10 Film Franchises You Really Should Stop Watching After The First Movie

6. Scream

By the mid-90s, the slasher/horror genre, long known for the numerous franchises it spawned, was in decline. Enter 1996's Scream, written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Wes Craven, a film which helped to reinvigorate the genre, and spawned a series of sequels (and imitators) of its own.

The movie was best known for killing off its biggest name, Drew Barrymore, in the opening scene, as well as the now iconic quote: "Do you like scary movies?" It was also critically praised for its self-aware meta-commentary about horror movies, including all of the genre's tropes and stereotypes.

Riding the success of the original, Williamson/Craven were back for the sequel a year later, which also retained its main character, Neve Campbell's Sidney, along with Courtney Cox and David Arquette reprising their roles as Gale Weathers and Deputy Dewey respectively.

While Scream 2 was a commercial success and received some positive reviews, it was a total rehash of the original, all the way down to the 'twist' ending involving the identity of the main villain, Ghostface. By the time Scream 3 was released in 2000, Williamson was gone, and the movie was panned by most critics and was the lowest grossing movie of the series until Scream 4 came out in 2011.

The latest movie in the series reunited Williamson and Craven, as well as Campbell, Cox and Arquette, but also revisited the same old ground as its predecessors for a new generation of viewers. Of course, at this point, the horror genre shifted in another new direction, with movies like Saw and Hostel, which made Scream's snarky meta-commentary come across as being out of touch.