For two now-distant decades, horror movies were less about whodunit, and more about how-the-hell-do-they-stop-this-guy?
In 1978, Halloween burst onto the scene, followed, two years later, by Friday the 13th. By the time Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street hit screens, moviegoers couldn’t get enough of the jump-scares, and the unsettled sleeps that inevitably followed.
All three franchises terrified audiences time and again. Yet there were no mysteries to ponder, aside from who would still be standing when the credits rolled, and which way Michael, Jason, or Freddy would (temporarily) be thwarted.
In the eighties and early-nineties, horror’s hook was that the killer was right there on the poster. There was no figuring out who was behind the mask. You just screamed along with the victims and went home happy.
But Craven threw a big bloody knife in the mix in 1996, directing the first in a sub-genre that turned fear-fiends into detectives. Meta-horror changed the game and cinema was all the better for it.
To this day, watching the original Scream for the first time is my favorite movie theatre memory. When it was over, I was shaken, thrilled, and terrified.
Here was a movie that not only scared me, it also made me laugh and, most importantly, added the crucial element of a whodunit – a cast of well-rounded characters who could just as easily be the killer as the killed.
Scream’s humdinger of a reveal is up there with the best. And it ensured that, with every new installment, viewers went in not only hoping to be scared, but also desperate to figure out the murderer before that famous mask fell from their face.
Scream—and the horror-thrillers that followed—created an entire generation of would-be detectives. It also inspired a love of whodunits that means us nineties kids swarm to newer movies like Knives Out and novels such as Gone Girl.
While Scream is the OG of nineties horror, I Know What You Did Last Summer was hot on its heels.
It was suddenly clear that there was a considerable audience for the slasher movies of yesteryear, provided there was a little more flesh on the bone, and Lois Duncan’s novel was adapted by Scream writer Kevin Williamson.
Despite receiving mixed reviews, there is no doubting I Know What You Did Last Summer’s impact on the genre. It rode the wave created by Scream and (still following in the footsteps of that movie) a legacy sequel is in the works.
Urban Legend, Cherry Falls, and Valentine all arrived in quick succession and, along with Scream’s second and third installments, aspiring detectives had plenty of opportunities to work out the killer (or killers) in the early 2000s.
The law of diminishing returns meant that nothing quite lived up to that original double-reveal and the gasps from audiences around the globe. But there is still plenty to love about Urban Legend—a movie that takes our love of campfire stories and twists it into something fresh, while also maintaining the mystery element we had grown to love.
Cherry Falls was one of the most creative and interesting takes on the horror-thriller. However, after failing to secure a cinematic release in the US, it didn’t get the audience its cast and premise deserved. It did, however, enjoy more success in Europe.
Valentine’s critical panning proved that you must do a lot right to create a successful horror-mystery. When it works—as it did (and continues to do) for Scream and some of the movies that followed—audiences can’t help but be pulled in.
Cherry Falls knew the “rules” of horror movies, made famous by our dear-departed Randy Meeks, and went about subverting one of the biggest. In the movie, it is not sex-crazed teens who are picked off, but virgins.
The best movies don’t only understand their tropes, they subvert them. Along with some smart moments in an underrated script, Cherry Falls’ main hook ensured it will never be forgotten in the slasher community, even if it failed to make a splash commercially.
Valentine followed the lead of Scream and Urban Legend by filling their cast with fresh faces familiar with their intended audience. But not even actors from the likes of Buffy and Roswell could save a poor script that would have sat better in the decades that preceded it.
Those of us who grew up with these mysteries think we know a thing or two about solving them. That said, we also thought we knew the rules to surviving a slasher movie…
Given the sheer number of whodunit-horrors that came out back then, it was no surprise when they tailed off in favor of the high-concept movies of more recent years. Films like Hereditary, Midsommar, and The Witch gave fear-fiends a different type of scare.
Yet there will always be a desire in many of us to solve the mystery before the frazzled detectives or terrorized teens finally figure it out.
Happy Death Day is a fine example of a horror-thriller-cum-high-concept movie that goes in a fresh new direction while paying homage to the films of our youth. That is where the Scream reboots have done so well, rewarding those who have never quite recovered from Drew Barrymore’s popcorn scene, while bringing in an entirely new audience.
The fifth and sixth installments use our love of the originals to create new mysteries deeply embedded in the past. In short, if you were paying close attention 25 years ago, you may be quicker to the punch now. Whodunits are evolving while building on their origins more than ever.
The next step is likely to be more twisty efforts in the same vein as Happy Death Day and its sequel, twisting what we thought we knew about horror-thrillers and making us scream all over again.
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