What's Your Favourite Scary Movie? - The Importance of Horror Movie Rules

This blog post contains spoilers for 'Scream' (1996)

When the film 'Scream' hit cinemas in 1996, it introduced a new genre of horror that hadn't been explored before; the kind that actually poked some fun at the genre itself. 'Scream' took a satirical angle of the slasher genre, exploring refreshing self-awareness and what is now known as the 'rules of horror.' The rules are discussed by the characters in comedic fashion, based entirely off tropes created by slashers of horror-past such as 'Nightmare on Elm Street', 'Friday the 13th' and 'Halloween'. 

'Scream' is famous for the false protagonist trope, which added to the originality of the film itself but also made it so much more fun for the viewers. If the girl in the actual poster for the film, A-list actress Drew Barrymore, can die within the first ten minutes of the film, then how was any character going to be safe? 'Scream' challenged the seasoned horror-movie goer in a way that they weren't used to, and acknowledged in painfully self-aware bliss that this was something they definitely hadn't seen before. 

So, 'Scream' took all it could gather from horror movies of the past and applied it to their own Ghost-faced killer in order to try to survive, but how could you survive this one? 

1. You might die if you have sex

2. You might die if you drink or do drugs

3. You might die if you say 'Hello?' or 'Who's There?'

After a series of deaths in the film followed by characters breaking these exact rules, we are hit again with another twist. The killer wasn't just one character, but two all along. The whole film is spent by the audience attempting to guess who the killer is and we're surprised with a double whammy. 

So what did 'Scream' really achieve in its 111-minute runtime? Well, it made the audience suddenly think of every other horror movie they'd ever seen and 'ahh' at the obvious rule-breaking in all of them that led to character deaths. But most of all, it set the scene for a whole new genre of horror movie production. 

How could any other horror film possibly break these rules from then on without giving away which character was going to die next? 'Scream' shook up the recipe of a horror, forcing horror directors to think outside the box and drop the tropes that 'Scream' had practically laughed at them for. It was time to end the rut of the standard slasher and time for Hollywood to come up with some new ideas, this was evident in some classics that followed 'Scream' such as 'Saw' (2004) and 'Sinister' (2012) that threw out the rule book and added creativity to a dying genre that 'Scream' reignited.

That being said, we'll talk later about some horror movies that break every rule in the horror movie book that really should have paid more attention during 'Scream'. The moral of the story? if your town is being stalked and slashed by a creepy figure in a Halloween mask: Don't go to any parties and keep your mouth shut. Also, stop running up the stairs when the front door is wide open.