Scream

Question: A small thing that I was curious about: when Billy and Sidney are in the police station, they are in two rooms/areas that are only separated by a glass wall. In real life, would a suspect be kept so close to the person they are accused of attacking?

Answer: No, this is completely incorrect from the film makers. US police stations by law have to have an interrogation cell deliberately so as to avoid the accused person intimidating witnesses or the victim, as billy does to Sydney. Even if the interrogation cell were being used when Billy is brought into the station, he would then be put in a holding cell to wait his turn - they categorically would not just allow him to sit in the public, non guarded part of the station near the accuser.

swordfish

Question: Why didn't Casey ring the police, after the call when she realied he was taunting and making threats?

Answer: Characters in horror movies are notorious for not doing the most obvious things. It's most likely that she was scared and not thinking straight at receiving numerous threatening phone calls, particularly when she is threatened after hanging up on the killer.

Manky

Also, when she told the caller that she was "two seconds away from calling the police", his response was that they'd never make it in time. She also knew he was nearby as he made comments that indicated he could see her. She didn't know it was someone that knew her. She's a teenager and scared, so her judgement was clouded. She reached a point where she believed her only chance was to get away from him by either fighting him or getting out and hiding somewhere outside.

dewinela

Answer: Landline phones like the one used in the movie cannot dial out a phone number while the line is active. Considering the killer is continuously calling her, she can't dial out on the phone line. This is referenced in the movie itself when her parents arrive home, attempt to dial 911, and can't due to the line still being active.

Question: Is it true that near the end of the movie, Skeet Ulrich really cries out in pain (not acting), because Neve Campbell accidentally hit him in an area where he was once injured in real life?

Answer: This is according to IMDb: When Sidney comes out of the closet and stabs Billy with an umbrella, the stunt man was supposed to hit a pad on Skeet Ulrich's chest. The first hit got the pad but the second one slipped and hit him in the chest (you can see it in his reaction). Wes Craven kept it in because of its authenticity.

Shannon Jackson

Answer: Yes, confirmed by Wes Craven in the DVD commentary as well. Skeet Ulrich had open-heart surgery when he was 10 and there's a stainless steel wire in his chest that causes excruciating pain when touched. The stuntwoman was wearing the mask, which impairs vision quite a bit, and the second time around she really hit that sweet spot that caused the reaction you see in the movie.

Sammo

Question: Why did Billy and Stu want to kill Tatum? I've read that she said Stu was bad in bed, but when does she say this in the movie?

Answer: They didn't have anything against Tatum specifically, her death was just necessary for their scary movie plan against Sidney. They also said that anyone who isn't a virgin dies in a scary movie, and we know Tatum wasn't a virgin.

Did they say "anyone who isn't a virgin"? I thought it was anyone who has sex *during* the horror movie events - not including people who were *already* not virgins.

Typically, the cliche is "sex or promiscuity = death." I don't think it necessarily has to be during the events of the movie. Debating the minutiae is probably just gonna make us run in circles.

TedStixon

Answer: I don't understand why people are getting hung up on the virgin thing. Sure, there are some movies where someone who isn't a virgin survives. But the common cliche in horror that everyone knows is that sex typically equals death. Doesn't matter if some movies don't follow the cliche... it's still the cliche, and Stu and Billy are operating by the cliches.

TedStixon

In addition to this, Stu and Billy were planning to be the two survivors and make "the sequel." They probably viewed themselves as the main characters. Tatum was one of the "side characters" who would typically be killed.

Except even in this movie, Sidney should be dead by that logic. While Randy is explaining that rule, Sid is upstairs breaking said rule with Billy.

Answer: But Amy Steel's Ginny in Friday the 13th Part 2 wasn't a virgin and she survived. Yet these guys claim to know horror movies.

Rob245

It's just a TV trope used in the movie.

lionhead

Question: Why did Stu commit the murders with Billy? What was his reason?

Socks1000

Chosen answer: Billy told Stu they were going to be famous as the sole survivors of the massacre. He believed Billy and went along with it, wanting fame.

Answer: I've known people who are influenced by a "leader" friend. They don't make many decisions for themselves. Stu seems to have latched onto Billy at some point, and is willing to join him in the murders. There are real-life cases in which murderers had associates who obeyed them.

Question: What does it mean to call someone a "bubble-butt" boyfriend, as a girl refers to Billy when Sidney is in a bathroom stall?

Answer: "Bubble butt" is, in some areas, a slang term for a nice-looking rear end. The comment is a reference to Billy being perfect, as Sidney herself and Tatum describe him at other times in the movie.

Question: It is mentioned that at the end of Scream and Scream 2 there is a flash of a ghost mask, implying a sequel. i have looked hard but can't see one in either film, where are they?

Answer: After the first section of the credits (in which the major stars are shown with a screenshot), the screen fades to black for a moment and then there's a music sting and a flash of the ghostface mask.

Shay

Question: On the phone Tatum says to Sydeny "I was thinking Tom Cruise, all the right moves. You know if you pause it right you can see his penis." What's that all about?

Hamster

Chosen answer: In 1983, Tom Cruise made a movie called All The Right Moves. Supposedly, as Tatem says, if you pause it at one point in a certain scene, you can see Cruise's little buddy.

T Poston

Question: Sidney and Billy have a brief disagreement at school, during which she makes the comment about her "traumatized life" being "an inconvenience" to him. Then she walks away and we see Billy, who is alone now, getting frustrated and calling himself "stupid." But it later turns out that he was one of the killers. If he secretly hates Sidney, why does he show remorse for upsetting her, when he is all alone at the moment?

Answer: Because he wants to have sex with her before killing her. Creating a distance now is too soon. Keeping her close makes it easier to kill her later too. He wants to hurt her as bad as possible, that why he faked his own death too.

lionhead

Question: After Sidney and billy have sex, and she asks him who did he call, he asks "what do I have to do to prove to you that I am not a killer?" She looks at him strangely as if she figured something out, and then she sees ghost face and he stabs Billy. What is that look about?

Answer: You answered your own question, she was becoming suspicious about him, when he was supposedly stabbed, it all went away. That's why it was done, to divert.

Answer: She's not satisfied with his answer/demeanour, and further suspects that he might be the killer, only to quickly have this thought subverted as Ghostface enters the room and apparently kills him.

Question: At the party Randy receives a phone call saying the Principal has been killed, and everyone leaves to go see his body. Who would have called Randy to say this? Most of his friends are at the party, and even if some of them aren't, no one is hanging around school at 7pm, and the cops definitely didn't call him, so who did?

Answer: This has already been asked. Copying the answer from the previous submission: Billy came to the party late, presumably because he was hanging the body. The school seems pretty deserted when the principal gets killed (he goes into the corridor and only the cleaner is there, presumably cleaning after school is out) so it's reasonable to assume no one would have missed him yet.

Answer: Well first, you said "most of his friends " so some of Randy's friends definitely aren't at the party. Also, news travels fast in a small town, especially things that are serious like murders/accidents/etc. In addition, given the subtle implication that the principal was attacked and strung up on display on purpose to make the kids leave the party to go check it out (thinning the heard so to speak), it's entirely possible one of the killers might have tipped someone off about the body so it'd be found, or that it was left wide out in the open where a student or groundskeeper or someone driving by might have seen it. Either way, it's a very plausible scene.

TedStixon

Answer: Roman Bridger, director. And brother. Well, half brother.

Alan Keddie

Answer: Maybe "the killer"?

tipar

Question: This confused me a little. At Stu's house, Randy answers the phone and hears about the principal's body being found hanging from a goal post on the football field. However, either Billy or Stu murdered the principal earlier in the day, so it seems that the other staff at school would have noticed that he was missing several hours ago. Billy and Stu are both at the party, so neither of them could have recently hung the body without someone finding it hours ago. Did one of the killers call and make up the story so that most of the kids would leave the house?

Answer: Billy came to the party late, presumably because he was hanging the body. The school seems pretty deserted when the principal gets killed (he goes into the corridor and only the cleaner is there, presumably cleaning after school is out) so it's reasonable to assume no one would have missed him yet.

Question: When the killers use the Ghostface voice changer, how come the person they're calling can't hear their normal voice? I imagine they would talk out loud into the changer, so why can't the victims hear both voices?

Answer: 1) They held it right to their mouths. 2) They talked normally and the voice changer projected it louder than their regular voice.

Question: Forgive me if this question sounds stupid - I was eight years old when the movie came out, and I didn't use a phone a lot. Why is Casey not surprised that the caller was able to dial her the second time? From my experience, wrong numbers are often caused by people accidentally dialing wrong. It would be suspicious to me if a person could "accidentally" punch in the same wrong number twice. But she simply asks why he did it, then accepts his apology.

Answer: I wouldn't have found it suspicious at all if it happened to me. With the exception of some really old phones, a lot had a redial button which would call your last number even if you did dial incorrectly.

Answer: It's possible to dial a wrong number twice. She might've thought the person had made the same mistake again.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: In the scene where Sydney and Tatum are shopping, when they go off screen Ghostface is seen in the reflection of the freezer glass. Why is Billy or Stu following them in the costume while in public during the day?

Answer: It wasn't either one of them. All the kids were having a party to celebrate school being cancelled. Someone bought one of the costumes to "make fun" of the situation. It was also something to throw us off, kind of like when the camera goes to the cops boots after he is talking to Duey.

Answer: I read somewhere it wasn't Billy or Stu. It was Roman!

Question: What was with that scene when Sidney was going through her closet and a dramatic change in music occurred. Did something in the background occur that I didn't see? Was there nothing?

Answer: The dramatic change in music is a red herring and arguably an example of foreshadowing. Initially, the unsettling music was supposed to trick viewers into thinking Ghostface was in the closet when Sidney first opened it. Later on though, Ghostface hides in the same closet before attacking Sidney.

Answer: Later in this scene, we see Ghostface emerge from the closet to attack Sidney. The music was foreshadowing this event, as Ghostface must have already been hiding in that closet for him to be able to emerge later.

Question: Why does Stu go along with Billy's plan? He's got nothing to gain. That and why kill Sidney? She can't help what her mother did with Billy's father.

Rob245

Answer: Stu is simply crazy. Probably brought down by Billy, sucked into his psychosis, sometimes that can happen if Stu is mentally unstable and easily manipulated. We don't know where his instability comes from, but its positive Billy has had a bad influence on him and brought him down this path of killing.

lionhead

Answer: To add to the other answer, Stu briefly mentions "peer pressure" as his reason for going along with Billy's plan. Sure, he's being slightly sarcastic when he says it... but I think that it's a hint to his motivation. He's already somewhat unstable (his hyperactive personality throughout the film backs this up), and I think the implication is that Billy gave him the final "push" that put him over the edge into full-on violent insanity.

TedStixon

Answer: Some people are influenced by a "leader" friend. They don't make many decisions for themselves. Stu apparently latched onto Billy at some point, and is willing to join him in the murders. There are real-life cases in which murderers had associates who obeyed them.

Question: When Casey's parents are coming up the front walkway, they talk about how great the plants look. Then Casey's mother says, "I said you could send it back." What is she talking about?

Answer: When they were talking about the flowers, Casey's dad said they had a strong smell. He probably complained about the smell (or something else) when they bought/planted them and she's just reminding him she told him they could take the flowers back to wherever they bought them from.

Bishop73

Question: I've just rented the Director's Cut and I'm wondering what differs from the original. I've seen the original so many times I almost know it by heart and I couldn't find anything different in the DC.

Answer: According to the IMDB, "This was supposed to be the director's cut with additional 20 seconds of footage. But due to company policy (which does not allow to release unrated DVDs), the same cut as on the 1997 DVD was put onto this DVD. The director's cut was available on laserdisc."

jle

Question: So Tatum is running from Ghostface, she's running to do what exactly here? I'm confused why she didn't just try to open the garage then run to the beer and throw it at him and run out instead of going through the doggy door and dying like that. (01:06:57)

Answer: She panicked. And when someone is panicked they make stupid decisions.

lionhead

Answer: It is also known that Stu locked the door, so she couldn't escape.

Revealing mistake: As Drew Barrymore is running from the killer outside he stabs her. If you look closely it is very easy to tell it is a rubber knife, because you see it bend off of her. (00:10:20)

More mistakes in Scream

Principal Himbry: Damn little shits!
Janitor: What'd you call me?
Principal Himbry: Not you, Fred.

More quotes from Scream

Trivia: After the guests leave and Randy is alone on the couch watching Halloween, right as the ghost-face walks in, the Halloween theme begins. In Halloween the beginning of the theme means the shape is near.

brianjr0412

More trivia for Scream

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