Be very afraid: ECU alum Kevin Williamson directs ‘Scream 7’

This is not a scene from a biopic of when Kevin Williamson ’87 was an East Carolina University student, but it could have been. While the award-winning screenwriter, director and filmmaker was a theater student at ECU, he penned a one-act play and hid it in a drawer.

“I’ve been writing ever since I was a kid. I wrote a lot of short stories. I wrote a lot of plays. During college, I started a one-act play, which was basically the opening scene of ‘Scream,’” Williamson said.

A few years later, a house-sitting experience brought that script to the forefront of Williamson’s mind. He was inspired to revisit the story. Soon there was a screenplay — “Scary Movie” — for what became “Scream,” the 1996 blockbuster thriller that launched a slasher franchise.

“I was house-sitting for a friend and I was watching a special on the Gainesville Ripper (serial killer Danny Rolling) and it creeped me out so much,” Williamson recalls. “I remember being in this home I wasn’t familiar with, walking into the den one night and the window was open. And I’m like, ‘Has that window always been open?’

He called a friend — David Blanchard — from ECU to share that he thought someone was in the house.

“I basically walked around the house with a knife, checking under the bed and in the shower just to make sure no one was there. He stayed on the phone with me and he started making fun of me and we started talking about horror movies.”

Terror within the familiar setting of a small town living room drew fans to the theaters to be scared. A treasure trove of actors have come through the “Scream” movies.

Scream Again and Again

The fear and the familiar is back for “Scream 7.” Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and other original characters, and a new Ghostface killer, are part of the story. Williamson returned as director.

“I’ll do anything for Neve,” Williamson said about his decision to direct “Scream 7.” “She’s amazing, absolutely spectacular in the movie.”

“Neve is so terrific and Courteney Cox is back and she’s amazing. And together they’re so much fun to work with,” Williamson said. “It was a lot of fun. It was one of the most exciting and rewarding things I’ve done. And I’m so happy I did it. We all worked really hard.”

‘Scream 7’ director and ECU alumnus Kevin Williamson stands on the set of his recent show, “The Waterfront.”

Williamson said the original “Scream” came together at a time when the slasher horror film genre had died off. Everyone felt they had seen all of the horror movies. For Williamson, “Scream” leans into the expectation that everyone knows the tropes, they believe they know what is behind the door. Enter Williamson to “put a bunch of characters together who have seen all those movies, and they talk about them to an exhaustive degree, and then we’ll watch someone come along and kill them.”

“Scream 2” started quickly after the original. Williamson thought the series was over. “Wes (Craven) and I got together and decided that there was possibly another story to tell. And so we started working, you know, that’s how ‘Scream 4’ was born. After ‘Scream 4,’ it died again.”

Craven was a mentor and friend. When he died in 2015, Williamson was certain the franchise was complete.

“I didn’t see how there’d be another ‘Scream’ without him and I just felt like it was over,” he said. “It was over for me.”

A new team began working on “Scream 5.” They wanted Williamson to be involved. He declined. Eventually, Williamson was convinced to be connected to the fifth film after assurances that it would be dedicated to Craven.

“I ended up entering into this world of people that had such a love of the franchise. They wanted to make a great movie,” Williamson said. “They set out to make a really fun horror film, and they all loved the original. They had a passion for it. It just sort of woke me up.”

Williamson was involved while also working on other projects. Plans for “Scream 6” pulled him in further.

“It continues to resonate. I don’t know why, I’m just so happy that it did,” he said. “I feel like it’s a franchise that the people who are making it care passionately about it. They’re really trying hard to keep it fresh and alive and new. I’m very blessed and happy to be a part of it.”

Familiar Scenes, New Killer

There’s a new killer and new motive in every “Scream,” which separates it from other franchises. “Scream 7” returns to fictional Woodsboro, California, and to Sidney Prescott (Campbell).

“We’re returning to small-town America, and we’re returning to Sidney Prescott and where she is in her life, in her family,” Williamson said. “This particular movie deals with her and it’s more of a mother-daughter relationship. We’ve always put a female character at the front center of this franchise, and that’s been by design.”

Williamson said the Carpenter sisters, in earlier movies, were a powerhouse duo, who created a sisterhood, much like Campbell and Cox’s characters did.

“We’re continuing that. Hopefully, the audience will respond to it because that was our goal, is to do something new, but also give the audience Sidney Prescott again,” Williamson said. “We haven’t seen her as a mother. We haven’t seen her in her home life, and then what happens when that’s disrupted.”

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