June 23, 2008
Before Scream hit theaters in 1996, slasher movies were more often than not nothing but guilty fun. Though the classics like the original Halloween way back in 1978 offered up true suspense, the formula was almost always the same for the hundreds of movies that followed : no name stars, gratuitous nudity, thin premise and tons of low budget gore. The slasher genre of horror flicks became a parody of itself, with movies like Killer Workout -- where the killer offed nubile young aerobics instructors . . . with a giant safety pin -- becoming the norm.
For awhile, slasher movies faded from the mainstream. Then came Scream, a movie with a big name horror director, a cast of relatively well known actors, and a unique premise: what if the characters in a scary movie were fans of scary movies themselves? If they knew all the rules of the genre, would they be able to escape the crazed killer who is after them?