Well, after three long years of waiting “Scream: The TV Series” finally debuted last night on MTV. Fans have definitely been split on the television spin-off since it was announced that MTV would be the series’ home and that none of the original characters would be making an appearance. Still, I think a lot of us were clinging to hope that there would be something that makes the television adaption related to the four film franchise from Wes Craven. This is actually a super difficult review to do, but let’s get into it.
Let’s start from the beginning. It’s been well known that “Shake It Up” and Amityville: The Reawakening star Bella Thorne is the opening kill and her death would very much be an homage to Casey Becker’s (Drew Barrymore) death in Scream. Well, the eight minute scene came and went and I honestly can’t find a single comparison besides the fact that a young woman gets stabbed and her mother finds her dead body. No subtle hints, no reused dialogue… Just a catty, sultry, queen bee of Lakewood High getting slaughtered by a masked killer. Casey Becker’s death at the beginning of Scream was groundbreaking as movie goers suspected that she was the star. It’s even gone on to be the most iconic scene in the entire film franchise. Thorne’s death as Nina Patterson was…well, gratifying for the fact that she was a c— that deserved it, but no one is going to be talking about it in a week. So, FAIL there.
Another widely known fact about “Scream: The TV Series” is that the plot would center around a viral video with disastrous consequences. This “viral video” only amasses 500 views and its content? Two high school girls making out in a car for like twenty seconds. That’s all you got as far as scandalous goes? Really? Although Gay Marriage was just made legal in The United States, people have been well aware of LGBT relationships and within the last few years people have become very accepting. I wouldn’t classify two young women in love and being sensual “scandalous.” What happened here? Who dropped the ball? For some reason, I think this was only added to the story to make it seem more hip, since homosexual topics are hip right now and MTV loves catering to those that are “hip.” FAIL here, too.
The debut episode of “Scream: The TV Series” tries to cram a lot of back story into forty five minutes. I mean, a lot of backstory. Probably way too much for a first episode. It’s hard to build mystery and suspense when you just throw it all out there from the jump. Anyway, we learn that a deformed serial killer massacred a bunch of people in Lakewood (the show’s location) twenty years ago, and he even gets a name…which escapes me right now. This, once again, makes “Scream: The TV Series” completely unrelated to the film franchise. In an interview Wes Craven said that Lakewood exists in the same world as Woodsboro and Scream. Making the events twenty years ago the events from the first Scream would have been the best way to make them canonical. Instead, writers decided to make their own run of the mill, bland homicidal maniac that we’ve seen hundreds of times before in utter titles. Hey, guess what? FAIL!
With all of this said, there are still a few scenes that I thought were reminiscent of the old Scream movies. First, the classroom discussion on goth literature that transitions to scary movies and horror television shows reminded me of one of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s scenes in Scream 2. The lead cast talking about the murders on the lawn of the high school reminded me of the “it could never be a woman who kills people” chat from Scream. The party sequence with one of the leads…still don’t know anyone’s name, mind you…going over the rules of how to survive a scary movie was obviously a huge reference to Randy (Jamie Kennedy) in the first film. The surviving queen bee, played by Carlson Young, going into the garage during the party reminded me of Tatum’s (Rose McGowan) death in Scream. But, that’s about as close as the similarities between “Scream: The TV Series” and Scream the franchise get. It almost seemed like a PG-13 Hollywood remake of the first film while also maintaining a lot of qualities from MTV’s trilogy My Super Psycho Sweet 16. This gets a PASS.
Now, by this point I’m sure you’re all wondering about Ghostface. The promotional materials for the series didn’t do him/her justice. The coat…cape…thing looks identical to the the original, as does the knife. The mask, having finally seen it in action, looks like a relative of Ghostface, but still comes off as generic. And, don’t get me started on Ghostface’s voice in the series. It also sounds relative to Roger Jackson, but wasn’t nearly as intimidating. I’ll give this point a PASS, too, but barely.
Good acting. Great production. But it just doesn’t feel like something Scream to me. I still don’t understand why Wes Craven, who executive produced the series, just didn’t come up with a different name for it. FINAL SCORE: 5 out of 10.
To me, this show resembles “I know what you did last summer” with a hint of Pretty Little Liars, not Scream.