Single-handedly eliminated the horror genre

Rating: Null/10 (30 October 2003)

Everyone used to talk about how SCREAM 'saved' horror; the irony was, as we've now come to see, it actually killed it off, and almost for good. While SCREAM is a pretty decent film, the firm tongue-in-cheekness of the script, combined with pretty teenage kids, and subsequent turnover at the box office, made studios go teen-horror movie mad. The end result was five years of complete drivel from the so-called horror genre, with few notable exceptions, all from outside the teen horror area (SIXTH SENSE, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, and lately RING). Tripe like I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, URBAN LEGEND, SHRIEK, and the spoofy but equally terrible SCARY MOVIEs helped turn horror completely into a farce. A joke, even. The follow-ups to SCREAM further contributed to this demise, both forgetting the joke and playing themselves further into near-total parody. Another irony is that Craven did this in-joke horror much better two years earlier with NEW NIGHTMARE; a far superior horror movie, and a very underated flick. Only lately, with the realisation that horror was actually a lot better in the 1970s, have we seen some signs that a turnaround might be on the horizon. Please, please, please... don't screw it all up by making another SCREAM, Wes.