Opinions on Scream: The TV Series haven’t budged for everyone these days, especially those who wrote the show off without giving it a real chance back then. To the surprise of others, though, they became invested in this little venture. While the television series can’t replace or surpass the movies, it also doesn’t deserve its bad rap.
Scream: The TV Series wasn’t the first of its kind; the slasher-whodunit format was previously used to great effect in Harper’s Island (2009). As it so happens, Jill E. Blotevogel worked on both series as a producer. These two similar shows each racked up impressive body counts; however, Blotevogel didn’t want to replicate Harper’s Island’s marketing ploy. “You knew, in every episode, that someone was going to die. […] That’s an exciting promise, but in a way, you’re waiting to find out who’s going to die in the next episode,” she said.
Whereas in Scream, one of its strengths was the unpredictability of victimhood. “We want to keep people off-balance, so that they don’t know necessarily when, if or how someone might die,” Blotevogel added.
The New Faces of Scream: The TV Series
Folks new to Scream may hate to be spoiled here, but MTV wasn’t exactly tight-lipped about Bella Thorne’s lack of longevity in the show. They went so far as to announce her character was the opening victim before the first episode even aired. And although Nina Patterson’s death doesn’t have remotely the same punch as that of Drew Barrymore’s character in the original movie, the series still wanted its own Casey Becker moment. That feeling of shock from witnessing the biggest name in the cast getting menaced and gutted in under ten minutes.
Older viewers would have little to no familiarity with Thorne’s work prior to Scream, yet the then-current MTV crowd probably knew her from Shake It Up. For them, it had to have been surreal to watch a former Disney Channel starlet get Ghostfaced. Meanwhile, Willa Fitzgerald, who played protagonist Emma Duvall, became more recognized after the show ended. From Reacher to The Fall of the House of Usher to Strange Darling, Fitzgerald’s star only rose after tangling with Ghostface.
Speaking of Ghostface, it’s best to get the mask business out of the way. That one small but huge change from the movies has haunted this show from the get-go. Even though there is a ghostly white mask strapped to the killer’s mug, it’s definitely not the one everyone associates with Ghostface. It’s been said that the show couldn’t initially secure the rights to the iconic “Father Death” costume (designed by Fun World), hence the creation of this new one.
Perhaps more than anything else in the series, that switcheroo is the biggest deterrent for new viewers. Borrowing the title leads to the understandable expectation that the classic Ghostface would be included. Aesthetically speaking, at least. On the other hand, going with a new mask denotes, as well as emphasizes, the separation of continuities.
In some fairness, the series’ mask is effective in its own right. This design, having more of a human quality to its facial features, adds a certain bit of creepiness that the traditional Ghostface veneer lacked. It’s like staring into a blurry, warped mirror, trying to make sense of the reflection. Plus, anyone who saw this thing staring back at them in the dark would naturally be just as frightened, if not more so.
That ample opportunity to remake the 1996 movie is never actually taken in the series. There are bits and pieces that are inspired, but otherwise, the movie events don’t factor into the show. Regardless, the two properties have the same setup: a suburb is rocked by the killing of a local girl. Yet once the shock of Nina’s brutal murder has subsided, and other folks start to die, it’s clear that the Lakewood cast is on their own in their survival, apart from resident horror geek Noah Foster (John Karna). His readily available knowledge of the genre, as deep cutting as it can be, is about as helpful as it is now in the newer Scream movies. Knowing the ins and outs of tropes and trends ultimately can’t stop a madman.
Where the series mirrors the movies most is the killer (or killers, to be more exact). Motivations vary throughout the whole franchise, but the show took cues from its big-screen counterparts when explaining the whys of this Ghostface. There is that red herring of sorts, namely the local lore of Brandon James, that obscures the investigation. In true Scream fashion, though, no detail is irrelevant or goes unused. Everything traces back to the beginning, particularly the Brandon James underplot. Unfortunately, this storyline, along with the original cast, was abandoned after Season Two.
Season Three Resurrects the Series with a Reboot
Despite having a strong second season, plus an amusing Halloween special, Scream slipped into production limbo. The show had been renewed for a third installment in 2016, but matters behind the scenes prevented anything from surfacing until 2019. By then, those in charge were gone; producers Blotevogel and Jaime Paglia were already replaced by Michael Gans and Richard Register in Season Two.
In addition, the Harvey Weinstein scandal played a part in the delay, seeing as how Weinstein was a former executive producer. Yet after the legalities and whatnot were all sorted, the third and final season premiered. Rather than sticking to a weekly schedule, those remaining six episodes were spread out over three consecutive days. The show had also made the lateral move from MTV to VH1. So, needless to say, there were a lot of changes made, including a whole new cast of would-be victims.
With new producers at the helm, including Queen Latifah, the last season was a complete reboot. To underline that reset, the backdrop went from the insidious suburbs to the gritty inner city. Keke Palmer was among that roster of fresh young fodder (a.k.a. the Deadfast Club), and the new killer had not a thing to do with the one(s) in prior seasons. On that note, the Ghostface mask was looking like its old self again, and the series had managed to recruit Roger L. Jackson. These positives, of course, could not withstand the tide of negative reviews for Scream: Resurrection. Not long after that, this attempt at turning the show into a seasonal anthology was over.
At one point in the premiere of Scream, the character of Noah proclaims: “You can’t do a slasher movie as a TV series.” He then goes on to say how “slasher movies burn bright and fast” and how “TV needs to stretch things out.” Immediately these statements came across as the show being down on itself before it had really begun. In hindsight, though, this was more of a challenge—not only to itself, but to everyone watching.
Was this a successful attempt at bringing the slasher subgenre to the small screen? Yes and no. There are stumbles along the way that the show can’t always recover from; the uneven pacing and excess of teen drama both come to mind. On the other end, when it’s focused on gruesome thrills and plot twists, the series is pretty damn entertaining. Had things gone differently for subsequent seasons, the fans would have finally gotten that meta story.
Under a different title, this show might have been granted more clemency. The turnout would have likely also been smaller, had that been the case. Even so, when met on its own terms, and accepting what it is rather than what it isn’t, this Scream is a solid stab at serializing the slasher movie.