This was my introduction to slasher movies and looking back on it now one of the reasons I became such a fan of horror in general. Craven understood its conventions more than just about any other filmmaker especially in how visceral and dependent on rules it is as a genre. It’s one of the reasons why we get such a sick satisfaction out of how they play out time and time again, even when the formula doesn’t change. It doesn’t exactly change here either, practically everything is laid out for us, even called attention to, but is still subversive due to the overtly meta nature of the characters and their constant calling attention of horror tropes and Craven’s self referential direction. Still feels fresh all these years later, even after how done to death this kind of meta horror has become.