Scream (1981 film)
| Scream | |
|---|---|
Poster
|
|
| Directed by | Byron Quisenberry |
| Produced by | Byron Quisenberry Clara Huff Hal Buchanan |
| Written by | Byron Quisenberry |
| Starring |
Pepper Martin Hank Worden Ethan Wayne Ann Bronston Julie Marine |
| Music by | Joseph Conlan |
| Cinematography | Richard Pepin |
| Edited by | B.W. Kestenberg |
| Distributed by | Cal-Com |
|
Release date
|
1981 |
|
Running time
|
82 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1,083,395 (USA) |
Scream (also released as The Outing) is a 1981 American slasher film written and directed by Byron Quisenberry and starring Pepper Martin, Hank Worden, Ethan Wayne, Ann Bronston, and Julie Marine.
A group of twelve people on a camping tour of the Rio Grande decide to spend the night in an old ghost town, and an unseen killer begins to dispatch them one by one. On the first night at the stroke of midnight, three of the group are killed in rapid succession. Allen is found hanged; his friends Rod and John both hacked by a cleaver. In the morning, the nine survivors try to leave, but find their three rubber rafts slashed apart by someone (or something) forcing them to spend another night at the ghost town. During the day, two youths on motor dirt bikes arrive and one of the guides, named Jerry, leaves with one of them to get help from a nearby ranch which is over 30 miles away.
At nightfall, Bob takes over as de facto leader of the group and has them set up traps to try to trap the killer, but the unseen killer seems to evade them every time leaving no evidence, not even footprints. Soon, the unseen killer strikes again, killing Andy by striking him in the face with an axe and decapitates Bob with a scythe. The unseen killer murders one of the dirtbike youths by blowing him through a door, and leaves Stan and the overweight, slow-witted Lou badly injured.
At the stroke of midnight, a mysterious horse-drawn stagecoach arrives in the ghost town, being driven by a mysterious cowboy who introduces himself as Charlie Winters (Woody Strode). Charlie tells the group that he has been hunting the killer for over 40 years and also claims that the culprit is the ghost of an old sea captain who drove people out of town years ago. The rest of the survivors are wary about trusting Charlie, but soon realize that he may be their only hope of survival.
When Jerry is found dead and Charlie wanders off with no explanation, Rudy takes over as leader of the group and takes the survivors to barracade themselves in a wood shed as the killer tries to break in. Just when Lou pulled out of the shed and is about to be killed, Charlie reappears and shoots the killer (revealed here to indeed be an invisible force), which then drops the scythe. Charlie then rides away into the night. Minutes later, a ranch owner and his wife arrive on the scene in a pickup truck to greet the relieved survivors.
Quisenberry was influenced by Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians when writing the script, though the production of the film was fairly loose, with the script being unfinished when the shooting had begun. Additionally, Quisenberry stated that the production was cut shorter than initially planned due to a lack of funding. The cast of the film were unaware of the killer's identity throughout the production.
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