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The First 8 Minutes of MTV’s Scream, and My Reaction


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We’re among friends here, so can I be honest and admit I never really cared for the Scream movies that much? My favorite is the fourth one, which took itself the least seriously; the rest of the time, I wanted to yell at writer Kevin Williamson, “POINTING OUT YOUR OWN CLICHES DOES NOT STOP THEM BEING CLICHES! AND DON’T POINT OUT NUDE SCENES THAT AREN’T ACTUAL NUDE SCENES!”

But they all had really fun opening scenes – on that, I think most of us can agree. And MTV has just put theirs online, so let’s watch and see how it measures up.

Gone, it seems, is the witty banter of the trivia-obsessed voice on the other end of the phone, replaced by IMs. So the question is, can this still be Scream if it doesn’t have anybody going on and on about horror movie trivia and the rules for surviving a scary movie?

I think I’m sold on the notion that this is exactly the kind of shake-up Scream needs. This first young woman to meet a bad end does seem preposterously rich: who has a house like that? But cool houses do make for better visuals, so there’s that. And of course she has a whiny pet.

On one level, stripping Scream of its self-referential humor is a bit like doing a Clerks series that’s actually about the hardships of trying to survive on a minimum wage paycheck while one battles alcoholism. On the other, the humor was rarely so great that I would miss it. It’s unfortunate for these showrunners that Unfriended already did the vengeful YouTube prank victim bit, but I’m sure the suspect will be less obvious here, since red herrings are also a big franchise motif.

The gore is impressive. In my day MTV would have pixillated that. Nowadays, with it being a music-less channel I pretty much avoid, I’d say they might win me back long enough to watch the typical channel talent get bloodily dispatched. After all, if they can get Snookie and Farah from Teen Mom to appear as guest murder victims, you know the ratings will go through the roof.

What say you folks?