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Drew Barrymore in "Scream"
Part of what made Wes Craven’s horror-comedy one of the biggest sleeper hits of the ‘90s is the word-of-mouth-spurring twist at the ten-minute mark. The film opens with blonde teen Casey (Drew Barrymore) getting quizzed by a stranger over the phone about horror-movie tropes while she makes popcorn. With Barrymore wrapping her tart tongue around some of writer Kevin Williamson’s sharpest one-liners, it’s easy to assume she’ll be a focal point in a film that was shrewdly marketed as an ensemble effort. But then the creepy caller reveals his murderous intentions, appearing inside the house clad in a now-iconic ghost-faced mask, and proceeds to stab Casey and hang her from a tree. The rest of the movie fully delivers on this early promise to expect the unexpected, although three subsequent, only-serviceable sequels couldn’t match the same level of satisfying surprise twists.
