One of the really great things about horror as a genre is that we don’t just get singular movies but instead frequently get entire franchises. What starts with one good movie often turns into sequels, spinoffs, and more. Just look at things like Saw, Paranormal Activity, Halloween, and so many. more. Sometimes, those movie franchises go even further to television series as well. Sometimes those television shows are continuations of stories we see in the movies or function as sort of reboots, but in the case of one horror television series tied to an iconic franchise, what arrived on the small screen was almost entirely its own thing — and it will be streaming for free starting August 1st.
Hitting Tubi on August 1st is the short-lived Scream: The TV Series. Released in 2015 (four years after Scream 4), the MTV series functioned as a unique entry in the overall franchise ion that it had no direct ties to the movies but instead utilizes some of the same concepts and archetypes to tell its own, anthologized slasher story that worked very well, but sadly only lasted for three seasons.
What really makes Scream work as a television series is that it doesn’t simply rehash the movies but takes the framework of the original movie to tell a story that is familiar while also very different. The first two seasons of the series follows Emma Duval (Willa Fitzgerald), a teenager in Lakewood, Colorado who finds herself targeted by a masked serial killer. The general Scream framework is there — the killer is working their way through the group of friends and Emma has ties to something awful in the town’s past which itself connects to the murder spree — but it is also very different. The third season is where the anthology element of the series kicks in, with the third season — Scream: Resurrection — following a completely different group of characters in another town, this time with local football star Deion Elliot (RJ Cyler) who is haunted by the events of his past with Ghostface using his dark secrets against him. Of the three seasons, the third was the weakest but was still a departure from the larger movie franchise.
By being its own thing, the Scream television did what many of the movie sequels never did which was simply use the concept to tell new stories. It took what was good about the Scream movies and it’s formula, and changed other elements here and there to be its own, fresh offering in the thriller space. It didn’t try to be the movies or even follow them and by unburdening itself from its parent franchise, it very much stands on its own. That’s something very rare when it comes to television adaptations or installments of larger franchises. Unfortunately, it’s an entry in the Scream universe that many fans forget exists, but now that it’s streaming for free on Tubi in August, hopefully more fans will check it out and see what another take on the classic Scream formula can be.
