Am I a Mother, or a Character in a Scream Movie?

Ghostface: “What’s your favourite scary movie?”

Me: “Scream (1996), of course!”

That's right, Mr Ghostface, not only is the original Scream my favourite scary movie, it's my favourite movie and movie franchise of all time.

I remember the first time I watched the original Scream movie. I was an awkward 13-year-old at a slumber party with my friends. I was so excited to be watching something I wouldn’t be allowed to watch at home. Growing up in a house with parents who didn’t permit me to watch horror movies until I was an appropriate age, I had a real curiosity and fascination for them. I loved the movie and I slept well that night—no nightmares. I enjoyed being kept on the edge of my seat the entire time, guessing until the very end who the killer (or killers) would be. To this day, Scream remains my comfort movie, something I will turn to when I’m feeling down, or just need something on in the background. There’s something I find strangely cosy about the chaos of the movie, just like the parental chaos in my own life.

So, for anyone who doesn’t know, Scream is set in a small town called Woodsboro, where a teenage girl, Sidney Prescott, is stalked by a masked killer who uses classic horror movie stereotypes to play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. As everyone around her falls victim to the killer, Sidney has to face her past and fight for survival.

What do I love about Scream? It’s the perfect combination of fear, gore, wit, and resilience—everything I experience every day as a mum to a toddler. That concoction inspires me to write my stories and to keep going. I like to keep my writing honest, with a touch of humour, and I’m not afraid to speak about what keeps me up at night. Just like Sidney, I’m trying to survive the disarray that has become my life since motherhood, and find moments of positivity and strength.

Fear

Sidney might be constantly on the run from Ghostface, but I experience my own fears about motherhood on a daily basis. Am I doing the right thing? Is this going to screw him up later in life? He seems a little clingy—is he coming down with some horrible illness I don’t know about? These are the kinds of thoughts that spiral in my head and manifest into my own very real fear of doing something wrong.

Gore

Yesterday, I was changing my son’s nappy, trying to move as quickly as possible because I’d found a rare moment where he was cooperating and lying still for me! I flung the nappy so hard at the nappy bin that a bit of poo fell out and slid down the mirror on his wardrobe. My life might come with fewer knife wounds and less blood, but it has its own kind of gore.

Humour

Despite everything going wrong, Scream is full of some classic one-liners to take the edge off a little. Even when I’m stressed or up to my eyeballs in human excrement and dribble, my son will do or say something funny to put a smile on my face, and then I know we’ll survive another crazy day. It could be a funny face he pulls, or the way he throws my carefully prepared meal on the floor and then points at his plate saying, “Blue bees”, indicating he just wants blueberries. It’s small moments like these that help me see the lighter side of life.

Resilience

Spoiler alert: How many times has Ghostface tried to kill Sidney Prescott now? She’s been in five of the Scream movies, and her life has been at risk in every one, but she keeps on fighting. She decided to take a break for Scream 6, but she probably needed some time for self-care—she’s a mother now, after all! Being a mother is similar: some days, you’re so exhausted or unwell that you don’t know how you’ll make it through the day—but you have to get up and keep going, because life doesn’t stop for mums to rest and recover. If Sidney can keep surviving Ghostface, I can get out of bed and survive another day of mum life, and then write about it.

To quote Sidney Prescott, “But this is life. This isn't a movie.”

Motherhood is exactly like living a horror movie—constant fear you’re going to make a huge mistake, the gore from the balancing act of nappy changes, those humorous moments to lighten the mood, and the resilience that keeps you going.