"" This has resulted in an audience that is much harder to gratify. This presents a situation in which censorship will constantly be lowered to accommodate audience values and relative morality, and yet only a horror film that seeks to push the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable by censorship boards will gratify the audience. .
Having said this, it is interesting that as filmmakers strive to find new and innovative ways to approach this genre, they are beginning to revert to the Hitchcock school of thought, by using this non-graphic suggestion of peril to terrify the audience and create immense tension. This has been successfully achieved in recent times with Blair Witch Project and the original Japanese version of The Ring. This would seem to support the opinion that this kind of approach is not only more artistic, but also much more effective.
One of the most fundamental differences between the two films is the approach taken to their subject matter. Psycho maintains a surreal, subdued air that heightens the tension and underpins the eeriness of psychological disturbance. The audience is unsure of what to expect and is surprised by the twists in the plot. In stark contrast, Scream takes a postmodernist, or constructivist, approach and is immediately aware of its genre and plays up to this, becoming a parody of it. In the opening scene, the killer telephones the victim (who is, incidentally, about to watch a horror film) to ask her what her "favourite scary movie- is. This theme is continued by means of the character Randy, who discusses extensively the conventions of the horror movie as the characters watch Halloween. This consciousness is explored as the characters within the world of the film analyse and then mirror these conventions whilst dropping in a host of other film titles and references. In doing this, there is a danger that the audience becomes too aware of the films construction to accept it as truth, and therefore it fails to scare them.