Horror Facts Vol. 23: Scream 4

To celebrate the 10 year anniversary, and with a new sequel just months away, our latest edition of Horror Facts focuses on Wes Craven’s final film, Scream 4.

/ Dewey and Gale were originally going to have a baby in Scream 4. In the final moments of Scream 3, Dewey proposes to Gale and it’s the last we see of the duo until this new chapter. In the first drafts of the script, Gale was showing up to crime scenes with the baby and Wes started to realize it just wasn’t going to work. It was ultimately determined that trying to have a baby on set would make shooting almost impossible. I wonder what the name would have been!?

/ During the credits of Stab, you’ll notice “A Robert Rodriguez Film”. Rodriguez actually did direct the Stab scenes and also co-directed 2007’s Grindhouse, a double feature that combines the horror films Planet Terror and Death Proof, starring Rose McGowan from Scream and Marley Shelton from Scream 4 and the long awaited SCREAM 5.

/ Before production began, Wes Craven asked fans on Twitter to choose a role for his cameo in Scream 4. Having made small cameos in the first three films, this could only be expected, and Craven ended up playing a coroner at the Randall house crime scene. Sadly, the scene was deleted from the final cut but you can find it as part of the special features on the DVD and on Youtube.

/ Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ single Red Right Hand is featured in the original three films but didn’t make it into Scream 4. This song is total Scream vibes and needs to make a comeback in the new film!

/ Due to an underwhelming box office performance, it seemed as though Scream 4 would be the final film of the series, but this wasn’t the original intention. Wes Craven was actually hoping for the film to be the kick-off of a new trilogy and filmmakers started planning concepts for the additional sequels.

/ The original opening was set to take place at a release party for Sidney’s book Out of Darkness, where Ghostface was to brutally attack Sidney. The remainder of the film was to then to continue three years after the incident. This was kiboshed by Bob Weinstein, who felt the time jump didn’t flow well.

/ Scream 4 is the only instalment in which Ghostface appears on the official North American movie poster. We better be getting a new floating head poster for SCREAM 5!

/ Emma Roberts, who is terrified of horror movies in real life, auditioned because she was a big fan of the previous Scream films and wanted to play a different kind of role from the family films she previously starred in. Who knew she’d end up as the lead killer?

/ Kevin Williamson would constantly butt heads with the Weinsteins over requests for changes to the script. This caused them to call back Ehren Kruger, who penned the screenplay for Scream 3, for rewrites (funnily enough Scream 3 focuses heavily on forcing sex for better roles in Hollywood hmm). The final script of Scream 4 ended up being quite different from the original. This also upset Craven, who has stated he would only return to direct if the script was as good as the original film.

/ Hayden Panettiere’s character Kirby, whose fate is left up in the air at the end of the film, answers that her favourite scary movie is Bambi after being asked by the cinema club geeks. This is reminiscent of the scene in Scream 2 where fellow Woodsboro cinephile Randy tells the killer his favourite scary movie is Showgirls.

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