There’s a lot to be said for that old chestnut, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” I’m sure at one stage or another in your life (yes you Mrs. Peacock) you have applied this sage advice and bit your tongue and said nothing. That said, we live in the internet age where any old Morlock can say what they like even if we’re just howling into the void.
The late Wes Craven changed the face of horror multiple times throughout his prolific career; a eat few horror directors can boast. From the bone-chilling The Hills Have Eyes, The Last House on The Left to his seminal creation of Freddy Kruger in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Craven subverted the genre and his own creation’s mythology with the underrated New Nightmare. A meta movie for the yet to be a self-aware generation, this all changed when Craven came out with Scream and once again forged a new sub-genre of horror.
The first two Scream movies were as good as anything Craven made before. Parts three and the belated four had run out of originality, and the likes of Scary Movie had made it difficult to take Ghostface seriously. There were nice touches throughout the latter two sequels, and Craven showed he was still a relevant voice in a sea of generic ideas. So, when I learned about a Scream TV series I was skeptical to say the least. The first season recently popped up on Netflix and curiosity got the better of me.
I know that at 34 years of age my option as a TV viewer and movie watcher is rapidly becoming irrelevant to the studios. I’m no longer a part of the demographic that counts to them, so with that in mind here is my uncensored in a nutshell opinion of Scream The Series.
“The Scream series from MTV is inherently dumb from start to finish, bereft originality the writers plop out cliche after cliche without even trying to be post-modern. If you’re curious about the show, don’t bother, if you liked the movies don’t bother and even if you’ve been the unfortunate victim of a Purge style home invasion laying on the ground mortally wounded and Scream The Series starts playing on the Netflix. Please, I beg you to dig deep and use your last few moments of life to shuffle over to the remote and turn it off. Utter irredeemable dross that somehow managed to get a second season. Bollocks to that.”
Perhaps I’ve got it all wrong, after all I’m old now, maybe this is a clever spoof as all those things the original movies told you not to do, are done with wild abandon. Characters split up, increasingly poor decisions are made by all, and to add further misery the script barely supports its own logic. The characters even have the audacity to look surprised when they get horribly murdered, how bloody dare they.
Even though I was screaming obscenities at the screen usually reserved for mortal enemies, I did watch all ten episodes. Sure, I was rooting for the killer, but I did watch the whole thing. So there’s always a chance that the Scream TV series is good as I’m no longer part of the new MTV generation. Maybe I’ve been wrong about all the things I think are terrible, maybe Rob Schneider is really funny, perhaps The Twilight Ordeal are secretly the best films ever made. Now that I hear that out loud I think I will stick with being misanthropic and continue my voyage to becoming a full-time shut-in.
Scary Movie was better than this, no wait, Scary Movie 5 was better than this.
