SCREAMING SERVICE

Check out my short review of Baz Luhrmann's EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert...

...online at Phoenix Magazine.

The weekend's other big theatrical release, Scream 7...

...was not screened for critics before release, at least not in the Phoenix area. Make of that what you will. In lieu of a review, therefore, here are seven great movie screams [spoilers throughout!]:

I'm aware, of course, that any or all of these screams may have been partially or entirely the work of a clever sound designer; the first two listed below certainly are. But that's the magic of the movies, right? The point is, they're effective.

7. The Wilhelm Scream--Originally created for a scene of Sheb Wooley being attacked by an alligator in the 1951 Florida-set period adventure Distant Drums, this scream earned its moniker when it was looped, rather unconvincingly, as the scream of a "Private Wilhelm" in the 1953 western The Charge at Feather River. The shriek of shock and dismay has been used dozens if not hundreds of times thereafter, in movies ranging from the original Star Wars to Toy Story. It's particularly effective with characters falling from high places.

6. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)--Like the Wilhelm Scream, this one is also studio-generated, but unlike the Wilhelm Scream, it's not even of human origin. It's the screech of revulsion let out by a soulless pod person when they recognize, and point out to their pod brethren, an unsnatched human. Legendary sound designer Ben Burtt, a popularizer of the Wilhelm Scream, created the effect for Philip Kaufman's classic '70s-era remake of the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, using the squeal of a pig. It chillingly distills the sense of being identified, and publicly denounced, for being out of sync with the masses.

5. Them!--Few who have seen the 1954 sci-fi masterpiece by Gordon Douglas about giant ants are likely to forget the moment: The catatonic little girl (Sandy Descher) found wandering in the New Mexico desert gets her memory jogged by a whiff of formic acid, and lets out a cry of horror followed by repeated screams of "Them! Them! Them!"

4. The Godfather (1972)--The scream to which I'm referring in this one comes when John Marley gets Marlon Brando's famous offer he can't refuse, waking up to the severed head of his beloved horse in bed with him. It was Marley's iconic moment onscreen; his wails somehow get across not only terror but a palpable despair, at the evil with which he's confronted, and his powerlessness against it.

3. Psycho (1960) (1)--In the shower scene of Hitchcock's 1960 classic, Janet Leigh begins the family tradition which her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis would carry on 1978's Halloween and other films: a full-throated, full-screen scream of the highest order. But...

2.  Psycho (1960) (2)--...I would argue that the scream that Vera Miles lets out near the end of the same movie, when she at last meets Mrs. Bates face to face, is at least as good. Both are greatly abetted, of course, by the musical shrieks of Bernard Hermann's strings.

1. King Kong (1933)--Can there really be any question of first place? The very name "Fay Wray" evokes the gold standard in "scream." Not only did Wray scream the best, she probably screamed the most, from her first meeting with the title simian to his Waterloo atop of the Empire State Building.

Of course I realize that this is far from a definitive list; these are just seven that occurred to me. What obvious candidates have I forgotten? Feel free to scream at me.