Scream... Proof Movies You Thought Were Awesome in Middle School, Not So Much...

Labor Day weekend was amazing. I know a lot of people may say this, but my family is honest to God the greatest ever. We have so much fun together just hanging out, playing cards, eating food, and chatting. I feel like all weekend I was saying to myself, “Oh, that story so needs to be a blog post.” But, of course I didn’t have pen glued to my hand and therefore didn’t write down any of those wonderful ideas. (Getting out of the pool and finding a pen inside would have been way to much work.) So, family member that are reading this, if you remember any of those ideas let me know.

As awesome as the weekend was last night might have been just as great. Driving back into town from the parental unit’s house in San Antonio, I stopped at my local used movie/CD store, Cheepos. I have been hitting up Cheepos weekly for about a month looking for the holy grail of entertainment de Middle School weekend sleepovers, Wes Craven’s Scream.

My first horror movie memory was climbing into my parent’s king size bed with my mom and sister and watching the movie Alien. My dad was out of town and my mother decided it would be fun to have a movie night watching one of her favorite movies with her two daughters. She got us all comfortable will pillows and blankets, and we each had a dish of popcorn. What could be more fun? Oh, and did I mention that I was in kindergarten and my sister was in 4th grade. Yeah, my mother (who don’t get me wrong is amazing) thought it would be a good idea to watch a movie where aliens pop out of people’s stomachs with her 6 year old and 10 year old. We only made it through about 30 minutes and never even saw one alien, and my sister still had nightmares and physically got sick to her stomach.

I started liking horror movies and scary shows when I was in 4th grade. We had just moved back to the States from England and I loved all the cool American TV shows that were creepy and spooky. I watched everything from X Files to Are You Afraid of the Dark on Nickelodeon. But, it wasn’t until 8th grade, when I saw the movie Scream, that I started my love affair with scary movies.

I watched Scream for the first time with my neighborhood friend, Mandy. I say I watched it for the first time, but I really I watched it for the first, second, third, and eighty-fourth time with Mandy. She and I would have sleepovers at each other’s houses every weekend and watch Scream at least twice. As soon as the sun came up over Stu’s blood soaked house and credits started to roll we would get up, rewind the VHS, and play it again. We could quote the whole movie. We did quote the whole movie… all the time. Mandy’s older brother thought we were stupid for liking such a dumb movie, and who knows what our parents thought, but we didn’t care. If it was Friday night we were either on my couch or her movie chairs watching Neve Campbell survive her thoroughly F-ed up boyfriend and his long tongued side kick.

So, I’ve been talking about wanting to watch Scream for over a month, and I finally found it on DVD yesterday. I was like a kid waiting for her parents to get up on Christmas morning. I got home with my prize DVD at 3PM and had to wait hours for it to get dark. (You can’t watch scary movies during the day.) Boyfriend wasn’t quiet as excited as me.

Boyfriend: “Scream?”

Me: “Yes, Scream!”

Boyfriend: “Scream?”

Me: “SCREAM!”

It finally got dark. I turned off all the lights, got me an orange Popsicle, and curled up on the couch with Boyfriend.

Boyfriend: “Hey, that annoying girl who looks like Davis Girl is in this movie.”

Me: “Drew Barrymore, and she doesn’t look anything like Davis Girl.”

(Boyfriend thinks any blonde in any movie or TV show looks like Davis Girl.)

Boyfriend: “Are a lot of people going to die? Who is in the car? Why is she stopping? Is the house going to burn down? I can’t believe she is still holding that phone.”

Me: “Yes, it’s a horror movie. People die. Her parents are in the car coming home. She stopped because she saw her boyfriend tied to a chair with his guts hanging out. I don’t know why she is holding the phone. Now, please hush and watch the movie.”

Boyfriend: “There is too much blood and death.”

Me: “It’s a horror movie and this is only the opening scene.”

The thing is, Scream does kinda suck. I mean I enjoyed watching it because it brought back memories, but I wasn’t scared like I used to be and I didn’t think it was as funny as it used to be. I know that we all grow out of things as we grow up, but this really hit me hard. I used to think Rose McGowan’s Tatum and Matthew Lillard’s Stu were absolutely hilarious. Yeah, not so much anymore. Rose just looks weird trying to be the sweet down to earth girl who wears cloud pajamas and sleeps with a teddy bear. I mean this is the women who went on to star in Jawbreaker and marry Marilyn Manson for crying out loud. And Stu! Stu really pissed me off last night. I remember cracking up to his lines. I remember one night we wrote them all down so we would remember them and have funny inside jokes the next day at school. (For some reason we thought we would be the only ones who had seen Scream.) Turns out his lines suck and all he did, all movie long was make faces and stick his tongue out really far.

When Tatum says, “Stupidity leak!” and hits Stu on the forehead with her lollypop I just thought how gross that is, not “wow high school kids are cool and funny in their relationships.” I mean I know Matthew Lillard didn’t have the greasy bangs Skeet Ulrich sported, but still… ick.

Also Stu’s light one liners like “Peer pressure. I’m far too sensitive.” and “Liver alone.” and “My mom and dad are going to be so mad at me.” ARE NOT FUNNY!

I’m sad. It’s a sad day when happy moments from your childhood die. I mean I watched The Last Unicorn in college and loved it just as much as when I watch it as a kid. I still love The Sandlot and Big Business, but it might be time to retire Scream. RIP.