Scream (2015)

Scream is exactly what you'd expect. It may also be exactly what you want.

Whether Scream can overcome Noah's legitimate concerns about adapting a slasher movie for TV remains to be seen. But tonight's premiere gets the show off to a strong creative start.

Scream the TV series doesn’t have the cinematic flair that Craven brought to the original film, and that’s a bit disappointing, but right from the first scene there’s a unique energy to the piece. It doesn’t feel like a knock-off or a cheap tie-in. It’s a horror movie in weekly series form.

'Scream' leverages the initial murder to build suspense without much actually happening during the remainder of the hour, using a lot of dissonant strings instead of opened veins to set the mood. Yet the real trick will be teasing out the suspense as the number of viable suspects gradually dwindles, as well as making the audience see these characters as more than just chum.

Luxe environments mixed with bitchy teen entitlement and karmic vengeance drive Scream beyond its slasher-exploitation film genesis to a stylish metaphor about a new generation’s excesses and mean-girl cruelty.

The first hour of Scream is an efficient fright-delivery system wrapped inside a teen drama, but it’s meta-commentary that makes it worthwhile. That, and the pilot’s promise to spread out its jump scares more slowly and deliberately.

This reinvention is not a slasher tale at all but a drama that requires you to invest in its characters while forgetting that “somebody might die at every turn.”

Scream is a deferential adaptation well aware of its source material's strengths. It uses them to its advantage, fully embracing them for a result that, while never quite as salacious as the first film, is a more than worthy entry into Scream lore.

The result could easily have been a messy botch, but Scream is a little better than that.

There are a few scares here, but while the “Scream” films kept audiences jumping, Scream the TV series risks putting viewers to sleep.

At least in the pilot, this Scream seems set on calling back to its ’90s source and then ever-so-slightly tweaking expectation. Yet it never plays as anything more than copycat cleverness.

For younger viewers just discovering irony and metafiction and possibly not acquainted with the screen originals, which have done them to death, this may seem fresh and fun.

Even for MTV’s young target audience, the characters in Scream are remarkably empty and bland. But this is a slasher show, after all.

The plot may or may not come together in the end, but the execution, with unimpressive acting and bland dialogue, is unlikely to improve. Brand name aside, Scream is a generic thriller with more pretty faces than creative ideas.

With MTV's Scream, anyone who has enjoyed the original is bound to be disappointed here.

The writers try to copy the conceit of the original “Scream,” a horror movie built on droll horror-movie references. But the efforts are often clumsy, flagged with a wink-winking that deadens the gimmick.

Scream ... isn’t completely awful. It’s just thoroughly mediocre, with a cast of actors who are generically pretty playing characters who are generic types.

The new Scream feels too much like the old model, with significantly less star power and lacking any fresh narrative sizzle between the stalkings. [29 Jun - 12 Jul 2015, p.12]