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In the first Scream movie, characters had a decent, though hardly guaranteed, chance of survival if they were well-versed in horror-film tropes. In that groundbreaking slasher comedy from 1996, a cinemaniacal, ghoulishly-masked serial killer stalked the sunny California suburb of Woodsboro for reasons unknown until the inexorably red-soaked finale. Before actively chasing after their soon-to-be victims with a banana-sized hunter’s knife, this self-appointed angel of death usually gave them a phone call from wherever they were hiding and dish out horror-movie quizzes like deathly foreplay. If you pass, you might live, the killer teased as they watched their increasingly frightened prey through the window.

Our villain’s majority-teenage opponents were so fluent in the films of John Carpenter and the ever-diminishing returns of the Friday the 13th franchise, though, that those deadly quizzes weren’t usually quick-and-easy cakewalks for the creep doling them out. They became extended dialogues in themselves. And most characters also knew that if they wanted to avoid attracting unwanted homicidal attention, they should also generally steer clear of dark basements, hiding upstairs, sex, and saying anything along the lines of “I’ll be right back.” Unlike the oblivious kids and meddling grownups of, say, the Halloween films, the Scream cast was unusually and delightfully hip to their would-be killer’s tricks. That tension temporarily made the long-stale slasher movie feel thrillingly bold again.

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