Throughout the clip, there are two main characters, one being Drew Barrymore, the victim and an unknown person who is the scary villain. Barrymore is portrayed as a young innocent teen left home alone while her parents are out for the evening. Her blonde hair brings up connotations of innocence and naivety and red lips suggest a flirty character in the young girl. She is dressed also in quite innocent clothing, as she is not accentuating any of her sexual assets, which again backs up the idea that she is in her teens. Furthermore, her costume is fairly plain, keeping the focus on her and not her outfit. For the beginning of the opening, while the scene and character is being set, the camera follows her around while she begins to make popcorn and walks around the house on the phone. By doing this, the director sets up a typical and natural image of someone doing day-to-day things in their house, which creates a greater impact when the violence and terror begins. The popcorn suggests that she may be settling down to watch a film and perhaps this could be a scary one as she tells the man on the phone later that she enjoys watching them.
The voice of the villainous character is very husky, which suggests to the viewer that he is scary and mysterious, giving them an unsettling feeling. We do not get any images for this man until later on in the clip, leaving the viewer to base their interpretations of him solely on his voice.
Once the voice on the phone begins shouting at Barrymore in a violent manner, some non-diagetic, dramatic music starts to play to entice the viewer and imply that things in the film are about to get bad. The camera gets a close-up of the girls face to focus on her scared facial expressions, helping the viewer to understand her emotions and begin to feel them too. While she is running around the house the music becomes louder and more dramatic making it even more suspense, while the camera shots change quickly to make the viewer panicked and unsure of what is going on. Running into the kitchen, we see that her popcorn is on fire, which then automatically brings up connotations of danger. This then intensifies as the character picks up a knife that was shown earlier in the clip, highlighted by the reflection of the light.
The first shot of the villain is as he smashes through the window dangerously to scare and shock the viewer. We see him again through the girl’s eyes as she looks at him running across the living room. This is the first full-length image we see of him, clothed completely in black with a white mask on. Although we have now seen this man, we do not know anything about him because of his secretive costume, which is all very mysterious. All through the clip there are medium close ups of the girl looking very scared and feeling trapped because her body language is very introvert and recluse while she’s crying.
While the girl is being brutally killed, the camera shifts quickly again to give the same effect as before of panic and desperation for her. All the while this is happening, the male character does not speak which is quite ironic considering he kept on wanting to talk to her when they were on the phone to each other. This implies that the murder of this girl is very gruesome and yet he is immune to it all.
The clip ends with the teenager’s parents coming home to find their house completely chaotic and her daughter hung from a tree that was shown earlier. There is a final scream from the mother as the title ‘Scream’ comes up on the shot to end the opening and introduce the rest of the film.
To conclude, the film shows a dark secluded setting with a girl home alone. This is a good basis for a horror film and the build up of shock makes the viewer desperate to continue with the film, while also being so frightened that part of them wants to turn it off.
