Just Stop Already! Issue #3: The Wilhelm Scream

 Just Stop Already!

 

Movies are a great art form, but Hollywood is a business, so if something translates into a financial success—whether it’s a genre or type of movie or a trend—chances are it will be exploited and repeated until people are sick of it. But, sometimes producers, writers, and/or directors want to cut corners, or are just desperate to make money, or are creatively bankrupt. All of these factors result in frustrations for the audience that take on many forms, and in this series I explore some of the tropes, trends, bad habits, and financial exploits of Hollywood films. Sometimes when it comes to movies, I feel like saying…just stop already!

 

Issue #3: The Wilhelm Scream

 

At some point in every cinephile’s life, they learn about the Wilhelm scream. Chances are you have heard this famous movie sound effect before no matter how much or how little you are into movies, but usually only people who really get into them eventually notice it and realize what it is. The Wilhelm scream has been recycled by Hollywood over and over in countless movies and TV shows for over seventy years, first being used in the 1951 film Distant Drums. It was inducted into the Warner Bros. stock sound library after its initial use, but since then it has made its way into the audio of movies from numerous studios, to the point that I’m not sure you actually do need to be a cinephile anymore to recognize it.

If this scream is so famous, you say, what movies might we know it from? Let’s start off with arguably one of the most famous uses, because it’s in one of the most famous movies of all-time. The sound designer for 1977’s Star Wars, Ben Burtt, created many iconic sound effects for many movies, but perhaps none more recognizable than those from the galaxy far, far away. These include the noise of the blasters by modifying the sound of a steel cable being struck under tension and the breathing of Darth Vader by putting a microphone into a scuba diving regulator, but he is also responsible for turning the Wilhelm scream into an inside joke, first inserting it rather conspicuously when a Stormtrooper falls down a Death Star shaft which Luke and Leia swing across moments later. Then, he used it again in The Empire Strikes Back, and again in Return of the Jedi. Hardcore Star Wars fans were among the first to recognize the famous recycling of that scream. 

There’s a certain amount of crossover between Star Wars fans and Indiana Jones fans, which is no coincidence, given George Lucas conceived of both, but Ben Burtt did the sound design for the Indy films as well, and you can bet he used the Wilhelm scream again in all of them. Even the Star Wars parody Space Balls used it. At this point it sounds like I might be making this up or exaggerating, but it’s all true. Do we need some more examples? In Batman Returns, Batman throws a goon over a railing, and the guy screams the Wilhelm scream as he falls to his death. Buzz Lightyear screams the very same scream when he gets knocked out of Andy’s window in the first Toy Story. It’s audible in the car crash scene halfway through Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, his half of the double feature Grindhouse, though the sound isn’t attributable to a specific character.

Unsurprisingly, filmmakers inspired by other filmmakers who liked the Wilhelm scream also ended up using it in their own movies. One of the Elves at Helm’s Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers screams the same way as a guy who gets dropped by a drake in Return of the King—who also screams the same way as another guy knocked off the back of an oliphaunt by Legolas. Then, in The Hobbit trilogy, director Peter Jackson used it again in each movie, though much less subtlety. Some of the most famous directors of the past fifty years have indulged in their fair share of Wilhelm screams, but at this point, what started as a bit of a secretive inside joke is now right out in the open.

I think it’s time for the Wilhelm scream to be retired—at least from certain kinds of movies. It used to just be a generic scream sound effect that the average moviegoer wasn’t supposed to really notice, but now it’s instantly recognizable. It’s been used so many times over it isn’t just identifiable as “that movie scream” or even “that Star Wars scream” anymore, but instead is getting more and more well known for what it’s actually called (the name comes from the character Private Wilhelm who screams it in 1953’s The Charge at Feather River). I don’t mean to be a party pooper, but if it were to be used in a mainstream movie that I’m meant to take seriously, hearing it would instantly take me out of the experience if it can be heard clearly. Movies are supposed to be immersive, and the Wilhelm scream shatters immersion for many viewers now because of its overuse.

Screenshot from the first use of the Wilhelm Scream in "Distant Drums"

If it’s used in a comedy and is supposed to be noticed in order to generate a laugh, that’s fine. It’s kind of like how Wet Hot American Summer overuses the pottery break sound effect (in both the original movie and the Netflix shows) and it makes you laugh because it’s so absurd. The Wilhelm scream, despite it originally being a legitimate sound effect, has now become so absurdly overheard that it can’t just be used as a generic scream anymore. The reason it was overused so much initially was because of the expense of recording new sound effects, but now that doesn’t seem like a valid excuse. In fact, filmmakers can’t just use it whenever they feel like it, they actually need to seek permission and acquire the right to use it. It isn’t like this is an archaic scream from old movies only, it’s still used in modern TV shows and movies, and in ones where you shouldn’t be jarred from the scene because you notice it.

This is one of those Hollywood trends that might never die, it seems. It’s become such a famous auditory reference that many new creators like to pay tribute to it by putting it in their own projects (not even realizing they first heard it in movies that were already doing the same thing), but more and more people are getting sick of hearing it repeatedly like I am. I still find the Wilhelm scream fun to hear in certain older movies and classics like Star Wars, but when I hear it in a new movie it just takes me out of it. Usually it’s in an action or adventure movie, but if all these movies keep having the same sound effect, eventually it will lose all meaning, and then what was once a fun little Easter egg for cinephiles will just become a boring standard. At this point, it’s become an overused joke that no longer serves its original purpose, nor is it funny anymore, so like all jokes that get recycled ad nauseum, it’s time for it to just stop already.