This Day in Horror History: Happy Birthday Kevin Williamson
Few filmmakers can claim to have completely changed the game, but Kevin Williamson did just that when he birthed the Scream franchise (partially inspired by a TV special about the Gainseville Ripper). Scream launched a new subgenre of meta-horror that was hugely influential in the 1990s and 2000s. Williamson wrote the screenplays for all four Scream movies (not to mention the Scream TV series) and is currently working on Scream 5; he also penned scripts for I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Faculty, Teaching Mrs. Tingle (which he also directed), and Cursed.
Trivia:
Kevin based the villainous character in Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999) on a teacher who screamed at him in front of the class and told him something he wrote was lousy and that he shouldn’t be writing. (Source)
Personal Quote:
“I like emotional horror. I don’t like horror movies. I hate them. But, if you can make emotional horror movies, I’m in. If I can care and root for the main character, then I’m in. I don’t like stupid stories about people I don’t know. There is a slew of low-budget horror films out there, where you just don’t give a crap. But, once in awhile, something will come along, like Halloween in 1978, and there’s this one girl, Jamie Lee Curtis, who’s that young, sweet girl, in the midst of all of this, and you just root for her and feel for her, all the way through the chase scene. You have to figure out how to do that and care for the characters.” (Source)
Kevin Williamson was born on March 14th, 1965 and, today, all of us at Dread Central wish him a very Happy Birthday!
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