Scream

The whole film seems to spin out of a question, “will what happens next conform to the pattern of those horror movies we’re familiar with, or not?” And rather than posing a real challenge to that pattern, the film is more of an exposure of the dual influence horror films have on people: as they “prepare” us for the horror and reduce its shock to us, they also numb us, making us treat horrifying situations like a show and a fashion, without giving us real knowledge of what to do in them. This effect is most clearly shown when the young people in the film get so immersed in guessing and reacting to what’s happening in a horror film playing on the TV (which happens to be HALLOWEEN (1978), another film that plays on the idea of virgins being unkillable), that they don’t even notice as their fellows disappear one by one.