10 Movies So Good They Ruined Genres

9. Scream

Though the slasher genre was enormously successful throughout the 1980s, its favour with audiences had begun to sputter out by the mid-1990s, as even the most ardent gore-hounds became tired of the genre's tropes.

Box office grosses for slasher films declined heavily at this point, causing the straight-to-video horror market to become a dumping ground for low-rent offerings with few theatrical prospects. In 1996, however, Wes Craven provided the unmistakable killing blow to the already-flagging genre with his glorious meta-horror Scream.

Melding a tongue-in-cheek mockery of the genre with genuinely tantalising thrills, Scream managed to have its cake and eat it too. It drew attention to slasher fare's lack of creativity and basically ruined the party for anyone intending to deliver a serious-minded slasher flick in its wake.

While slasher films have periodically shown up since - I Know What You Did Last Summer alongside new entries into the Texas Chainsaw, Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchises - they rarely pull big business anymore.

While audience over-saturation is the primary culprit, Scream nevertheless made it incredibly difficult to take these films even half-way seriously, and no doubt contributed significantly to the tail-end of the genre's decisive downfall.

By the mid-to-late 2000s, the most successful horror movies were "torture porn" films such as Saw and Hostel, alongside the found footage franchise Paranormal Activity. Post-Scream, slasher films have meanwhile been relegated to cult curio status for those who enjoy a no-nonsense throwback, and have long lost their Friday night multiplex appeal.