Quentin Tarantino does not like the first part of a well-known horror saga which totals six parts.
We no longer present the Scream horror saga, the first part of which was released in France in 1997. Initially of four episodes, it has since returned with Scream (2022) and Scream VI (2023). But a renowned filmmaker, Quentin Tarantino, does not really appreciate the first feature film of the franchise, directed by Wes Craven.
And the least we can say is that the Tarantino has harsh criticism when it comes to evoking the directorial vision of his fellow director:
I don’t give a damn what direction Wes Craven is taking [pour Scream]. I always thought he was the chain attached to his own ankle that kept him from flying to the moon.
Scream recounts the ordeal of Casey Becker as a teenager, alone in the family home and harassed on the phone by a serial killer who forces her to play a terrible game: if she answers her questions about horror movies badly, he will kill her boy friend.
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And this story, Tarantino would have liked to make it his own, as he had confided to vulnerability in 2015 :
I could have imagined doing the first Scream. The Weinsteins were trying to get Robert Rodriguez, and I don’t think they for a second thought I might be interested.
As surprising as it may seem, if he had been asked, Quentin Tarantino could therefore have made a horror film. To this day, it’s a genre he’s never ventured into. It’s fun to think what Scream might have been like had it passed through the hands of the director of Reservoir Dogs.
If Tarantino was not contacted by the Weinstein brothers for Scream, in addition to Robert Rodriguez, Danny Boyle, George A. Romero and Sam Raimi were among the candidates. Wes Craven ended up taking on the project when he found out Drew Barrymore would be making an appearance.
His criticism of Wes Craven’s vision is perhaps also influenced by the fact that the filmmaker had left the first screening of Reservoir Dogs at the Sundance Film Festival (due to the violence of the torture scene), which Tarantino had indeed and well noted and critical.
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In 1995, the date of preparation for Scream, Tarantino came out of Pulp Fiction, which had won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. That year, he directed an episode of Urgences (S01E24) as well as a segment of the comedy Groom Service with Tim Roth, before leaving to work on Jackie Brown., which was released in France in 1998.
Scream will bring together 2.2 million horror fans in theaters, and Jackie Brown 1.3.