Ranking: 10 Highest-Grossing Horror Movie Franchises
2. Scream ($604.4 Million)
Wes Craven's hit slasher franchise was a true one-of-a-kind, giddily subverting genre tropes and bringing some much-needed self-awareness to late-90s horror.
For horror fans who were a little exhausted with the genre's overly self-serious franchises, Scream was the perfect antidote.
Best Movie: The 1996 original is a solid-gold classic, a movie so clever, fresh and legitimately scary all at once that it was tough to go back to watching straight-up slasher flicks afterwards.
Superbly cast and impeccably shot, Scream dusted the cobwebs off a tired genre and gave smart, switched-on genre fans just the jolt they needed.
Worst Movie: Scream 3 saw the series temporarily jump the shark by effectively giving in to the very silly horror tropes that the previous movies mercilessly mocked.
It wasn't terrible by any means, just a disappointingly low-effort entry to the series, one that lacks the gleeful meta charm of the other three films.