Philomena Cunk looks at Edvard Munch’s The Scream and asks art historian Richard Thomson: “Drew Barrymore dies at the start of this painting, doesn’t she?”
Diane Morgan delivers the question as her fictional interviewer in Cunk on Life, the Charlie Brooker-written mockumentary that aired on December 30, 2024. She follows up by asking about a gallery Scream 2 and whether Munch based his painting on the film.
Munch painted The Scream in 1893 and died in 1944. Wes Craven’s Scream arrived in 1996.
The death she’s remembering belongs to Casey Becker, Barrymore’s character, whose phone conversation with a stranger becomes the film’s opening murder sequence. Barrymore had initially signed on to play Sidney Prescott, the lead role that went to Neve Campbell. She asked to play Casey instead.
Barrymore’s face dominated the poster, helping set up the expectation that she’d be the protagonist. In August 2020, she explained that choice on Hot Ones: she wanted to “take that comfort zone away.” Craven described killing “America’s sweetheart” as “like a body punch to the audience.”
There’s an actual connection between the painting and the horror franchise: Craven compared the Ghostface mask to Munch’s The Scream. The mask already existed before the film, and its designer, Brigitte Sleiertin, credited 1930s cartoon ghosts as her inspiration.
