Scream (1996)

Scream (1996) is coming to the Historic Duncan Auditorium on Friday, October 30, as part of the Tampa Theatre's 2026 'A Nightmare on Franklin Street' series, presented by Bank of America. It's a horror movie that works by turning the genre's own rules against the audience: the characters are just as familiar with horror tropes as we are, and they spend the movie talking about them while they're trapped in one. That self-awareness is what makes it a bit scarier than the slashers that came before it.

To get some context, the slasher genre had been slowly coming back since 1978, but Scream was the first to have its characters wink at the audience and acknowledge they were in a movie. That kind of metafiction became a huge trend in the late 90s and early 2000s—eventually going overboard with too many sequels—but when it first arrived, it was something that had never been done before. The film runs 1 hour and 51 minutes.

The screening is on Friday, October 30, at 7 PM, with doors opening at 6:30 PM. Tickets are $13 for general admission and $10 for Tampa Theatre members, plus a $2 service fee for online purchases.