In the 1990s horror movies where not as popular as they used to be, they had sort of became a joke. Now it was December 20, 1996 and something new had released in theaters: Scream directed by Wes Craven the same Wes Craven that directed the original Nightmare On Elm Street on November 9, 1984. When Scream released in 1996 it was an absolute hit making $173 million worldwide. Another slasher movie wouldn’t make that much money till 2018 when the Halloween reboot was made.
What did Scream do right???
Scream was a massive success for many reasons. Still one of the main reasons is that it was a different horror movie. By this I mean that it broke the horror movie formula and tried something new. According to http://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film this is the basic formula for a slasher film “Because suspense is one of the most important qualities in a frightening flick, the equation is (es+u+cs+t) squared before shock (s) is added to the formula.” From this we know that there needs to be a specific formula.
Usually in a horror/slasher film there is only one killer playing the role of the antagonist, however in Scream there was two killers that are two different normal people. In the movie you have to figure out who the killer is, this was a new thing for horror films.
Scream broke the mold for a normal horror/slasher movie and it worked! This shows that you don’t always have to do the same thing, trying something new sometimes works. So now the Scream movies have their own formula they have fallen into which is okay.
Did Scream revive the slasher/horror genre???
To some people Scream is what revived the horror genre. During the 1980s the horror genre was absolutely booming with films like Aliens (1986) with 98% on rotten tomatoes or A Nightmare On ElmStreet (1984) with a 95% on rotten tomatoes.
In the 1990s the number one horror movie in rotten tomatoes was The Ring (1998) which released after Scream in 1996.
Conclusion
So now we know Scream was a massive hit as we saw it was a massive game changer for horror. So with that this was Cinema Rules…
Cinema Rules 