The Facts on The Wilhelm Scream
Have you ever been watching a movie, heard a character scream, and thought “weird, that sounded really familiar to another character who screamed in Pirates of the Caribbean… and Toy Story… oh and Anchorman… and in Avengers: Infinity War”?
Then after some careful thought, you realize you heard that same scream in about 200 other movies, tv shows, commercials, and video games. What’s going on? Do all these characters just have the same voice when they’re falling? Of course not, but all these movies are using the same pre-taped scream known as the Wilheim Scream.
Wait, Why Do Movies Need Dubbed Screaming?
In case you didn’t know, a lot of times actors’ screams are dubbed over (recorded over) with screams done in a voice booth by either the same actors, like Hugh Jackman in Logan, or by voice-over artists who might specialize in screaming.
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The reason for this is pretty simple, real screams don’t sound all that effective or get drowned out by other background noise when filming a scene. For example take horror movies, movies that are essentially 50% screams and 50% everything else, now think about the last few times you’ve been scared, are you always screaming at the top of your lungs?
People have a flight, fight, or freeze response to fear which means some people will freeze up instead of screaming and that won’t fly in a horror movie.
“Yea but that does make my job easier if I’m hunting teens.”
So it’s easier for directors/editors to just have a voice-over artist record some screams matching the scene and then edit in that scream. But other times, that might not be an option so they use some stock footage or pre-recorded screams like the famous/infamous Wilhelm scream.
I add in “infamous” because a lot of criticism for using the Wilhelm scream is that it pulls you out of the movie. This makes sense, voice over work is hard work because those actors are matching the voice and actions of the actor on screen. If you throw in that Wilhelm scream with its distinctive voice and sound, you might be taken aback. So just where did this scream come from and why is it so famous?
The Origin of the Wilhelm Scream
Turns out the usage of the scream started off as one little inside joke that sort of just turned into a tradition/meme and its story goes back to 1951. That year a western film called Distant Drums decided they needed some stock screams to be used for the film.
Several actors jumped or maybe just walked normally at the opportunity to record their screams. After the recording of a few screams no one ever imagined one of them would later be immortalized in cinema.
They were so sure the screams were nowhere near revolutionary that the screams were put on a reel and labeled things like “Man being eaten by alligator” and tossed into a closet.... or carefully placed, I don’t know I wasn’t there.
“We just toss shit in there and hope for the best”
Distant Drums was distributed by Warner Bros AKA one of the only Entertainment giants not owned by Disney… yet. But this meant that the sounds used in the film were part of their sound library. Any other film could use the sounds if approved and it clearly was, hence this article.
In the 1953 film The Change at Feather River, a familiar scream was reused when a character was shot in the leg by an arrow. That character’s name?
Private Wilhelm. That’s it, the Wilhelm scream was cemented in film history and used in almost every movie since then… except it wasn’t. The scream tape was tossed back into the closet under the name “Man being eaten by Alligator” and forgotten about for almost 25 years.
The Wilhelm Scream’s New Hope
It wasn’t until future Academy Award-winning sound designer Ben Burtt in 1977 felt a little movie called Star Wars needed a little extra oomph during a scene when a stormtrooper is shot and falls. Or maybe when the actor fell his scream was muffled or he said something not PG.
“OHHHH FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”
Ben Burtt remembered he heard a distinctive scream before and went to look for it in Warner Bros sound library. He eventually found it and proceeded to use it on Star Wars and many other films he worked on thereafter as a little inside joke.
It also helped that he was the sound designer or work in the sound department of some of the most influential movies of the late 70s and 80s, like all the Star Wars films, all the Indiana Jones films, and Howard the Duck. Shut up, it’s good.
Ben’s friend and fellow sound designer Richard Anderson got in on the joke and used it as well in some pretty famous movies like Poltergeist (1982) and Batman Returns (1992).
The joke grew and grew when more people started recognizing that familiar scream and unsurprisingly it started to be used in other films as a tribute to Ben’s work. Eventually, Burtt decided to find out who was screaming and after seeing it in the film The Charge at Feather River he coined it the “Wilhelm Scream”. Not realizing that it first started in the movie Distant Drums.
But when people found the original scream in Distant Drums it was still just titled Man being eaten by an alligator. It turns out no one really knows who recorded the original Wilhelm Scream.
Ben Burtt did some more research and his best guess is that it came from Sheb Wooley, one of the only actors from Distant Drums that was called back to do voice cuts. Chances are they also asked him to give them his best “you’re being eaten by an alligator” scream.
Quick Facts
Some sources say the Wilhelm scream has been used over 400 times throughout all of media. Seems legit but I was being safe with my estimate of 200.
2015’s Star Wars The Force Awakens was the last time the Wilhelm scream was used in a Star Wars film
