History Film / Scream

* WeCouldHaveAvoidedAllThis: The series ''probably'' wouldn't have happened if [[spoiler:Maureen Prescott hadn't forsaken Roman as her son, and wasn't the VillageBicycle]].

* DidNotDoTheResearch: This exchange after TheReveal in the first film:
-->[[spoiler:'''Sidney''': Why? Why did you kill my mother?]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Billy''': Why? WHY? [{{Beat}}] You hear that Stu, I think she wants a motive. Hmm. Well I don’t really believe in motives – I mean did Norman Bates have a motive?]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Stu''': No.]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Billy''': Did they ever really decide why Hannibal Lecter likes to eat people? Don’t think so.]]
** [[spoiler:''{{Psycho}}'' took about ten minutes at the end [[InfoDump just to explain to the audience]] why Norman Bates killed people at his motel. In Lecter’s case it's just HilariousInHindsight post-2006, however.]]

* TheDanza: Emma Roberts' character is named Jill Roberts, and Anthony Anderson's character is named [[ShoutOut Anthony]] [[{{Psycho}} Perkins]].

* CreatorCameo: Director Wes Craven has brief cameos in the first and third films. In the first, he's the school janitor [[ShoutOut Fred]]; in the third, he's one of the tourists on the movie lot.

* NoExportForYou: If you're a British fan of WesCraven, HaydenPanettiere and/or EmmaRoberts and you want to hear their DVD commentary (with Neve Campbell literally phoning in her contribution), you'd better have a multiregion player.

* DangerouslyGenreSavvy: [[spoiler:Billy and Stu]], until they decided to [[spoiler:stab each other before trying to kill Sidney and her dad]].

* Finally, ''Scream 4'' (or ''[[Letters2Numbers Scre4m]]''), released on April 15, 2011, essentially restarts the franchise, bringing the action back to Woodsboro, dealing with the legacy of the original trilogy, and parodying the [[{{Gorn}} various]] [[ApocalypticLog trends]] in horror that have cropped up in the decade since the last ''Scream'' movie -- namely, the recent surge of {{remake}}s and [[ContinuityReboot reboots]] of classic horror series.

* {{Nakama}}: Sidney, Gale, Dewey and Randy [[spoiler: until his death anyway.]] Sidney and Gale are a particulary good example in that despite their long history together they never really become ''friends'' - but have saved each others lives numerous times and know they can count on each other.

* TrailersAlwaysSpoil[=/=]NeverTrustATrailer: The trailer makes it look like they're spoiling [[spoiler:Gale's death, but she survives yet again]].

* VasquezAlwaysDies: [[spoiler:Averted by Hicks]]. "Wear the vest, save your chest." It's worth noting that this is the only time this trope was featured in the Scream franchise.

* VasquezAlwaysDies: Averted [[spoiler:by Hicks]]. "Wear the vest, save your chest."

* [=~Not With The Safety On You Won't~=]: Played straight, then later subverted.

{{Troper}}s like us owe a substantial amount of our hobby to the film. Whole-heartedly about lampshading and deconstructing tropes, it was one of the first major, mainstream films to do this since ''{{Airplane}}'', while remaining grounded in reality this time and exploring a whole new genre to boot. It's also notable for predating ''Buffy'' by a few months when it came to having sarcastic, GenreSavvy teenagers in a [[PostModernism post-modern]] {{horror}} setting.

* CombatPragmatist: [[spoiler: After stabbing Billy with an umbrella, Sydney sticks her finger through the wound to gain the upper hand]].

* {{Gorn}}: Even for a horror series where the killers only use knives to kill, some of the deaths are quite icky. A particularly grisly example is the first victim in the series -- while he is [[GoryDiscretionShot eviscerated offscreen]], it soon cuts back to his intestines falling out. Even RogerEbert admitted being a little grossed out by the first two, almost to the point of docking the films for it.

* FollowTheLeader: ''TheFaculty'', which essentially did for sci-fi horror what ''{{Scream}}'' did for the slasher genre.