Scream is chock full of references and easter egg nods to famous horror movies, but what titles does Wes Craven’s iconic slasher pay homage to? The original Scream brought about a revival of the then-ailing slasher subgenre. Screenwriter Kevin Williamson’s flip, ironic take on slasher conventions made it a huge success as the movie both subverted and played into genre cliches, crafting an effective whodunit out of an ingenious premise wherein a group of teens is hunted down by a cinema-literate killer.
Director Wes Craven tried his hand at meta-horror with the earlier New Nightmare, but Scream managed to marry both tense suspense and meta-commentary in an equal measure, while that earlier effort lost mainstream audiences thanks to its more cerebral premise. That said, Scream also offered plenty for genre obsessives to decode and analyze. The screenplay referenced countless horror classics, and not all of them slashers.
For followers of slasher movies in particular, Scream offered a plethora of nods both subtle and glaringly obvious throughout its pacy runtime. When viewers weren’t being scared senseless by the chase scenes, they were getting a wry smile out of seeing the characters watching Halloween during a house party or the killer referencing Friday the 13th during a tense phone call. However, not all of Williamson and Craven’s horror movie references were so on-the-nose. Scream featured a lot of less obvious nods to cult horrors alongside its more blatant borrows and parodies.
When A Stranger Calls
Remade in 2006, When A Stranger Calls was a 1979 slasher famous for its opening sequence, a masterclass of tension-building wherein the movie’s babysitter heroine is tormented by a mysterious caller until she discovers the calls are coming from inside the house (it was an unexpected twist at the time, and not the cliche it is today). The opening twelve minutes of Scream are effectively a recreation of this iconic sequence, with screenwriter Williamson saying the trilogy was inspired by the scene.
Halloween 2
1981’s Halloween 2 may be less frightening than the original, but the sequel did manage to earn itself a reference in one of Scream’s scariest scenes. Largely set in a hospital immediately following the events of the first film, Halloween 2 traps heroine Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in a bed thanks to injuries she sustained. This leads to a tense, terrifying sequence wherein a weakened Laurie tries to cry out for help but can’t be heard, just like Casey as she is dragged across the lawn (although Laurie survives her ordeal, unlike Barrymore’s character),
Friday the 13th
In the first movie trivia question from Ghostface, Drew Barrymore’s Casey Becker is asked who the killer is in the original Friday the 13th. Understandably, she answers with the most famous face from the series (so to speak), masked murderer Jason Voorhees. Unfortunately, as Ghostface gleefully notes she’s wrong on a technicality - Jason barely appears in the original film, wherein his mother Pamela is the killer.
The Exorcist (And A Nightmare On Elm Street)
The Exorcist and Craven’s earlier slasher A Nightmare On Elm Street are both referenced in quick succession when Sidney's boyfriend Billy Loomis (whose name is another Halloween nod) clambers through her bedroom window for a midnight rendezvous. This action is a reference to future superstar Johnny Depp doing the same in Elm Street, while his dialogue soon after offers an even more obvious nod to The Exorcist. Billy claims he was watching the movie at home and made him think of his and Sidney’s relationship as a TV-friendly The Exorcist that had “all the good stuff” cut (which could be read as an early clue to just how unhinged Billy is).
Halloween
Of course, Scream had to reference Halloween, since director John Carpenter’s slasher created the blueprint for the subgenre almost two decades before Scream’s release. However, the earliest of many nods is one of the movie’s more subtle homages and one many fans miss on first viewing. When Casey’s parents return home to find her body, her father tells her distraught mother to “drive down to the MacKenzies.” It’s the same instruction (sans the driving) that Laurie gives her two charges when Michael Myers interrupts her babysitting to cause some bloodshed near the end of Halloween.
Prom Night
During Randy’s rant about the police’s incompetence, Prom Night is one of the titles that the movie geek says the investigators should turn to for clues to the killer’s M.O. One of a string of slasher movies to star Halloween’s Jamie Lee Curtis, Prom Night was not notable for a lot else (other than receiving a critically-excoriated PG-13 remake during the ‘00s). Interestingly, the amused characters Randy delivers this rant to are later revealed to be Scream’s pair of killers during the movie's twist ending.
I Spit On Your Grave
One of the more obscure horrors referenced in Scream is Meir Zarchi’s infamous I Spit On Your Grave. Mostly notable for its almost-unendurable rape sequence, this video nasty is an otherwise uninteresting if uniquely unpleasant horror. Rose McGowan’s doomed best friend Tatum namedrops I Spit On Your Grave in one of the movie’s more subtle horror movie nods when taunting a masked character who she doesn’t (yet) realize is the killer. While the film itself is a lesser horror effort, Craven’s history in the rape/revenge subgenre with 1972’s The Last House On The Left may explain the director’s decision to reference the film.
Carrie
Bizarrely, co-killer Billy claims he and Stu faked his stabbing using corn syrup as fake blood “just like Carrie.” He’s not wrong, as the Stephen King adaptation did use corn syrup, but so did almost every other movie to feature fake blood in Hollywood history. The comment may come from the deluge of blood featured in Carrie, which is actually intended to stand in for pig’s blood in the movie (rather than the human variety).
A Nightmare On Elm Street (Again)
There are plenty of references to Craven's Nightmare On Elm Street throughout the Scream series, but a further two winks to the supernatural slasher are of note here. The first occurs when Wes Craven himself crops up as a school janitor named “Fred” who wears a distinctive red-and-black striped jumper in a cute cameo. The second is a little more pointed, as Casey claims the first was great but the sequels sucked - a sentiment Craven shared about some Elm Street sequels.
Psycho
In one of the movie’s few attributed quotes, Billy comments “We all go a little crazy sometimes”, before awkwardly adding the addendum “Anthony Perkins, Psycho.” Why the line is attributed to the actor and not the character is unclear, but could be intended to underline Billy’s inability to distinguish reality from the movies. Meanwhile, Stu’s later line “I always had a thing for you, Sid” is notable for being an ad-lib by Scream actor Matthew Lillard, who was dating co-star Neve Campbell at the time.