A large part of the ghoulishly ticklish fun of the first “Scream” was how nimbly the director Wes Craven balanced genuine scares with the self-reflexive wit of Williamson’s inaugural screenplay. By the time that the first movie opened, the slasher genre seemed to have entered its senescence, its glory gory days of the 1970s safely past. A new subgenre era started soon after Drew Barrymore’s character answers the phone, and a creepy-sounding stranger asks her what her favorite scary movie is. She might be alone in a large, isolated house with big picture windows, but she’s a modern woman and a fan, and so she rattles off a few films, Craven’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street” included. Slam, bam, goodbye ma’am.