Halloween is this weekend, so plenty of folks will be re-watching the best horror movies to celebrate. My personal favorite of all time is Wes Craven's original Scream, which is streaming with a Paramount+ subscription and started one of the best horror franchises ever. I recently made my Gen Z friend watch it for the first time, and his reactions really cracked me up.
I'm currently in full spooky season mode, recently attending a Rocky Horror shadow cast. Afterward, my friend and I went back to my place, where I peer-pressured him into watching Scream for the first time. I thought the movie was basically monoculture, but he was delightfully clueless.
My Friend Being Clueless About Scream Killed Me (Pun Intended)
When I say my friend didn't know anything about Scream, I mean it. Not even those scenes that have pierced pop culture forever came across his desk, allowing him to have a fresh, unfiltered take when I pressed play. That includes Drew Barrymore's opening scene and the plot twist of her being the first victim. Just like the original audiences from the '90s, he was absolutely shocked when Casey was brutally killed by Ghostface before the movie's title even hit the screen.
He was also surprised by some of the other cast members that popped up throughout the movie's 111-minute runtime. He was shocked to see Courteney Cox as Gal Weathers, even though she is the only actor to appear in every single movie in the franchise. Despite the long career she's had, he was shocked to see Monica from Friends in an R-rated horror flick.
Another huge twist that got the best of my friend was the reveal that Ghostface was actually two different people: Matthew Lillard's Stu Macher and Skeet Ulrich's Billy Loomis. He agreed by the end that the two characters were gay-coded, but he was as shocked as Sidney at the reveal that two people had been under the killer's mask the whole time.
Given how much Scream had been parodied over the years, I assumed that even the most casual moviegoer would be spoiled on the movie's twists and turns. But some of the zoomers out there missed the memo, like my dear friend. So he got to watch the movie unbiased in a way I never got to. Despite it coming out in 1996, he was impressed with the dialogue and performances. What's more, he was taken by how the lack of cell phones raised the stakes of the film.
In many ways, it felt like my Zoomer friend responded to the same things that shook '90s audiences when Scream first hit theaters. I loved seeing these parallels, and thought this proved yet again why Wes Craven's slasher flick continues to be so timeless decades later.
The entire Scream franchise is streaming now on Paramount+, including the seventh movie that arrived earlier this year as part of the 2026 movie release list. Now I just have to convince my friend to watch the sequels and rate them. Hey, a guy can dream.
