Some time ago, I found out about this series which I later discovered was based on one of my favorite slasher horror movies back in the 90s Scream. Finally I got the chance to catch the series in the past few weeks and finished watching them. Well I'll just get right to it then.
Brief Story Line
After 20 years of peace, the small town of Lakewood became unpleasant when one of the popular high school girl was killed at her own home. Her group of friends that consisted of the kind hearted Emma Duvall (Willa Fitzgerald - Blood Money etc), Emma's boyfriend Will (Connor Weil), the popular & wealthy Brooke (Carlson Young), the jock Jake (Tom Maden) & the cheerful Riley (Brianne Tju) were disturbed by this fact. Especially when Emma started getting phone calls from a person who seemed to know about the murder and was targeting them.
Aside from those group, Emma's childhood friend Audrey (Bex Taylor-Klaus - Dumplin' etc) was upset with what happened to her earlier. With her best friend Noah (John Karna - Premature etc) who had vast knowledge on horror films, they also began to suspect the killing might be related to the series of murders happened in Lakewood 20 years ago. Meanwhile a new mysterious kid in school named Kieran (Amadeus Serafini) also seemed to take a special interest on Emma.
The sheriff Clark Hudson (Jason Wiles - Third Watch TV series etc) had his own suspicions on who did the killing. With the support from the medical examiner & also Emma's mother Maggie (Tracy Middendorf) they tried their best to uncover the murders. And so what would happen to these people and who would survive the killings? You could find them all in the 10 episodes first season.
The Second season started off 3 months after the events from first season. What terrified all of them was the fact the murder did not seem to stop and people started to be killed again. There were also new student at school, named Gustavo "Stavo" (Santiago Segura - 47 Meters Down etc) who seemed too take much interest on the survivor of the murders. In addition, an intelligent academic student named Zoe (Kiana Ledé) who was not around during the earlier murders also came into the picture. So would they be able to solve the murders once and for all? It would be answered in this 12 episodes second season.
End of Brief Story Line
Well that was a pretty long Brief Story Line. I tried my best to shorten them but due to the large cast, it was a bit challenging to do so. In fact, I already took out some rather important names as well from the above as if I put them all, my post would be filled with only those part. Anyway, I hope it did not reveal too much information/spoiler.
I said in the beginning that this series was based on one of my favorite slasher movie Scream with all its sequels and starring Neve Campbell. I liked the movies because of their unpredictable murderer (s) and also the cast who were mostly interesting, plus with the humors especially when they were mocking the horror cliches. And the first season was actually pretty loyal to the concept, with the characters seemingly quite similar to those on the movies. We could see Emma as the popular kind hearted girl, a lot like Sydney Prescott in the film, or Noah the intelligent virgin nerd or the popular mean girl Brooke and so on. I think it's because Wes Craven (one of the creator of the movie) also served as executive producer in this first season.
So when I watched the first season, it brought some nostalgic feeling as well. I also liked the smart part where Noah was saying something like you cannot make a slasher horror into TV series with his own logical reasoning. And sadly, his words were actually quite true. The season was not as fast paced as I thought it would be and despite there were killings, I thought it would be more frequent than that. The early part of first season also felt more like Riverdale series rather than Scream because the focus seemed a bit more on the murder mystery and not on the killing spree. However, the latter part was a bit better with the last 2 episodes finale quite satisfying.
Now the revealing of who did the killing was not bad with a bit of surprise, though might be a little bit illogical. However, it was quite successful in making me wrongly guess. The cliffhanger ending was interesting touch which would make a good opening for second season. Some of the characters in first season were convincingly portrayed by the actors and actresses, though I hate to say that one or two seemed to be a miss cast due to their old looks that did not seem to suit high school students. I really love the characters of the bicurious Audrey and the virgin Noah as they really brought so much life into this series. I also like Carlson Young's performance as Brooke. Those three did their jobs amazingly as these colorful characters.
What I did not really like was the mask worn by the killer which was not the same as in the movie. Despite the explanation on why it was different, I still wished it was using that same mask. Even my wife who caught a glimpse of what I was watching said the same thing, that the trade mark of Scream was on the Ghostface mask. But I did like the voice of Mike Vaughn who sounded perfect as the Lakewood slasher.
The second season was a bit different. It was not bothering too much with following the rules "set" by the Scream movies and instead it seemed to be making their own rules. The story was actually brilliantly done with the focus of terror seemed to be shifting a bit to different person. However, even though they were not like the exact replica, the serial killings were still done in horrific ways as well. So it was still intriguing to see who or how the person would be killed.
The new characters were OK, though I like Stavo's character better than of Zoe. There were also new supporting characters (and few who already had recurring roles in first season) here who did their job adequately. The mystery was good and once again successfully deceit me on the ending revealing part. The 12 episodes in here surprisingly did not feel too long. Oh and that ending was also quite fantastic. I was not really surprised when I read in the internet that the second season was more appreciated by critics compared to the first season.
Now aside from the satisfaction of watching the 2 seasons, there was something that quite disappoint me. After that ending, there was a 2 hours special Halloween episode which happened not long after season 2 finale. The story seemed to be taking the plot from I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (sequel to another favorite slasher horror movies of mine) but unfortunately the ending did not feel like a series finale. It seemed to be done in preparation for another season. However, it was not meant to be. Not so sure of the reasoning but the series developer decided to reboot the series in the third season with new cast and new setting making the series felt like it did not have the proper conclusion. And another thing that I thought was a bit disturbing was the hallucination part in a couple of episodes which I thought was not too interesting.
Nevertheless though, watching this series did bring some of nostalgic feeling of watching slasher horror genre. Unlike one of the new generation slasher movie that I saw few months ago, this one was more satisfying. The characters were lively and interesting with surprising twists and shocking reveal of the culprit making this series quite worthy of having the name Scream attached to it. So if you are able to look for the series via online streaming, you could certainly give this a try, especially if you are fan of slasher genre.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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