'Scream's True Villain Was A Real Life High School
Unlike most other iconic horror franchises, weirdly, there's no continuous villain in the Scream franchise. While most of the Friday the 13th movies feature Jason Voorhees, and all of the Nightmare on Elm Street films involve Freddy Krueger in some (occasionally extremely homoerotic) capacity, each Scream movie features a different killer, who thankfully all shop at the same Spirit Halloween for the sake of consistency. They also all apparently sprung for the high-end voice changer with a "Satanic Late Night Radio DJ" setting.
But apart from Ghostface, there's another Scream villain you might not be aware of: Santa Rosa High School. The production was originally set to film at the school, which was previously seen in movies like Francis Ford Coppola's Peggy Sue Got Married, but things went about as smoothly as a date night at Drew Barrymore's remote farmhouse. The school ended up backing out as a location during the film's pre-production, despite the fact that producers claimed that they had a verbal agreement in place. It became clear that the school board had issues with the film's content, which contained scenes of both graphic violence and the comic stylings of Jamie Kennedy. At one school board meeting, "nearly 800 people showed up to debate the filming."
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The ultimate justification for "reneging" on the deal was that it would have been "too disruptive" for students. The Scream crew had to scramble to come up with a new location and ended up shooting the school scenes in a nearby community center. But the high school made a bitter enemy out of Wes Craven. The Last House on the Left director included in the end credits, along with various thank yous and acknowledgments, a "No thanks whatsoever to the Santa Rosa City School District Governing Board" credit.
Rumors even circulated that Craven "called for a Hollywood boycott of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County" as a result. For all we know, if it wasn't for Craven, Avatar might have been a Sideways-esque romp through wine country.
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Top Image: Dimension Films
