scream

Scream is a 1996 American slasher film directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson. The film stars Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott, Courteney Cox as Gale Weathers, and David Arquette as Dewey Riley, with Drew Barrymore in a memorable opening sequence. Set in Woodsboro, California, the story follows a high school student targeted by a masked killer known as Ghostface as a series of murders disrupt the town.

The killer taunts victims over the phone, and the film blends suspense with self-referential commentary on horror tropes. It presents rules for surviving a horror film and uses them to build tension. The central twist reveals two killers, Billy Loomis and Stu Macher, who orchestrate the killings to terrify the town and frame Sidney; their motives are tied to complex personal histories and a desire to shock for shock’s sake.

Scream was a critical and commercial success, praised for its taut pacing, inventive suspense, and witty subversion of genre conventions. It revitalized the slasher film in the mid-1990s and spawned a franchise, including Scream 2 (1997), Scream 3 (2000), Scream 4 (2011), and later installments Scream (2022) and Scream VI (2023). The film’s Ghostface mask, opening scene, and meta-commentary have left a lasting imprint on horror cinema. The score was composed by Marco Beltrami, contributing to its distinctive mood.