Scream (1996)

Horror maven Wes Craven’s self-aware teen slasher movie Scream (1996) proved to be a major success with audiences and critics alike. The Saturn Award-winning chiller diller features aspiring stars David Arquette, Jamie Kennedy, Liev Schreiber, Skeet Ulrich, and Rose McGowan’s protruding pokies. Talk about some up and comers! Uncredited cameos by Linda Blair, Priscilla Pointer, Henry Winkler, and Craven himself also pop up. Throughout the course of the story, a mysterious masked killer is stalking and killing high school students via methods and rules derived from horror films of the ’70s (Halloween) and ’80s (Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street). In a nod to the Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho (1960), Craven kills off his biggest star, Drew Barrymore, at the beginning of the pic. And following the Final Girl theory presented by feminist Carol Clover, Scream has as its heroine Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a virgin with a gender ambiguous name who delights the male gaze with onscreen views of her bra-clad boobs. Unfortunately, Wes ignores the rules about nudity so busty babe Courteney Cox keeps her clothes on. It’s enough to make any fan scream! Nevertheless, this popular flick revived the slasher genre. In addition to spawning several sequels (1997’s Scream 2, 2000’s Scream 3, 2022’s Scream, and 2023’s Scream VI), it helped launch the I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997-2021) and Scary Movie (2000-2013) franchises. But that doesn’t mean Mr. Skin isn’t waiting with mastur(bated) breath for the next — nude and improved — Scream installment!