By recreating classic movie moments that look so cathartic onscreen, Eliza Janssen hopes to improve her own life, such as by being Scream‘s Ghostface to get over her phone call anxiety. This is…I’ve Always Wanted To Do That.
This Halloween, I attempted to conquer one of my more lame fears: ‘telephonophobia’, which is exactly what is sounds like. Actually maybe it’s not an all-out phobia, just a strong aversion. Like many young people too used to the comfort of casual, impersonal texts and emails, I definitely have to gather myself a bit before trying to sound professional on a call.
There’s something so paralysing about being unable to express yourself with your face or frantic hand gestures—you can’t charm your way out of that chilling second “sorry, I didn’t get that, can you hear me now?” And that’s without even mentioning the many horror movies based in the disembodied eeriness of telecommunication. Look, I even made a list of ‘em on Flicks a while back.
Now that Ghostface geezer, he’s always smooth as hell on the line. Roger L. Jackson has voiced the sneering masked killer in every Scream film, no matter who the real culprit is. Maybe it’s that unrealistically sophisticated voice changer that gives him the self-confidence to cold-call Woodsboro teens and never say “um” or “like”.
By adopting Ghostface’s mask, cloak and nosiness one rainy night at the end of the spooky season, I hoped to shake off some of my anxiety about sounding like a dweeb on the phone. And at the same time, to conduct an informal poll of my social circle’s favourite scary movies.
One method would’ve been to simply do my best gravelly impression, but I instead opted to rip a bunch of audio files from the movie to use as a crude soundboard. Hilariously, iTunes auto-categorised these sinister snippets of dialogue as falling under the “Blues” genre.
I held my phone up to my computer’s speaker and called my first victim. It would be too mean, I reasoned, to call strangers and for a moment threaten them with visions of themselves in a blonde bob wig getting eviscerated. So I started with a gullible family member, gradually making my way down the list of those who’d texted or called me last.
Her chirpy greeting was met with “hello, Sydney”. She didn’t quite hear that so I went for a slight variation: “hello Sydney: welcome to your final act!” Then she got the picture, asking me to stop it as the voice was “too scary”. I had to play the audio of Ghostface asking after Sydney’s fave scary movie twice, and finally got a calm response.
“Probably Halloween, just because I like Jamie Lee Curtis.”
“I like that movie”, Ghostface agreed. “It was scaaary.”
The next two calls were not picked up, and at that moment I realised a fatal flaw in Ghostface’s tactics for our advanced modern age. Despite the 2022 Scream legacy sequel being stubbornly audio-based, nobody answers their phone these days. It was part of why I didn’t want to cold call, or disguise my number: I never pick up calls from unrecognised numbers, as they’re always some insurance or energy-saving scam.
But if I was this scared of phone contact, to the point where I was borrowing Wes Craven’s moves to confront it, it meant that many people I know probably feel the same.
As call after call failed, I started to get texts confirming my suspicions: “u good?”, “Can we message? I’m busy :P”, “Will call tomorrow if its important”. And Ghostface does not leave voicemails. I sent some voice messages instead to friends who mainly communicate that way, and got this blunt response from one person: “the bitch has lost it.”
I started to see that I could never be a stone cold killer like Billy and Stu, or any of their copycats. It was nerve-wracking to get on people’s nerves, and one interaction just made me feel deeply guilty—when a caring friend sounded disturbed on the call, hung up, and texted me asking whether I’d been abducted. Before giving up and realising that not many of my mates would be of any use in the event of a real abduction, I managed to get a small pool of answers: the favourite scary movies of scared acquaintances put on the spot.
“Poltergeist. I know it’s not considered scary anymore but for the effect it had on me at that time in my life…If not that, then Final Destination 2, when logs fly off a truck on the highway.”
“Psycho.”
“Ghostbusters (2016)”. :/
“Jaws? If that’s a horror movie?” (Yes it is.)
All classics that clearly sprung to mind, but one got two votes, and for pretty obvious reason: Scream, with one respondent saying that the opening scene “puts it over the line for me”. Oh you mean this scene that you’re living? Right now?? Convenient.
As with any hopes of gifting people the cursed VHS tape from Ringu, I feel this attempt to reenact an iconic horror moment is hindered by our advanced, socially isolated times. But, in between the endless ringing and apologising, I got to have some brief yet heartening conversations with people I care about. Which was lovely on a bitter, rain-soaked All Hallows’ Eve. Who knows—Scream could’ve ended very differently if Ghostface’s victims took a tad more interest in his personal life.
