To continue with October’s Halloween theme, this weekend I sent my Aunt Lea out once again to do a little Scream stalking. And this one was definitely a collaborative effort. Her mission, and she chose to accept it, was to stalk the grocery store used in my favorite horror movie. There had been some confusion on my part, though, as to what grocery store was actually used. While doing some cyber-stalking, I had read that a store named the Town and Country Market in Santa Rosa was the grocery store featured in Scream, but at the same time I couldn’t seem to find any sort of market in the area that went by that name.
Lea had an inkling, though, that the location used was actually a grocery store called Pacific Market, which happened to be located on a street named Town and Country Road. Turns out she was right, and in fact, what she found out in the course of her stalking is that during the time of filming 13 years ago, the market was actually named Town and Country. A few years ago, though, it was purchased by the family-owned Pacific Market chain and the name was changed. So, on Saturday evening Lea dragged her husband, Steve, out to Santa Rosa’s Pacific Market to do a little stalking for me. And apparently I am teaching Lea well, as after snapping some pics, she went up to one of the checkers to verify that the store was in fact used in Scream. Lea said she looked for the oldest checker on duty as she figured he had the greatest chance of working there at the time of filming. Nice! Anyway, the checker verified that filming did in fact take place at that location back in 1995, but that since it was owned by a different company at the time, no one who worked at Town and Country during the filming was currently employed there. 🙁 Bummer! But the good news is that even though the store was purchased by a new owner, for the most part the exterior looks exactly the same as it did in the Scream days.
Pacific Market is a fairly small, gourmet market specializing in locally-grown fresh produce, fine wine, and organic food. The market is actually only featured in one short scene towards the end of Scream. It is the location where Tatum and Sidney stock up on snacks for the party at Stu’s house after school gets cancelled for the day. In the scene, the girls are first shown entering the grocery store through a side entrance.
A few seconds later we see them walking down the frozen food aisle, while discussing Sidney’s relationship issues. At the very end of that scene, as the girls walk away from the freezer section, a reflection of the killer wearing the ghost mask appears on one of the freezer doors. Love it! I absolutely can’t wait to visit the grocery store myself someday. 🙂
Big thank you to my newest stalkers, Lea and Steve!
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: Pacific Market is located at 1465 Town and Country Drive in Santa Rosa, CA.