Horror Favourites – James Watts

Directed by James Watts and written by James Watts and Kelly Watts, Death Trip is the latest horror to set our world on fire and we got a chance to talk to some of the cast and creatives behind it.

Four friends take a cottage trip in the dead of winter. During their stay, they discover dark details about the neighboring cottagers. After one of the friends is found mutilated, the group worries they’re being targeted by angry locals. Kelly Kay Hurcomb, Tatyana Olal, Garrett Johnson, Melina Trimarchi, Zoe Slobodzian, Bruce Watts, and Brad MacDonald star.

Below the brilliant James Watts runs us through his “10 reasons why Scream is my favourite horror movie of all time*

*even if I don’t think it is the best

1. Scream is the first horror movie that I ever watched: my older sister rented it with her friends one night and the next morning at, like, 6 am I snuck downstairs and watched it alone against my parents’ wishes.

2. It is a triumph of tone. Scream manages to be meta without being a parody. It’s a real horror movie that makes fun of horror movies. Side note: I always found it weird that Scary Movie parodied this… how can you mock something that’s already mocking itself?

3. Mathew Lillard gives an incredible performance. In the pantheon of great underrated performances, easily. When he cries “My mom’s going to be so mad at me” after being stabbed, it is genuinely shocking to me – one of the few moments in this movie that really emphasizes the reality of the situation. In Dave Cullen’s book about Columbine, he wrote that the shooters (who are widely remembered as “outcasts who were misunderstood by society”) were, in reality, huge bullies.

4. Allows you to experience a Psycho moment. One of my biggest movie fantasies is to wipe my memory and watch Psycho for the first time. If you breathe air and watch movies, you have a rough understanding that “a woman gets killed in a shower” in that film. It’s something that makes Psycho impossible to watch unspoiled. When I was a young kid in Ottawa, Ontario, I got my hands on a VHS copy of Scream, a movie that I was pretty sure starred Drew Barrymore, and got to witness the biggest twist in 90s horror cinema in all its glory, completely unspoiled.

5. Wes Craven = still got it. When Wes Craven was born, the Second World War was just beginning and The Wizard of Oz had just been released. He…is…old. And his ability to freak out the squares in 1996 is something I will always be in awe of.

6. There are a hilarious amount of red herrings. Maybe the most accurate piece of criticism about Death Trip is the ludicrous amount of red herrings that pop up throughout the movie. Personally, I find them funny and think they’re always fun, no matter how ridiculous. There’s a moment in Scream where I actually thought the killer might be Henry Winkler!

7. The “Scooby Doo aspect”. I love a whodunit and, while horror is the perfect genre for this kind of narrative, it doesn’t happen nearly as much as it should. I can’t think of another movie where you are honestly meant to believe that the murderer could be LITERALLY ANYONE – the careerist reporter, the scorned ex-stepfather, the jealous friend, the angry “nerd”. The possibilities are endless! And it mystery isn’t solved until someone makes a grand reveal – so fun!

8. It is a great primer for a kid who wants to get into the genre. If it were not for this movie, it would’ve taken me years to have heard about Black Christmas, Carrie, I Spit on Your Grave, Prom Night, Serial Mom, The Town That Dreaded Sundown… the list goes on

9. “Red Right Hand” is one of the best horror anthems. The only bad thing you’ll ever hear me say publicly about Scream 4 is that they somehow managed to forget how important Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are to the franchise. The tubular bell is violent and I don’t care what any of you Peaky Blinders fans say, “Red Right Hand” is the theme song to Scream…and that’s final!

10. I like the sequels. If they made Scream 10 tomorrow, I’d be first in line. It really comes down to the unmasking – in my opinion, there is no greater joy in this world than watching a Scream movie for the first time and spending the first 90 minutes agonizing over who I think the killer is. I hear they wrapped production on the 5th one last year. There might be a global pandemic and Wes Craven might be dead, but somehow the good folks at Spyglass Media found a way for Sidney Prescott to be chased down by some loser in a Ghostface costume… miracles can still happen.”

Death Trip is available now On Digital from Gravitas Ventures and Kamikaze Dogfight: