Wes Craven’s classic 1996 slasher Scream is no doubt receiving a lot of loving revisits from fans this spooky season and now we’re hearing exactly the extent of which the film’s writer had to go through to get the movie past the censors.
Writer Kevin Williamson spoke in a recent interview about the pushback from the Motion Picture Association of America on some of the violence, including the iconic opening sequence with Drew Berrymore.
With the 25th anniversary of the slasher just around the corner, the whole cast and crew have been sharing stories from behind the scenes, coinciding with the re-release of the film on 4K.
Williams explained to The Hollywood Reporter that the finale of the film at Stu’s party was a particular sticking point, so to speak, for the MPAA. In particular, the scene when the two killers decide to lacerate each other with knives so they both have an alibi for the slayings was at issue.
Williams explained that in the final cut of the movie, there are three or four stabs “that you just hear.”
“Those were on camera originally and they took them off because the MPAA were like, ‘There’s just too much,’” he said.
In addition, Williams said the Drew Barrymore slow-motion sequence in the beggining was “a big no no.”
“They hated that. They did not want her running in slow motion and being stabbed. They said it was just too brutal, but we won that one because we didn’t have any other footage. He shot it in slow motion. What you see is all there was. So, they let that one slide, and I think the tradeoff was the stabs at the end.”
It’s interesting to hear what did — and did not — make the cutting room floor for the film. But in this case, we must say, we’re glad they chose to preserve the iconic intro as opposed to the mutual stabbing scene, if you had to slice one.
What’s your favorite moment from Scream? Leave it in the comments below.
