Drew Barrymore Takes Credit for Popularizing Caller ID in ‘Scream’

Scream continues to be one of the most beloved horror movies of the ‘90s — suck it, I Know What You Did Last Summer — as evidenced by the myriad sequels, the Scream TV adaptation and the countless Halloween costumes inspired by the iconic mask that the film’s producers randomly found in a senior citizen’s house. But it also changed the way people used phones.

Famously, the first movie’s opening prologue finds Drew Barrymore being bumped off by Ghostface, right after gives her the homicidal Jerky Boys treatment. And throughout the franchise, the killer made a habit out of calling up victims and inquiring about their favorite “scary movie,” all while using a vocal distortion device seemingly set to “Threatening FM Radio DJ.”

Even in the ‘90s, it seemed as though many of Ghostface’s evil schemes could have been thwarted by caller ID. So many people pointed this out at the time that Scream 2 literally began with Neve Campbell’s character Sidney Prescott busting a wannabe prankster using this feature.

Not unlike how Jaws inspired a number of idiots to mass-murder sharks, Scream may have caused a spike in caller ID subscriptions from freaked out fans. Per Entertainment Weekly, Barrymore herself once claimed that caller ID use tripled after Scream came out, a fact she pointed out as she hosted the CBS Sunday Night Movie in 2020. Although Barrymore doesn’t cite her source, the suggestion that there was a trifold increase in caller ID customers after the movie hit theaters has been frequently shared as a curious piece of Scream trivia. 

While caller ID, which was first conceived of way back in 1968 by Greek inventor Theodore Paraskevakos, did become a staple of telephonic tech in the late ‘90s, it’s also possible that the timing of its popularity and the release of Scream was a total coincidence.

On the other hand, caller ID was initially greeted with controversy, with critics bemoaning the “loss of privacy,” but pop culture, including the fictional concerns raised by Scream, as well as No Doubt’s “Spiderwebs” seemingly helped to normalize it. 

So perhaps making caller ID a thing really is a part of Barrymore’s legacy, in addition to acting, alleged  real-life brain injury into romcom gold.