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.”