other. Especially how stupid and dangerous it is.
- The bathroom scene: Sid goes into the bathroom and hears two girls talking about how she's probably the killer or an Attention Whore. That's sad and all, but here's the scary part: As Sidney is about to leave, she sees boots appear out of the stall closest to the door. Then the shredded edges of the Ghostface costume appears... and he bursts out, nearly grabbing Sid!
- When you consider where we last saw Billy - outside the bathroom, meaning he couldn't have gone in unmasked or someone would have seen him - and compare what Stu was wearing to what we see the bathroom Ghostface has - khaki pants and dark blue jeans - it becomes pretty clear that it can't be either of the real killers. Which sounds great... until you realise that some student at Woodsboro High was cruel enough to try to physically attack Sidney after someone had actually tried to kill her the previous night. It's better than the actual killers being there, but it's not exactly pleasant either.
