Why hasn’t the Scream franchise been killed off?

In December 1996, audiences lining up to see a teen horror picture starring Drew Barrymore, from the director of A Nightmare on Elm Street, got the shock of their lives. Not only was Barrymore, the best-known actor in the film, murdered in the first 15 minutes, but the opening set-piece was arguably the most shocking moment in movies since Janet Leigh had met a grisly end in the shower in Psycho.

As Barrymore is stalked, first by telephone and then in person, by a sinister masked killer, the tension and horror build to virtually unbearable levels before its horrific climax. The rest of the film lived up to its opening, but for sheer, never-to-be-forgotten chutzpah, the beginning of Scream is indelible.

Nonetheless, it comes as a surprise that, nearly 30 years later, the series is still going. The trailer for the latest instalment, the unimaginatively named Scream VI, promises the usual thrills and high-stakes death scenes, even if most of the original cast are now missing.