Craven Images: The Road to Scream

This chapter cites Peter Hutchings, who defines post-1972 American horror cinema as marking the advent of the horror-auteur director, believing horror to be the only genre that acquired its own 'customised movie-brats'. It talks about how Hutchings distinguishes the rising collective of horror 'brats' from the often-overlooked inadvertent 'specialists' as they were 'wholeheartedly committed to the genre as a suitable vehicle for the expression of ideas. It also talks about George Romero, who was universally acknowledged as the first of the 'brats' following his 1968 debut Night of the Living Dead. This chapter describes the marketing of Wes Craven's Scream that had to play to the strength of his core audience. It recounts how Craven as a veteran horror filmmaker cut together early footage of Scream as evidence that the complex tonal-combination was viable.