Written by Jill E. Blotevogel And Jaime Paglia And Jay Beattie And Dan Dworkin
Directed by Jamie Travis
Noah (re Riley): "You really want to know how this ends? Let me tell you. Everyone has secrets. Everyone tells lies and everyone is fair game."
I was going to leave discussing this series until I reviewed the movies but now it's going to be series first, movies second (perhaps) as I finally caved in and watched the pilot episode, which MTV were kind enough to have on YouTube, if not the rest of the episodes.
I was wary about this series. I'm a massive fans of the movies and the first couple of trailers for this show felt generic, even by MTV's standards and I have to admit that watching this opening episode, that feeling wasn't shook off at all. Don't worry though, I will say some nice things about the show too as there were bits I enjoyed.
As a protagonist, Emma may or may not be as iconic of as Sidney Prescott but out of the main characters, she's one of the better fleshed out - likeable but flawed enough with a jock boyfriend and a mother whose past actually connected brilliantly to the Ghostface of the series and the first of several phone calls between Emma and Ghostface was suitably chilling enough.
I also liked that the opening episode concentrated on two deaths - Nina and her boyfriend, Tyler but with a series of ten episodes, there's plenty of time to add to the body count and there's probably a few characters in this episode alone (Jake for example) who future demises won't generate a lot of sympathy.
Coming up with a whole new mythology for Ghostface or Brandon James (a disfigured boy driven to murder) certainly helps to give the show it's own identity. I like the way that Noah (the Randy Meeks for the MTV generation) conveyed Brandon's backstory for both the audience and Riley and while I doubt that James is back from the dead, it does seem like both Emma and Audrey are linked by him though, especially considering what we learned about the former's mother in this episode.
As for the bad points of this episode - well, Emma, Noah and Audrey are good as characters but not amazing and the rest of them are just bland. Will (Emma's boyfriend), Tyler and Jake are stereotypical jocks (or were in Tyler's case), Brooke and Nina are/were bitchy and bland, Kieran just seems the typical mystery bloke and the adults (excluding Maggie/Daisy) aren't particularly exciting.
Also while it makes sense for social media to factor into the killings and so on (as did Scream 4), there are times in the episode (and undoubtedly in following ones) where it didn't come off particularly well though. I also think despite wiping off blood from his forehead that it's a safe assumption that Noah is not the killer of the group.
- The sing song element of Ghostface singing 'Daisy' was creepy enough. I have a feeling that Daisy is a future victim though.
- The episode opened with Audrey and Rachel's relationship being outed by Nina. The opening wasn't successful in recreating the opening from the first movie though.
- The movies may have been set in Woodsboro but in the series, it's a place called Lakewood.
- If we're going by the movies, it's a safe bet that there are two killers and possibly one of them is someone from the main six. The main six being Emma, Audrey, Brooke, Will, Kieran and Noah.
Not a bad opening episode and with a second season already secured, it certainly has time to fine tune itself but for a MTV show, it doesn't feel too violent. I guess maybe they're starting slow and there's enough potential here but I have a feeling that unless the show doesn't up it's game fast, the upcoming Scream Queens will end up overshadowing it.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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