[TV Review] Scream TV Series (2014) Season 1

“Those are slasher movies. You can't do a slasher movie as a TV series.”

The film Scream (1996) was self-aware slasher at its finest. 

This was partly because of its status as the first slasher to make explicit references to the genre’s own tropes, but nonetheless, it revitalised an oversaturated genre with a whole new franchise of metafiction.

The issue with Ghostface and his franchised status is that he's recognisable, too recognisable. Too recognisable to instil fear at least. He's been parodied in Scary Movie (2000), he's a playable character in Dead by Daylight, and his mask is purchasable at your convenience across the internet. 

The viewer is familiar with him, he can't scare audiences in the same way that newer, sexier, killers can. The level of scares needed to make us afraid of him again keep increasing and repeating the bloodless kills of the first movie is hardly going to cut it for modern viewers. 

The Ghostface killer had become more of a punchline than a threat. 

MTV's Scream (2014), then, was expected to stick to the mainstays of the genre. Its creators were fans of the original franchise, and they weren't attempting to reinvent the wheel. Indeed, with MTV at the helm, no one was expecting Wes Craven. 

But they might have accidentally done so, at least, a little. 

Where the 2022 'Requel' (sidenote: an awful word) cashed in on recognisable faces and near shot-for-shot remakes of the original, the adaptation chose a slightly different route.

A Netflix Original series with a slightly edited 'Brandon James' mask instead of Ghostface, the show begins, like the original, with media.

We begin at the water's edge, with some frankly terrifying singing. With no resolution, we immediately cut to the internet and a thematic song that I later noticed plays whenever the audience needs to pay particular attention - either because of exposition or a violent crime...

Usually both. 

Whereas the movie was restricted in 1996 by the technology of the time, MTV Scream's contemporary setting has access to more technology than ever.

We open in a town called 'Lakewood', where the first two kills happen before we even see the opening credits. 

After those credits, the series tries to act as though that was nothing more than a fever dream. It seems like every other generic town that might host teenage drama. We open on teenagers getting ready for their days, boyfriends sneaking out, the whole nine yards. 

We’re introduced to the main cast very quickly, and their teenage problems serve to be the perfect setting for the show that is about to unfold. 

The series leans into monologues a lot more than the original film. A podcast format is used in a manner that is clearly supposed to evoke Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), and a graphic novel is being written in season two that is evidently supposed to evoke the Stab series that later comes into the Scream franchise. 

---

HAVE YOU LISTENED TO OUR PODCAST YET?

---

Noah’s (John Karna) monologues takes him off the suspect list early and I couldn’t help but feel disappointed that we had a seemingly all-knowing, if only ironically, narrator at times, especially when he had a dual role as the “Savant”, the character who recognises and works within genre rules. 

With television, it seems necessary to bring the audience up to speed for people who weren’t really watching, but it almost felt like Gossip Girl with its romanticisation of the narrative. 

Even so, everyone’s a suspect, and everyone’s fair game. 

The show takes pleasure in its twists and tries to throw them into the runtime frequently. With a whole season to fill and an audience to keep on their toes, red herrings have never looked so good. 

There were also a lot more confirmed queer characters throughout the series, which was appreciated. Even the buried gays had the genre excuse of being killed at the same rate as the straight characters. The queerbaiting debates surrounding Billy and Stu are halted in the face of MTV’s “Bi-Curious and The Virgin” duo. 

What I loved about the series is that it really didn’t pull its punches with either its gore or its quantity of kills. A television series sized cast gives a lot more characters for the Ghostface killer to play with… and by play with I do mean fatally. 

In the days of social media acting like an ever-watching Big Brother, it is little wonder that this instalment of Ghostface similarly can seem to reach the characters wherever they are. 

But Noah’s monologue near the end of the pilot episode matches much of the issue with slasher television - we have to care about characters as though we're watching a teen drama and the kills genuinely surprise us. 

But the show doesn’t ever fully let us forget what genre we're watching, so the subtle menace in the first half is usually quickly discarded in later episodes, and the first half is where a lot of the season feels a lot more Pretty Little Liars than a Scream instalment. 

The self-aware slasher tone continues throughout, for better or worse, with all our main characters constantly referring to every horror movie and tv show possible, as if to signal their own position within and aside from them. 

With enough kills to fill a small graveyard and a campy dialogue full of nods to other horrors, Scream’s biggest insult to the audience is its clichés - and in an adaptation of a film that thrived off calling attention to its own tropes, can we really blame it?

RELATED ARTICLES

---

---

EXPLORE

---

MORE ARTICLES

---

---