Scream (1996)

Steve’s sleep paralysis demon looks exactly like Drew Barrymore, so the opening of Scream is less a horror movie for him and more a nature documentary. He picked it anyway. Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s 1996 meta slasher is Steve’s pick to close out Shocktoberfest II: Electric Boogaloo, which is brave for a man who apparently sees Casey Becker every time he tries to sleep.

Neither dad came in a seasoned expert. Steve thinks he caught it once in college, maybe, and then forgot about it until Heather brought it up about a decade ago and he realized he’d never actually made it to the end. (He did, however, own the Scream 2 soundtrack. For the Dave Matthews Band song. Priorities.) Nic saw it in theaters in ‘96 and then went on a long horror sabbatical that only ended when this podcast dragged him back in.

What follows is a loving, slightly unhinged lap around Woodsboro. Barrymore reportedly asked to be the big star who dies in the first ten minutes, which has Nic wondering whether Steven Seagal made the same noble sacrifice in Executive Decision. (Sure. Famously generous guy.) Henry Winkler’s uncredited principal kicks off a whole Seagal-to-Winkler spectrum of movie-star ego, and his giant scissors get compared to the ones you’d use to open a new gas station. The “teenagers” are all ruled old enough to rent a car. Nic also has some genuinely useful life advice: buy a small house so the smoke alarm can do its job. And don’t expect your garage door to commit to a kill like that one, since his stops for a cardboard flap.

Then Steve, speaking as “an overweight, bald, funny guy,” figures David Arquette must be absolutely hilarious in person. Nic pictures poor Adam Duritz finding out that Arquette noodling on a campfire guitar got the same raves from Courteney Cox as August and Everything After. And by the end, the show officially needs a hashtag for CRT TVs to the face.

Lock the doors, check the closet, and for the love of God, downsize.