Scream is a massive horror franchise with many movies, series, and merch under its belt. But what most people don’t know is that it is based on a real story.
The True Story That Inspired ‘Scream’
The slasher genre appeals to individuals of all ages for a variety of reasons. A slasher film is a genre of horror film in which a serial killer uses bladed tools to murder many victims. While slasher flicks share a similar pattern, each movie has a distinct narrative that keeps the viewers on the edge of their seats. Similarly, the element of ‘whodunit’ contributed to the excitement.
Jump scares, excessive violence, mystery, distinctive but insane antagonists, and gore are just a few of the reasons why slasher films are exceptional. In addition, many slasher films have set the bar high for terror and psychological suspense.
Why Do People Like ‘Scream?’
The Scream franchise is an example of a slasher genre that honors post-modern slashers and spawns a slew of current slasher flicks. There are four slasher films in the Scream franchise, a television show, merchandising, and a computer game. Scream 5, the fifth chapter of the film, will be released in 2022.
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The films follow Sidney Prescott as she battles a series of assassins posing as Ghostface. She gets help from Dewey Riley, a detective, Gale Weathers, a reporter, and friends, romantic partners, and acquaintances who change as the book progresses.
There are many reasons why people love the Scream Franchise. The majority of horror movies rely heavily on several absurd clichés. Scream was the first major horror film to identify and embrace these clichés, inverting them with characters that were well aware of them yet still succumbed to them. Similarly, the franchise is frequently credited with bringing the horror genre back to its previous grandeur.
It also challenges this unfair stereotype by showing strong female characters who are anxious to escape their past. All four movies are both hilarious and terrifying. As a result, Scream has developed a cult following.
Based On A True Story
Like a vast number of horror movies, Scream is also based on a true story. It is based on a horrifying murder spree that happened in Gainesville, Florida.
Danny Rolling was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1954. Like many killer’s past, he also had a terrible childhood. He grew up in a family of abuse and chaos. His father was a cop who mistreated his mother.
This affected his future since he failed to find stable employment as an adult. Rolling was arrested numerous times for robberies as a young man, and he was also captured spying on ladies while they changed. Shockingly, his first murder attempt was against his father in 1990. However, he only succeeded in removing the man’s eye and ear.
Soon after, he embarked on a murder spree in Gainesville, Florida. Rolling murdered five students, one from Santa Fe College and four from the University of Florida, throughout a few late August evenings.
His routine was the same: he broke into flats when people were sleeping and stabbed them in their beds. Then, before murdering the women, he raped them. After he committed such heinous actions against his female victims, Rolling disfigured them, leaving severed heads and bodies staged in obscene sexual positions for investigators to uncover. Because of his actions, Rolling earned the nickname “The Gainesville Ripper.”
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The killings drew a lot of attention in Florida. Many students withdrew their acceptance letters from the schools. Gainesville was full of fear, and it spread quickly. Rolling was caught a month later in neighboring Ocala on a burglary charge, and he eventually became a suspect in the Gainsville killings.
He was jailed on a burglary allegation in neighboring Ocala on September 7, 1990. Police discovered equipment in his possession that matched markings left at crime locations in Gainesville. As a result, five charges of murder were against him. In 1994, he pled guilty, admitting that he committed the killings to get attention like Ted Bundy.
The Gainesville homicides were also compared to a triple homicide in Shreveport some years ago. Rolling would ultimately confess to these assassinations as well. Altogether, he was responsible for the deaths of eight individuals in all. On October 25, 2006, he was condemned to death and executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison.
Kevin Williamson, a screenwriter, was home alone when he came upon a TV program about the Gainesville Ripper. He spotted an open window in his living room while watching and thought how easy it would be for someone to break in and hurt him. But, rather than frightening him, the discovery prompted him to develop a screenplay for a film he dubbed Scary Movie. That screenplay was Scream, and the rest is history.
