Repertoire of elements

2. INTRODUCTION
This is, at face value, very much your typical slasher film. It has a
killer, teens dying after partaking in illegal activities, and a masked killer
with a rather large knife. Look past the simple
conventions, however, and you see something very different. Scream
seems to mock itself and its own genre, with highly exaggerated
conventions, references to classic slashers, and a plot based around
news stories that those films caused violent behavior in children.
Scream was the first widely-received and praised ‘self-aware’ post-modern
slasher, after the slightly less successful Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
(the director of which also directed this film) and so far the only series
that seems to use that angle well.

3. ICONOGRAPHY
This is a modern, high-budget slasher, so the mise-en-scene is much more
well-made than others in the genre. The soundtrack, too. It has the
same haunting music as other slashers, but to cater for more modern,
action-seeking audiences, it seems to stray more towards the music of
a thriller rather than sticking rigidly to the thin-textured, atonal music of
the previous generation of slasher films.
The killer’s costume is a literal ‘icon’ in itself. Taken from the screaming
man in a similarly-named surrealist painting, the mask, cloak and knife
has become the icon of the series, and the persona of ‘ghostface,’ the
bloodthirsty antagonist, given to anyone that wears it. Although the true
antagonists change each time, giving the series a little more mystery
than most slashers, Ghostface is ever-present and seemingly undying,
a throwback to the seemingly invincible Michael Myers, Freddy, and, of
course, Jason.

4. STYLE
The lighting doesn’t seem as low-key as other slashers. Many deaths take
place in broad daylight, in fact. During the night-time party
climax, however, the dark, foreboding lighting seems to creep back in.
Even a self-aware slasher needs to keep itself rooted in the genre it is
mocking, it seems.
The iconic point of-view-shots of a slasher seem painfully absent, however.
This is most likely because this is a film meant for a more modern
audience, who want to see the gore up-close, and from the best
possible angle.

5. SETTING
This, again, takes the cliché of the slasher at face value. It features a house
in a nice suburban neighborhood, separated from civilization by a long
front lawn and driveway. This somehow serves to merge both
conventions of location together, and it even adds in a scene in a
school to pay a quiet homage to A Nightmare on Elm Street by adding a
death in a school.

6. NARRATIVE
This is, again, a typical slasher at the beginning. As the narrative
progresses, however, the self-aware atribute becomes apparent. Scream
was a success because it referenced previous films, and gives the older
audience a sense of bloody nostalgia as well as scaring younger movie-
goers.
The references to other films, as well as the human killer(s) also means that
it could potentially be set in this universe, whereas there was always a
sense of the supernatural in older slashers, making them less realistic.
This one, however, is completely down-to-earth. The killer bleeds, and
eventually is defeated, but it still scares the audience because
protagonists are still in great danger.