Raise your hand if your siblings got in trouble for showing you something you were way too young to see. Oh, good. Glad I’m not the only one! (Sorry Nickie!) For me, one of those films was the 1996 teen horror flick, Scream. It was one of my sister’s favorites, but I was filled with absolute terror at night thinking about the opening, when Drew Barrymore is hanging from the tree at the end of the teaser. Which is about the time that my mom came in, realized what we were watching, and declared me too young for the movie. It wasn’t until years later that I saw the whole thing and it became one of my favorites as well. 

All of which is to say that this month, with the spooky season upon us, I thought it would be a good time to talk about teen horror flicks. Specifically the ones that really spoke to teenagers at the time of their release. And boy are there a lot of them. In fact, it’s one of the most prevalent genres of teen films (despite most of them living in that “rated-R” space that makes it hard for actual teens to see them). 

But how have teen horror flicks changed since their popularization with the slasher and supernatural subgenre in the 1970s? Well, the violence has adapted and changed, for sure, but one of the biggest changes came in the 1990s with Scream. Horror films became meta and self-referential with Wes Craven’s smash hit. And then change in the aughts was marked with something pithy, kinda queer, and specifically feminist, which culminated in Karyn Kusama’s cult classic Jennifer’s Body. 

And those are the two films I wanted to look at this month. They are both films that, within their era and subgenre, really comment on teen cultural ideals… but also both have a side commentary that isn’t talked about as much. Those less talked about elements are just as relevant to what contemporary teens at the time were dealing with, and I think the writers and directors really nailed their point in the conversations, even if it was unintentional.

Written by Kevin Williamson and directed by horror icon Wes Craven, Scream is about Sydney Prescott as she deals with a series of vicious murders that happen around her, the year after her mother’s death. The film culminates in a third act teen house party that reveals the killers (surprise! There were two of them, actually!), before the surviving members of the film are able to outsmart and out gun them, leading more than a single Final Girl. 

So, a lot has already been said about Scream. Like, it brought back the teen slasher genre, while also teaching an entire generation about the unwritten rules of the very genre it was actively operating within. Obviously, that aspect was extremely influential to the culture at large, and to teen horror flicks, specifically. It also really popularized mystery elements in slasher horror, since most in most slashers that predated the film it was very clear who the killer was. But Scream made it a mystery that wasn’t revealed until the third act, and gave us an added bonus of there actually being two killers, instead of the presumed one.

However, something that’s mentioned, but not discussed nearly enough about Scream is this thing that Billy (Skeet Ulrich) and Stu (Matthew Lillard) say during their big villain reveal and their back-and-forth with Sydney about their ultimate plan. Once they’ve started hacking into each other, Syd tells them they’ve seen too many movies. 

Billy's response is, of course, absolutely iconic: “Now, Syd. Don’t you blame the movies. Movies don’t create psychos… movies make psychos more creative.”

And that’s certainly a nice way to play this, given how self-referential the film has been to its existence as a horror movie. But, it’s also something that was very present in culture at the time the film was released. There was a war on violent media because it was actively believed (and still is) that ingesting violent media makes young people violent. 

Despite being a person who does believe that media matters, I stand strongly in camp that the type of violence present in horror films (especially from the time that Scream hit our screens to the tune of over $100 million dollars domestically) isn’t going to actively cause someone to be violent. It’s unfortunate that Billy is correct that media doesn’t make you believe or do anything, but what it can do is reinforce those beliefs and actions. 

But that was a fight that teenagers in the 1990s were having with adults, and not just as it related to films. Video games, music, television, and movies were all subject to criticism about their levels of violence and the effects that violence had on the minds of the young. Violence in media became a scapegoat to the point that 1999s tragic mass school shooting at Columbine was often attributed to first-person shooters, music, and movies like Natural Born Killers. But when even fluffy teen comedies like Clueless have a reference to violence in media (Cher debates the pros and cons with another student in class), it’s clear how prevalent the conversation actually was. 

By contrast, Jennifer’s Body’s commentary seems less intentional than Scream’s does, but just as relevant to what teenagers (specifically teenage girls) were dealing with in the music scene at the time. 

Written by Academy Award winner Diablo Cody and directed by Karyn Kusama, Jennifer’s Body is about a girl named Needy (Amanda Seyfried), who’s best friend Jennifer (Megan Fox) is sacrificed to the devil, by an emo band called Low Shoulder. While the band gets all the benefits of the sacrifice, something is terribly wrong with Jennifer. Possessed by a demon, she becomes a succubus who starts killing boys in their town. However, only Needy sees that there’s something up with Jennifer.

The film, a financial flop during its initial run, has been reconsidered in the last five to seven years and is now squarely a cult classic in the supernatural teen horror genre. Motivated by a cultural reevaluation of Megan Fox, her career, and the misogyny that reign supreme in the aughts (it often reminds of the Kristen Stewart conversations and her cultural reevaluation, especially in light of her and Megan’s queer identities and statuses as queer icons).

Since we’ve culturally changed our opinion on the film, we’ve talked a lot about the queerness of it, the biting feminism that exists in its characters, and the complicated nature of female friendship. And I could talk about those themes forever. About how brilliant it actually was to cast Megan Fox in a role like Jennifer Check, who was picked out of the crowd because she was eager to get in good with the band, but also because she was hot. That her attractiveness is weaponized against her to her ultimate murder, but when she comes back she aims to weaponize it herself.

feel like I could write essays upon essays about the very specific, meaningful way that everyone built Needy and Jennifer’s relationship. The way we have only recently started talking about the sometimes violent and, to quote Megan Fox, cannibalistic way that female friendships often exist. But also the queerness, and how sometimes those two things get wrapped up together into something dark and sexual and undefinable. 

But, more than anything… I wanna talk about the band. Which, I know sounds weird, but hear me out. The band in the film is made up of a couple of actual musicians and Adam Brody playing the front man. They’re an emo band, reminiscent of the five years in teenage counter culture prior to the film, and they’re just trying to give themselves an edge. 

Adam Brody’s role was, allegedly, offered to actual front men Pete Wentz (from Fall Out Boy) and Joel Madden (from Good Charlotte). But I think Brody is brilliant in the film (in a similar, but distinctly different way to how I love him in Ready or Not) because the few times we see Low Shoulder are painfully real. 

Diablo Cody mentioned this very thing during an ET interview she did with Megan Fox for the ten-year anniversary of the film. Because Me Too was in the midst of happening, it was attributed as a reason for the reevaluation of Jennifer’s Body by some people, “because it is dealing with themes of consent, assault, male abuse of power. And one of my favorite aspects of the movie is that the villains are this rock band who are perceived as, like, really sensitive and emo.” And can I just say, Miss Cody, it’s one of my favorite aspects of the film as well!

However, I don’t know that anyone involved, at least at the time, really realized how correct that sentiment was for contemporary teenage girls. In recent years, even before Me Too, there were tons and tons of allegations against many of the most popular emo and alternative bands from the middle and late aughts. The allegations ranged from grooming, to domestic violence, to full blown sexual assault of minors. Because that’s what teenagers are, they’re minors. And most people in bands are, despite what they might have you believe, are adults. Not only that, but they’re adults with power and access and people willing to cover things up. 

And while I don’t think that Kusama or Cody really meant for Jennifer’s Body to have this supremely real bit of commentary alongside all the other, more focused, elements of the story - it’s still very much present and revealing. It was something that happened in the shadows at shows, beyond the watchful gaze of parents. And as adults now, it’s something that a lot of women, who were girls when they were in that scene, are still processing and dealing with how to move forward from it. 

Scream and Jennifer’s Body are both supremely fun, messy, and cheer-inducing films. They have something very specific to say, but also have many themes and elements that are less explored in the context of the films. They’re both films that really exemplify a type of teenage mentality at the time they were released, but also contributed to what teen media looks like now. Especially when it comes to the horror genre. So, while there are elements in both films that maybe don’t age the best, I think they’ll both stand the test of time and are worthy of revisiting often.