Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett and executive producer Chad Villella, collectively known as Radio Silence, have been vocal from the start that their Scream is “For Wes.” They credit horror master Wes Craven and his 1996 slasher as the direct inspiration for their careers as filmmakers. They have sought to honor his legacy with their new movie, even extensively studying the late director as a guiding light for production.

Because the Scream franchise consistently lays out the slasher or sequel rules, Bloody Disgusting asked Radio Silence to break down the most important lessons and rules they learned from Craven ahead of Scream’s release on January 14, 2022.

The essential rules are as follows…

4) Make Audiences Feel Like They’re in the Hands of a Mad Man

Ghostface in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Scream.”

Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett had a daunting task ahead of them, not just in stepping into Craven’s shoes but in making the fifth entry of an enduring franchise feel as dangerous as the film that began it all. Of course, Craven indirectly had valuable advice for that.

“When we were in pre-production was we talked to Patrick Lussier, who edited the first four, and it was the beginning of our year-long, meet everybody we possibly can who knew Wes, and get every piece of information we could. The thing that he told us is when they started editing the Drew Barrymore scene; he said that Wes came in and said, ‘I need the audience to feel like they’re in the hands of a mad man, just from the jump.’ And that became a guiding north star for us throughout the process.” Bettinelli-Olpin explained.

Tyler added, “Specifically, I can say on an editorial level, some of that is just how long do you hold on a gruesome shot, right? There’s a moment where it feels comfortable to cut because you’ve seen enough. For us, that’s a moment where you go, ‘well, maybe we hold on to it for two more seconds. Maybe put the audience in an experience that they’re already uncomfortable with, and you make them sit in it for a beat longer.’

“I think it’s a good example of that idea in practice. It’s just choosing how long to be manipulative, right? How long do you build out tension before you design that release, that scare? How long do you hold on to a really uncomfortable, gory shot? Even down to who’s the killer, who are the victims? All of that factors into this idea of, wow, this movie, it doesn’t feel like it has a safety net under it. That is so memorable to us about watching the first film, our first experience with Scream. There is this feeling of being in a fucking free fall that you are watching something, and it is an unsafe experience. That is a massive part of what makes these movies effective and makes them memorable and makes the tone possible.“

3) Everyone’s a Suspect

L-r, Dylan Minnette (“Wes”), Jack Quaid (“Richie”), Melissa Barrera (“Sam”) and David Arquette (“Dewey Riley”) star in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Scream.”

“We took it seriously in casting to make sure that everybody, you could look at them from one side and go, ‘huh, I think that person is the killer.’ And then you could look at them from another angle and go, ‘not the killer, no way.’ It’s making sure that everybody is guilty and then innocent, and you can never quite land on it. Even when we were shooting, we’d do another take whenever we had time. We learned this from Wes Craven, and from what he did in the originals, is let’s do another one where you’re guilty, regardless of if the person is the killer or not. Let’s get takes where you play this one like you’re the killer,” Bettinelli-Olpin said of the whodunit facet.

He added, “Let’s get takes where you play this one like you’re not the killer. Make sure that we have those options. Everybody, all of the cast, was super game for it because it made it fun like there’s just going to be something subtle happening under the hood in this next shot. When we got into the edit, it was invaluable to play with levels and play with who’s guilty at what time. Why do you think they’re guilty? Do you really believe they are guilty?” 

2) Engage with Horror’s Current Climate

Jenna Ortega (“Tara”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Scream.”

Villela breaks down incorporating one of the core tenets of the franchise: “Things have changed so much over the course of the last twenty-five years. I think Wes has always been a little bit ahead of it, right? In every movie, he was calling out the current trend and where it was going and getting ahead of it in a very specific way. That’s something we talked about and discussed the whole way through this creative process. Just being able to shine a light on if we take something too far a little bit and exploring the landscape of not just horror, but everything in society and being a teenager, and thinking ahead to everything else. I think is what the fun of Scream is.”

1) Most Importantly, Break the Rules

Ghostface in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Scream.”

Jamie Kennedy’s Randy Meeks may have famously laid out the ground rules of surviving a slasher, but Scream subverted those rules time and time again. That subversion was necessary here.

Bettinelli-Olpin said of this crucial rule: “It’s very funny this idea of rules because there are multiple rules given in all of these movies. There are rules to surviving a horror film. And for as much as these movies put a fine point on those rules, we think one of the most interesting things about the movies themselves, and certainly Wes and Kevin [Williamson] as creators, is that they were also just interested in breaking every single possible rule.

“You leave it up to the movie telling you exactly how to do things to then, totally do them a different way. We love that in the blueprint of what these movies are. There’s also, by design, a real need for them to also subvert expectations and do the thing that you least expect them to do and break all of those rules. There was a lot of permission given by the other four movies to do that, to set up the rules and then also find a new way to deliver on them. And then to subvert them.“

Bonus: Neve Campbell’s Words of Wisdom on Ghostface

Neve Campbell (“Sidney Prescott”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Scream.”

Insight and advice on Craven and the franchise’s legacy often came from his longtime collaborators, including franchise mainstay Neve Campbell, as the enduring heroine Sidney Prescott. The Ghostface expert helped the directors unlock their film’s central antagonist, separating Ghostface from the suspects behind the mask.

“One of the things that she said that was helpful to us because we were probably over-intellectualizing it a little bit. She told us something along the lines of “Ghostface is like a superhero. Its own character; embrace that. That’s what we did on the other ones,” Bettinelli-Olpin said.

Gillett elaborates, “We knew this sort of roadmap of who’s in the costume and when. Part of the magic trick of these movies is that it’s always a little bit unspecific. That Ghostface as a character weirdly has the same mannerisms in every movie. There is a specific, iconic Ghostface performance that we think is fun and is a huge part of keeping that mystery alive. Now, I think certainly you could go back and figure out who’s behind the mask and when. But for us, we love the idea that whoever’s behind the mask understands what Ghostface is and is always playing that part. There’s a theatricality to who the killer is.”

Scream opens in theaters this Thursday night in select locations, Friday everywhere.