“Screams from the Tower” is for the ’90s Weirdos
High school is a lot easier if you have good friends to stand by your side. It’s why all the teen movies are made or broken by the oddball group that surrounds the main character. Cory Wexler Grant takes a sidekick sort of character and makes them the star of his debut feature film, Screams from the Tower. Set in 1995, the film has the standard framework of a high school movie. A teen wants to find a place in this world at a time when it feels like nothing makes sense. In the case of Screams from the Tower, that means of self-exploration comes in the form of radio.
Julien (Richie Fusco) and best friend Cary (David Bloom) are loners, but they have each other. Their high school has a radio station, and every year students audition to have a program on the airwaves. This, according to Julien, is the most important thing he and Cary can do. Their show is called “Screams from the Tower,” and it allows them to revel in their strange, silly dynamic. It also brings more fame and notoriety than either could have imagined, but the bigger the show gets, the harder it is for the friends to find balance.
Screams from the Tower harkens back to teen films with precociously irritating, yet ultimately endearing main characters. While at first Screams from the Tower seems like it will center equally on Julien and Cary, Julien becomes the undisputed main focus as the movie goes on. He’s a bit of a villain, but in the same way Reese Witherspoon’s Tracy Flick in Election is a bit of a nightmare of a self-centered teenager. In the same way most teenagers are before they’ve figured out how to make sense of our world. Julien is singularly focused, but must learn that his actions do not exist in a vacuum.
courtesy of Screams from the Tower
Beneath this quest for high school fame is a queer coming-of-age story. That angle never takes the full focus of the film, but the undercurrent is threaded throughout the entire movie. It was difficult to be gay in the ’90s during the AIDS epidemic, but it was harder still to be a teenager. Screams from the Tower implies a lot without saying much about the weight of keeping a secret like this when it already feels like the world misunderstands you. It would be nice for a little more of the implicit queerness to be touched on, but it’s also good that these kids can just exist and have plenty of problems with an identity outside of their sexuality.
“I think that you are weird,” says the radio teacher to Julien and Cary when she hears their first show. She’s right. They are weird. Their jokes are often stupid, but they’re also undeniably themselves. To be a teenager and to feel confident enough to outwardly live one’s truth is a special thing. It’s even more special to have a friend who encourages you to use that freedom of expression. Screams from the Tower is a love letter to the analog days of radio and a sweet little flick about weirdos finding a wavelength all their own.
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