Was worried that the whole meta conceit and constant movie referencing was going to get grating over 2 hours, but Wes Craven is just too good at making horror movies. Take the screen saturated climax, where the news crew guy is running into the house to warn off the movie-watching teens but realizes there's a 30 second delay. His throat getting slit still made me jump; very satisfying. Or Ghostface's apparent clumsiness—the kind of little touch that sets this apart.

I even cared about all the characters and their psychology and backstories. The dynamic between Billy and Sid is intense, and the lunacy of the finale is great theatre.

Tropes (and crimes) gain a concrete, visceral reality from being told and retold, often getting stuck in our pop-culture feedback loop: "you can only hear the Richard Gere gerbil story so many times before you have to believe it."