Drew Barrymore in 'Scream' (Photo: Everett)

This story is being featured as part of our “Yahoo Best Stories of 2015” series. It was originally published in August 2015.

This week, Hollywood lost one of its greatest creators of modern horror, Wes Craven, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 76. In tribute, let’s look back on one of Craven’s finest career moments: the opening scene of 1996’s Scream. Those 13 terrifying minutes include all the ingredients that would make the movie a classic: Macabre humor, self-aware references to other horror films, over-the-top violence, and most importantly, the element of surprise. “It was our way of saying: ‘Hold onto your hats. Anything can happen in this movie,‘” producer Cary Woods told the New York Times in 1997. The opening scene of Scream — including the unexpected, gory death of the film’s biggest star— electrified audiences and critics, helping Scream to become one of the most talked-about and profitable films of 1996. Almost twenty years later, that brief scene of a teenage girl in peril is routinely discussed in film courses and referenced in other media – most recently, a tribute on MTV’s Scream television series. Here’s the inside story of how Scream’s iconic, nightmarish first scene came to be. (Warning: spoilers.)

Related: Remembering Wes Craven’s Most Terrifically Terrifying Movies

In the opening moments of Scream, the audience sees a teenage girl, Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore), alone in an upscale suburban kitchen, making herself popcorn on the stove. She begins to receive phone calls from a deep-voiced stranger, which at first seem like a prank. But the calls transition into something more sinister when the caller asks Casey the infamous question, “Do you like scary movies?” Soon it’s revealed that the unseen caller is playing a sadistic game with Casey, and before the scene is over, a masked killer later dubbed Ghostface has stabbed both Casey and her boyfriend (who was en route to her house for a movie night) in her own front yard. The last shot the audience sees of Barrymore is her character’s bloody body hanging from a tree.

Watch the beginning of the scene:

Written by screenwriter and Dawson’s Creek creator Kevin Williamson, that unforgettable scene initially gave Craven pause. Best known for A Nightmare on Elm Street, the director was reluctant to return to the slasher genre and turned Scream down — twice. “I read the opening of Scream, and it was just brutal. And I thought, ‘I can’t kill another poor girl!’” Craven said on Fangoria TV’s Screamography in 2006. Eventually, the frightening but irreverent script — which told the story of high school students being stalked by a masked killer, with plenty of meta-commentary and ironic humor about the horror movie genre — won Craven over, and he signed on to the project.

At that point, the movie already had its lead actress…or so Craven thought. Drew Barrymore had signed on to play Sidney Prescott, the resilient “final girl” ultimately portrayed by Neve Campbell. Barrymore’s participation led directly to Scream getting the green light from Miramax, but after Craven signed on, she called the producers to request a change. “Drew called and was like, ‘I don’t want to be Sidney. I have this great idea: I want to be Casey,’” producer Cathy Konrad recalled in the documentary Still Screaming, released as part of the 2011 Blu-Ray set. Barrymore later told EW that the opening scene was her favorite part of the script, saying, “The first scene was really reminiscent to me of When A Stranger Calls, like these great things that left you wanting more.” Barrymore’s change of heart pleased Williamson, who (according to his DVD commentary) thought that a big-name actress would add shock value to the opening. Indeed, Alfred Hitchcock had used the same trick to famous effect in 1960’s Psycho, stunning audiences when lead actress Janet Leigh’s character was murdered halfway through the film.

Producers re-cast the role of Sidney with Campbell, and Craven began working with Barrymore to develop the character of Casey. “Casey’s demeanor was very relaxed. She’s barefoot, and I remember the day I came up with that,” Barrymore said in a promotional interview. Though her character was only onscreen for a few minutes, Barrymore said that she and Craven had dinner every week for four months in preparation. “And we really got to know each other,” she said, “because it was really important to me to have a strong relationship with him — and to have that trust, so that I could look him in the eye and tell him my secrets of how to get me to that emotional level.”