10 Movies That Ingeniously Subverted Expectations

Wes Craven's Scream really couldn't have arrived at a better time - the slasher movie boom of the 1980s had sputtered to a halt as audiences became tired of the well-worn genre formula.

But along came Scream in 1996 and blew the slasher movie to pieces with a tongue-in-cheek deconstruction which still managed to be completely terrifying.

For anyone tired of slasher movie typicality, Scream was a welcome tonic with its trope-aware characters and loving references to the genre.

But its most impressive subversion of expectations comes right at the start, when Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) is first terrorised by a phone call from Ghostface.

Given Barrymore's fame and her presence on the film's posters, audiences were expecting her to be the final girl, but instead she's brutally murdered in the very first scene, at which point the real protagonist, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), is introduced.

Barrymore's grisly, speedy dispatch just ten minutes into Scream masterfully set the vibe from the outset - expect the unexpected, and nobody is safe.

And for the final entry, if you haven't seen Sound of Metal yet, you might want to do that first...