Friday the 13th was pretty much extinct
Halloween 6 only made 15 million in 95
New Nightmare only made 18 million in 94
Childs play, Texas Chainsaw, Candyman they had nothing going on
Then here comes Scream, was it a box office smash right away? NO. But it kept growing and then BOOM, it became a huge thing
Did it save horror?
Definitely!
shareYes. Look at all the pre-Scream 90s slashers. The new ones were all so poorly done and uninspired even for slasher standards. Meanwhile the slasher franchises were either parodies of themselves (Freddy's Dead) or taking some bizarre turn (Halloween 6 and Jason goes to Hell).
shareIt reinvigorated the slasher sub-genre.
Horror as a whole is too big and timeless to need saving.
'It reinvigorated the slasher sub-genre.'
Exactly this.
I would go further than that. Scream proved regular horror could make a good profit again. The mid 90s wasn’t very good for slashers or other types of horror. It was either low budget straight to video or “prestigious” “horror-esque” fare. Not counting the latter, like Interview with a Vampire, I can’t think of any breakout films.
I love In the Mouth of Madness but it wasn’t exactly a hit at the box office.
People need to understand this: in the 90s the conventional thinking was that "dark thrillers" like Seven and Silence of the Lambs could more or less replace horror in the mainstream (in fact, the initial ad campaign for Scream made it look more like a thriller than an out-and-out slasher film), and that the future of "horror-horror" was to become a sub-industry of niche direct-to-video movies like porn.
Look at the press interviews filmmakers of horror-adjacent movies did in the 90s, they all begin by insisting they were not making a "horror movie" but rather a mystery thriller/ dark comedy/ gothic drama, etc. etc.
That all finally ended after Scream. It absolutely saved horror.