Scream is a 1996 horror film, irected by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson (see 1996 in film). The film revitalized the slasher film genre in the mid 1990s, similar to what Halloween (1978) did in the late 1970s, by using a standard concept with a tongue-in-cheek approach that successfully combined straightforward scares with dialogue that satirized slasher film conventions. The film features many teen idols of the time, including: Neve Campbell, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich, Drew Barrymore, David Arquette and Courteney Cox (then at the height of her Friends fame).