Scream at Fashion Island – The Jitney

It’s been 30 years since I saw Scream when it first came out in 1996. It was playing at Aventura’s Loehmann’s Fashion Island. Fashion Island was the start of AMC Aventura 24. It was the start of our non-existent winter. A brilliant blue sky above. Not one cloud. I remember what I was wearing. Sneakers and light jeans. A long sleeve white shirt, a white shirt over that, and wait for it, a tank top over that. My parents were with me but they weren’t with me. I alone forged my way into the theater.

I sat down fairly close to the screen and to the right. It felt immersive. There was an electricity in the room. It was palpable. Middle of the afternoon, too. This was when there were like two trailers before the movie. Now, forget about it. They keep you in that dimmed state. Trailer after trailer, you slowly forget what you’ve come to see. But then, back then, lights went out in what felt like seconds. Nobody’s face in their cellphone, but cell phones had begun circulating at this time.

A metallic slashing sound accompanied the Dimension films logo. “Exterior, suburban house. A tree swing sways back and forth. Interior, kitchen. Stove top Jiffy Pop on burner. The phone rings…” Drew Barrymore’s Casey Becker picks it up. It was then we were introduced to the voice of a new horror icon. Ghostface, itself. And when Casey offered up a wrong answer during Ghostface’s deadly game of trivia, and I knew the answer, it was then I knew we were in for something inter-generational.

Only true horror fans knew that answer. We were experiencing a once in a generation film going event. It was my Halloween. Ghostface was my Michael Myers. And now Neve Campbell was the new “final girl”, Sidney Prescott. And like Jaime Lee Curtis’s prudish but resourceful Laurie Strode, would go on to define her own career-spanning franchise. Even at 21, Neve had been acting for a decade. Formerly, a dancer. Her wounded but resilient portrayal of Sidney Prescott solidified her as an official “scream queen”.

The movie was madness. And a lot of laughs. Wes Craven, Scream’s director, and Kevin Williamson, Scream’s scribe, tapped into something mythological. A new iconography was born. A new language was born. The film was flooded with talent. In front and behind the camera. Marco Beltrami, contributed a score bordering on experimental. I listen to it to this day. It doesn’t age. Director of photography Peter Deming would go on to work almost exclusively with David Lynch.

The soundtrack was a nostalgia trap. Track after track, each song supported scene after  scene, the same way an orchestra would. When played, you’d be instantly transported to that movie theater. To the knowing feeling that was in the air back then. One of those occasions that ask nothing of you. They just unfold. Between Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand” and Gus’ shoe gaze version of Blue Oyster Cult’s autumn anthem “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”, there are so many standout selections. I don’t think there’s been a soundtrack so tied into a movie since Scream first came out. How bizarre.

Walking out of the theater, you wouldn’t think you were congregating in a land locked mini mall. It felt old South Florida. It felt like the waves were feet away. Everything was concrete, white. An otherworldly orange sky. It could’ve been the 70s. Or the 50s. What a strange feeling. I spent two hours in a darkened room with strangers watching what would become a modern day classic. Art had just put a mirror to us. You forget that. The word “meta” had rarely reached the zeitgeist of ever. And now we were all self-aware. It’s like we all came online together. Movies were talking back to us.

I was 16 years old standing outside the theater waiting for my parents. Oh gross I might’ve been smoking a cigarette. So 90s of me. Fashion Island 16. A soon to be relic when it already felt ancient. It’s these kinds of places we get for about a decade, then they’re bulldozed or shuttered up. In the coming weeks, Scream 7 comes out. Neve Campbell’s back. I’ll probably watch it at home, though. Not many stories come out about some guy, me, laying in bed, pausing the movie to get up and piss for the fourteenth fucking time.

30 years later, Fashion Island is a distant memory. However, Scream is still around. And I’m lucky to still be around. Cuz you never know… the next victim…  could be… YOU!