Wes Craven Had To Submit This Bloody Horror Classic to the MPA 9 Times

What’s scarier than any of the horror movie monsters you can think of? Try the Motion Picture Association (MPA) giving one of their respective movies the dreaded “NC-17” rating, where the theater audience will be severely affected. This is what director Wes Craven had to deal with when he made one of his most famous films. By the time he wrapped production on Scream (1996), it was 24 years since he made the brutal The Last House on the Left, which the director also had to re-edit to gain approval from the MPA. In the ’90s, like in the ’70s, the depiction of violence in the horror genre was intensely scrutinized. While Scream is the meta-slasher where Craven again reinvented what the genre could be, it would face an uphill battle due to concerns over how the fake violence could affect the movie’s audience. But the edits the director had to make risked diminishing how fearsome Ghostface could be.

Scream

A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.

Writers

Kevin Williamson

Release Date

December 20, 1996

Runtime

111 minutes

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The Violence in ‘Scream’ Was Controversial Before Filming Began

From 1934 to 1968, the Hays Code regulated what Hollywood movies could show on-screen, from the obvious being off-limits (nudity) and the more baffling (toilets). Once it was gone, the MPA took over with a division known as CARA, the Classification & Ratings Administration, for what should be allowed to be seen and by whom. Not to mention, the U.S. wasn’t the only place where there was tough censorship — the “Video nasty” moral panic targeted horror movies in the UK as well.

Back in the U.S., the abundance of slasher films in the 1980s received a maligned status by film critics and anyone else who despised them for either glorifying killing, victimizing women, or both. A new slasher wasn’t a hot commodity in the ‘90s, yet the screenplay for Scream by Kevin Williamson was different. It appreciated the horror films that came before and updated it for modern audiences while evolving the final girl with the complex lore of Sidney (Neve Campbell). When director Wes Craven came on board, the project had both emerging and established creative talent that could turn the meta-slasher into something special, but it was no easy road to get it made. During pre-production, it already ran into criticism about how violent Ghostface could be. Craven and his crew had found the perfect location for Woodsboro teens to get an education, choosing the Santa Rosa High School, a decision that didn’t last too long when the Santa Rosa City School Board raised two issues: there were concerns about how filming would affect the student body, and the bigger worry was directed to the script’s killing of teens.

According to the documentary Scream: The Inside Story (2011), a reason for the school board’s refusal was because of a real-life crime that took place in the area in 1993, where a young girl, Polly Klaas, had been kidnapped and soon found dead. In the few years since then, the pain and fear over the tragedy was still raw. Adults in the community objected to the production of Scream using the high school in a heated town hall meeting. In The Inside Story, Craven reflected on how he felt that the community and the media demonized the production. It’s why, in the end credits to Scream, Craven made sure to add: “No Thanks Whatsoever to the Santa Rosa City School District Governing Board.” But this wasn’t the last time the meta-slasher would struggle with the on-screen kills being seen as being harmful to viewers.

Wes Craven Struggled To Get an R-Rating for ‘Scream’

After filming was done, and Scream was edited, it was sent over for a rating by the MPA, where Craven learned it would be given the dreaded NC-17, severely limiting the audience demographic that could go see it in the theater. The kills by Ghostface needed to be trimmed to cut down on how grisly they were, which Craven hated doing, but had no other choice. The opening is easily one of the most powerful first scenes in the franchise and in the horror genre overall, where Casey (Drew Barrymore) gets a phone call that turns her Jiffy Pop-filled movie night into a gory farewell. Her boyfriend Steve (Kevin Patrick Walls) might have been big, he might have played football — but he didn’t get to kick the crap out of anyone in the end.

This iconic sequence was required to be re-edited significantly. In the scene, Steve is bound in a chair outside Casey’s house and is the first on-screen victim of Ghostface, as well as the first victim of the MPA. In The Inside Story, Matthew Lillard talked about how the shot of a dying Steve needed to be trimmed — according to the MPA, the image of the character’s insides sliding out from a deep knife wound he’d been given was too graphic. The MPA then focused on Casey’s murder. Kevin Williamson said in oral history for The Hollywood Reporter, “The Drew Barrymore slow-motion sequence in the beginning was a big no-no. They hated that. They did not want her running in slow motion and being stabbed.”

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“My mom and dad are gonna be so mad at me!”

The slow motion scene when Casey is unable to outrun Ghostface is done so to be a devastating moment of realization. During the movie’s DVD commentary, Craven revealed how he decided to lie to the MPA that this shot was the only take they filmed, letting him keep the scene in. It was a small win, followed by another loss when the glimpse of a dead Casey had to be changed. Editor Patrick Lussier talked about this in the documentary Still Screaming: The Ultimate Scary Movie Retrospective (2011). The last time Casey is seen, her corpse is left hanging in a tree, and Lussier had to speed up the footage to have it approved. It’s why the camera suddenly appears to sprint ahead. Wes Craven was frustrated with the ordeal, especially when it came to how much the MPA wanted to sanitize the third act.

Two Deaths at the End of ‘Scream’ Got Trimmed

Scream‘s Tatum (Rose McGowan) joins the horror hall of fame of memorable friends of final girls who should have lived. Sidney’s bestie puts up a good fight in the garage with Ghostface, but Tatum’s escape through a cat door is a plan that quickly falls apart. She’s unable to squeeze the rest of her body through and when Ghostface activates the garage door, she’s killed. Tatum’s head-crushing death had to be edited down by the MPA’s orders, losing only a second or two. Another major death that was much more affected by the MPA was Gale’s cameraman and personal servant, Kenny (W. Earl Brown). When Sidney tries to take shelter in the news van, Kenny realizes they may not be safe — and he’s right.

Ghostface rushes in to slice the cameraman’s throat with a hunting knife. Brown talked about the problem the MPA had with this in The Inside Story, saying, “I can remember when Wes had to go back and take some frames out of Kenny’s death scene because they said the look on my face was too disturbing, and it had to be trimmed, and Wes’ argument was, ‘It’s murder, it should be disturbing.'” Those few seconds linger on Kenny’s expression of disbelief on his face as his last moments count down. If it isn’t obvious already, Craven wanted to make his horror film scary, and these deaths aren’t to simply increase a body count. Scream is supposed to be set in the “real world,” and these deaths are harrowing because the characters are fleshed out. It hurts to lose them. The battle Craven must have been having in the editing room carried over to the kitchen scene.

After Billy (Skeet Ulrich) and Stu (Lillard) reveal themselves to be the Ghostface killer, they stab each other with the hopes of fooling the police. These shots of the killer duo had to be trimmed to avoid seeing them connect the knife to their flesh. This is why Sidney’s reaction frequently cuts in. Other than the violence, a key line that was part of the censorship was when Billy shouts with pride, “Movies don’t create psychos, movies make psychos more creative!” Editor Patrick Lussier talked about this in The Hollywood Reporter‘s oral history: “It’s certainly the line of dialogue that the MPA went after and wanted removed from the film. It was like, ‘You can’t speak that kind of truth.'” Craven was able to keep the line in, but a few wins mattered little, as even with all this editing, Scream still wasn’t able to get an R-rating.

One Phone Call Saved the First ‘Scream’ From an NC-17 Rating

In Still Screaming, Wes Craven talked about his frustrations with the MPA process: “You never get a name, you never know who has seen your film, and quite often it’s a different group each time. So it’s quite horrible to deal with.” Scream had submitted nine versions to the MPA with little success in getting closer to the rating it needed. In Scream: The Inside Story, Craven talked about how every department involved in the editing would have to be brought back to adjust to what had been done, adding to the budget, and it didn’t look like it was going to be ready for its December release date. It seemed grim until Craven revealed what finally happened to make the stress go away.

Producer Bob Weinstein stepped in, explaining to the MPA that Scream was, “a comedy, it’s a satire.” That gave the film its R-rating, much to Craven’s surprise but overall delight. In a franchise that focused on phone calls, it took one for Scream to get the necessary approval. While the meta-slasher didn’t become a box office hit overnight when it was released, — it was a slow process — the result was explosive. It stayed in theaters for months, reviving the horror genre, specifically the slasher once thought to have been done to death. There was a chance the MPA could have damaged the impact Scream had if the desired rating wasn’t given. Wherever that alternate timeline exists, it is more frightening than seeing Ghostface lunge at you.

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