Reviews
[TV Review] “Scream” Shows Promise, But Still Has a Ways to Go
MTV’s Scream TV series has been fighting an uphill battle since Day 1. When it was announced three years ago(!), it was met with an incredible amount of backlash. Either from people who just wanted a fifth movie (me), people who thought the franchise had run its course, and those who simply didn’t give a shit, no one seemed to have much faith in the series. Add to the fact that it was set to air on MTV, and all hope was seemingly lost. While by no means a failure, Scream has a ways to go before it completely wins over this critic. The pilot shows enough promise to make me want to keep watching, though.
To give this review some context, it should be known that I’m a huge Scream junkie. I love Scream 2, 1 and 4, in that order (yes, I love 4 a lot). I like 3 is fine, but is definitely the weakest of the bunch (though I don’t hate it like so many of you do). As for the series, I had high hopes but low expectations going in to it. All of that being said, we can get to the actual review.
In an opening montage very reminiscent of this year’s Unfriended, a video clip featuring Audrey (Bex Taylor-Klaus, Arrow, iZombie) making out with a girl is posted online and shared on every social media platform known to man. Queen Bitch Nina (Bella Thorne) is murdered in her home, and we are then introduced to Good Girl Emma (Willa Fitzgerald) and her boyfriend Will (Connor Weil), Princess Bitch Brooke (Carlson Young), Mysterious New Guy Kieran (Amadeus Serafini), Randy Stand-In Noah (John Karna), Douchebag Jake (Tom Maden) and Nerdy Hot Girl Riley (Brianne Tju).
[Related Post] Review: “MTV’s ‘Scream’ Isn’t Playful Enough,” Says Mr. Disgusting
There is also an entire sub-plot involving Emma’s mother Maggie (Tracy Middendorf, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare), being the survivor of an attack by a deformed boy who had a crush on her in high school. Is this boy back from the dead and offing teenagers one by one? We don’t find out in the pilot, but it proves to be a somewhat intriguing and unexpected premise.
What is most surprising about Scream is that with so many characters, barely any of them register. I had to look up all of their names on IMDB while writing this review. The girls fare slightly better than the boys, as they are actually given plot lines. Of particular note are Klaus, who imbues Audrey with a nice dose of heart and snarkiness and Young, who is a dead ringer for a blonde Kate Mara. She doesn’t get to do much than be bitchy, but she has fun with it. With the exception of Karna’s Noah, though, none of the other males make an impression. Though he is only memorable because he has the most to do in the episode.
The acting is hit or miss, but it’s mostly passable. A lot of the dialogue feels forced and a bit too on-the-nose. The emphasis on technology is a little overwhelming as well (though there is a nice bit with someone trying to use a smart phone with wet fingers, only to realize the screen is unable to detect them). This was a problem I had with Scream 4 on an initial viewing but grew to forgive over time, so the same may happen with Scream the series. Also, it could just be a symptom of being a pilot. Shows usually take 3 or 4 episodes to get into a groove, but since Scream’s first season is only 10 episodes, that could cause it to lose viewers early on.
Speaking of meta, there is a lot of it in Scream. Some are obnoxious (conversations about horror series actually on the air, a character explaining that the series is being stretched out into 10 episodes, so that the audience can get attached to the characters) but others are subtle and clever. There’s a pretty nice nod to Tatum’s death in the first film about halfway through the episode that I found quite enjoyable.
What is nice is the gore quotient. In the pilot episode alone we get to see a severed head, a throat slashed and a heart in a box. It’s nice to know that MTV isn’t afraid to get down and dirty with the gore. I’ve never seen an episode of Teen Wolf, but I’ve heard it’s actually pretty good. Here’s hoping Scream keeps on delivering in that respect. Don’t get me wrong, it’s no Hannibal when it comes to the gross-out factor, but it’s better than I expected.
What prevents Scream from being truly great is that it’s just not all that fun or memorable. It’s not really different from anything else on TV, and is reminiscent more of a darker episode of Pretty Little Liars (which is fine, as that show can be good when it goes dark). That being said, I saw enough potential in the episode to merit a slightly above average score. I want to like Scream; I just hope it finds its groove sooner rather than later. If anything, the closing montage (yes, another one) provides enough mystery to make you want to check out the second episode.
Chuck Tingle‘s writing is embedded with a particular tonal trick that makes him perfectly suited to horror. “Propulsive” is the first word that comes to mind when I think of Tingle’s energetic prose, and when his books start wrapping themselves around characters and digging through their various complexities, it’s easy to be pulled along, absorbed in the feeling that an old friend is simply telling you a story.
Then Tingle will drop one of the single creepiest bits of imagery you’ve ever read, and you’re right back in the horror space. It’s not always a jump scare, but it is always a pulsing feeling of dread that keeps you hooked through the rest of the book.
Fabulous Bodies, Tingle’s latest horror novel, carries on these gifts, and the promise Tingle showed on books like Camp Damascus and Bury Your Gays. His fiction’s growing ever more confident and precise, and his eye for horrific detail hasn’t dimmed in the least, making this a summer reading delight for horror fans.
Poppy is a single mother determined to make a better life for her daughter, particularly after growing up in group homes and foster systems. By day, she works hard to keep up the flow of upbeat, enthusiastic content as a fashion influencer, and while that’s going well, it’s not yet making ends meet. To make up the difference, she moonlights as a grave robber, lifting bodies from morgues and funeral homes and selling their pieces on the black market. It’s grueling, dangerous work, and it’s about to pay off big. Out of the blue, Poppy gets a call to transport the newly dead body of her musical hero, the legendary Eddie Michaels. It’s a weird gig, but the payout is big enough that she could walk away from her macabre side gig forever. Poppy takes the job, and things get complicated when Eddie turns out to be, well, only mostly dead.
From the moment Eddie’s corpse enters the picture, Fabulous Bodies takes on the vibe of a road novel, as the grave robber and the undead rock star make stop after stop, and Poppy tries again and again to wrap her mind about what she’s gotten herself into, and how she might get herself out. It’s a delightful premise, and Tingle never loses his grip on the fun of it. No matter how dark the novel gets, and it does get quite dark, the narrative keeps barreling forward, delivering macabre laughs and moments of beautifully gruesome invention along the way.
Because he’s set his protagonist up as a fashion influencer, Tingle has lots of room to play in the space of how we view human bodies, both alive and dead, how we use them, and what we value in them. This is the emotional core of Fabulous Bodies, and while it’s sometimes overshadowed by the runaway train of the plot, it remains a potent source of thematic exploration throughout the book, and it gets more complicated when you consider certain gifts Eddie’s been granted in his strange supernatural state.
In essence, we’re looking at a story about a grave robber who discovers a body that not only fights back, but takes control of any given situation. That throws Poppy for repeated loops and keeps the plot moving, but it also makes us consider on a deeper level exactly what we value about our own physical form, and what might happen when we lose our grip on it entirely.
The book’s themes and emotional concerns hum through the whole narrative, but the overwhelming impression I got while reading Fabulous Bodies was just how much damn fun this book is. I couldn’t stop reading it, not just because it’s so filled with sudden swerves and ghoulish setpieces, but because Tingle has honed his horror storytelling down to a fine, very sharp point. Fabulous Bodies moves like a roller coaster, complete with a tension-filled ramp-up and a finale that’ll leave you breathless by the time the ride is over.
If you haven’t been reading Chuck Tingle’s horror work up to this point, it’s time to get on board, because he’s just getting started, and he’s already mastered the art of the scary page-turner.
Fabulous Bodies is available now.
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