Scream - Pilot - Advance Preview

Early in the premiere episode of “Scream,” pop culture geek Noah (John Karna, “Premature”) – a Randy Meeks for the MTV generation – voices the opinion that a slasher film can’t work as a television series. “Slasher movies burn bright and fast,” he meta speaks to the audience, “TV needs to stretch things out.”

So is he right or is “Scream” the exception to the rule? I’m not sure either way yet. The pilot tries to pack in too many character introductions and exposition dumps (in the way pilots sometimes do) and suggests a show not fully formed. But the parts that work show promise and potential for this to be, at the very least, a good summer guilty pleasure. And I’ll say this – as a big fan of the “Scream” franchise, while there were creative changes/choices I wouldn’t necessarily have gone with, there’s enough of the movies’ DNA present that I never felt like I was watching something I loved get murdered before my eyes.

Speaking of murder, the show starts with high school mean girl Nina (Bella Thorne, “Shake It Up”) getting Drew Barrymore-d by a masked, knife-wielding killer. The rest of the hour spends its time introducing her friends and victims – all now red herrings, suspects, and/or potentially next – while also setting up typical teen drama stories – romantic woes, cyber bullying, issues with parents, etc. But also, like any small town in a scary movie worth its salt, their hometown of Lakewood (and fear not, the titular body of water is sufficiently creepy and mist-covered) has a local boogeyman in its past that may be involved in or at least inspiring the terror in the present.

Some good stuff I want to shout about. The killer’s stalking of Nina is a fun, modern homage to the first film’s famous opening sequence. Lakewood’s bloody backstory serves as a solid narrative bedrock to build a serialized arc on, also smartly tying the adult characters closer to the action. And the standout among the cast for me was Willa Fitzgerald (“Royal Pains”), whose Emma is the Sidney Prescott of the piece and through who a lot of the plot threads pivot.

Most of the other teens, however, didn’t particularly pop and, as Noah notes, the show will live or die on the audience caring about what they’re up to between murders since we’re spending ten hours with them and not ninety minutes. I see story potential already in outcast Audrey (Bex Taylor-Klaus, “Arrow”) and new kid Kieran (newcomer Amadeus Serafini), but the rest are pretty much pretty cannon fodder at this point. The show also leans a little heavy on Noah, understandable since his voice is the closet to the “Scream” fans are familiar with, but he gets maybe one meta monologue too many. Finally, there’s a danger of overdoing it on the fake out jump scares since there likely won’t be a death every week.

But these are all hiccups that can be scared out of the show in the weeks to come. And I’m curious and enthused to see what’s next.

MTV lets the first “Scream” rip on Tuesday June 30th. Until then, feel free to scare up some thoughts or speculations in the comments section.