Wes Craven changed how horror movies looked in the ’80s, when he created a slasher killer who lived within people’s dreams. One decade after he created Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street series, Craven changed the horror genre once again.
In 1996, Craven created Scream, a meta-horror movie that knew it lived in the genre of slasher horror fiction. What made Scream great was that it wasn’t just a movie that played the horror with a wink, but a legit scary horror flick. Here is a look at 10 great horror movies to watch if you loved Scream.
WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE (1994)
While Wes Craven changed everything about the horror genre in 1996 with Scream, real Craven fans know that he did it two years earlier with Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. However, the problem with this brilliant meta-horror movie was that it had the stink of Freddy Krueger on it, a horror monster that had gone out of style.
The film brought back the original cast of the first film as fictional themselves preparing to make a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie. However, the “real” Freddy wanted to come into the real and began to torment the cast and crew of the new film based on his character.
TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL (2010)
Scream was about a group of kids on the run from a serial killer known as Ghostface. The twist here is that the kids know all about slasher movie tropes and used that knowledge to stay alive. The roles were similar in Tucker and Dale vs. Evil but with a comic twist.
The kids in Tucker and Dale vs. Evil also knew about the horror movie tropes and allowed it to create a false sense of terror. A couple of innocent hillbillies end up targeted by the kids, who think the hapless friends are slasher killers and end up causing their own deaths and demise.
CABIN IN THE WOODS (2012)
The 2012 movie Cabin in the Woods also took the ideas of knowledge of slasher movies and brought it to a very different place. In this situation, the kids were pretty clueless and ended up as victims in a cabin, all too similar to the one made famous in Evil Dead.
However, here it turns out that a scientific organization has all manners of monsters kept in cages and chooses to release specific monsters to hunt the kids as a sort of scientific experiment. Joss Whedon co-wrote the script with director Drew Goddard.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1992)
Everyone knows about the critically acclaimed television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but fewer people today have seen the movie that started it all. With Kristy Swanson as Buffy, the clueless high school girl tasked with becoming the Chosen One, and Donald Sutherland as her put-upon Watcher, this movie was a comedy-horror movie with a lot to love.
Luke Perry was the damsel in distress for Buffy in the movie written by TV show creator Joss Whedon, and Pee-Wee Herman was one of the evil vampires.
BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON (2006)
When it comes to taking viewers behind the scenes of a slasher movie, there is nothing better than the mockumentary Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. The film has a slasher serial killer inviting a documentary film crew to watch him prepare for a night of terror and murder.
Leslie Vernon shows how these slasher killers do many of their tropes, such as looking like they are barely moving but somehow never fall behind running kids. He also shows how to set up booby traps in the house, so the kids trying to escape always end up dead. However, soon, the filmmakers realize they are the planned next victims.
SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004)
In 2004, Edgar Wright created one of the best comedy-zombie horror movies of all-time in Shaun of the Dead. The film starred Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as two friends who find themselves in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Pegg is Shaun, a hapless salesman who decides he needs to find and save his girlfriend.
However, the movie subverted most expectations and included a fantastic cast, including Bill Nighy, as Shaun’s put-upon stepfather. For anyone looking for a great horror-comedy, it doesn’t get any better than this.
ZOMBIELAND (2009)
Speaking of zombie comedy movies, Zombieland came out in 2009 by director Ruben Fleischer. The film had four survivors team up to try to survive the zombie apocalypse without killing each other along the way. Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg star as survivors who meet up with sisters played by Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin.
The film was a huge surprise for fans and included a special cameo by Bill Murray that remains a highlight to this day. There was even a sequel that came 10 years later with Zombieland: Double Tap.
APRIL FOOL’S DAY (1986)
In 1986, April Fool’s Day was one of the earlier efforts at meta-horror movies. The film itself was a straight-up slasher movie at a time where the slasher movies were starting to go out of style, but it was lost among the releases of that era.
However, there was something about this movie that made it more memorable than the rest. Nothing that happened in it was real in the world of the film. As the title reveals, this was all a joke where the deaths were fake, something the film showed at the end, with a wink.
THE CRAFT (1996)
The same year that Scream came out, another movie about young high school students trapped in a horror story hit theaters. The other 1996 hit movie was The Craft. This movie was about a group of girls who began to pursue witchcraft powers that they wanted to use for personal gain.
However, the movie also played out like Mean Girls with magic as the three mean girls began to torment the one girl who started to feel bad about what they were doing. It was a small hit when it came out but has become a big cult favorite.
THE FACULTY (1998)
The Faculty came out in 1998 and was the first time that director Robert Rodriguez played within the studio system before he reverted to his independent roots and became one of the top indie filmmakers in the world for the next decade.
The Faculty had a high school in danger when their faculty ends up exposed to aliens. The cast was a nice mix of future stars with Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, Jordanna Brewster, and Clea DuVall tormented by teachers that included names like Robert Patrick, Famke Janssen, and Bebe Neuwirth.
