Scream: 20 WTF Moments
19. All The "Elevated Horror" Jokes
The new Scream naturally has a few chips on its shoulder about the state of the modern film industry, and relishes making fun of, among other things, the recent trend of "elevated horror" movies.
That is, horror films with a more pronounced psychological or emotional, character-driven component.
In the opening sequence, Tara tells Ghostface over the phone that her favourite horror movie is The Babadook, and that she isn't much a fan of "schlocky" horror films like Stab, much to the killer's dismay.
Later on a number of other supposed elevated horror movies are namedropped, largely those distributed by A24 like Hereditary and The Witch, highlighting how the genre has shifted since the release of the fourth Scream film while also lightly ribbing the silliness of the term elevated horror.