The 1990s horror revival started here with director Wes Craven's intelligent reinvention of the slasher genre, in which a sick maniac is on the loose in a small suburban town, murdering anyone who gets horror trivia questions wrong. Gleefully exploring the relationship between gore movies and their core audience, this terrific shocker exposes the genre's knee-jerk devices, while still offering gasps galore - and a genuinely surprising dénouement. Kevin Williamson's elaborate script subversively keeps things scary even when the sinister events are at their funniest, and pays clever homage to such key titles as Halloween and Friday the 13th.

After a series of mysterious deaths befalls their small town, an offbeat group of friends led by Sidney Prescott become the target of a masked killer.