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MTV’s ‘Scream’ is so funny it is scary

Owen Johnson
Connector Editor

The MTV “Scream” television series is a surprising high point in terms of so-bad-it-is-good entertainment. It is hard for movies to reach this entertainment stage because they risk running out of new gimmicks to keep the audience unintentionally laughing at it, and a television show that has a longer run time would have an even harder time of accomplishing this, but MTV’s “Scream” manages to do it.

The town of Lakewood has a dark past involving the mass murders committed by a man named Brandon James. This dark past arises again when another string of murders breaks out in the small community, with the central focus of it being on high schooler Emma Duval (Willa Fitzgerald) and her friend group.

“Scream” is an anomaly when it comes to so-bad-it-is-good for a few reasons. One: it is a television series, which makes it seem like it would run out of so-bad-it-is-good material and end up becoming boring over doing the same thing repeatedly. Two: the show actually has a decent budget, so they would be able to get whatever was actually needed for it. Three: since it is on a television network and is not something put together by people with no experience making television programs, there is actual competency in some aspects of the show. It is not just a hodgepodge of incompetency from people who do not know what they are doing.

The usual rule for something to be so bad that it is good is that the piece of entertainment finds new ways of displaying hilarious ineptitude, but “Scream” manages to find a different path that still reaches the same goal: the show is so oblivious to its own problems that they become funnier every time they come up.

For example, the show’s cast of characters is one of the most cliché ensembles of characters out there. Emma is a bland and generic horror movie main character, or final girl, as the show would put it. Noah (John Karna) is a geek whose brain is filled with nothing but pop cultural references. Kieran (Amadeus Serafini) is a bland and generic love interest for Emma.

Brooke (Carlson Young) is petty. One would think that someone involved would realize that while these traits might work for a 90-minute slasher movie, a long running television show needs better developed characters. That being said, this actually works in the show’s favor because the showrunners’ mindboggling refusal to develop any of them beyond horror movie stereotypes makes them endearing in spite of themselves.

Then there is the mystery aspect of the show. It is a who-done-it murder mystery and everyone is a suspect. And everyone is a suspect because everyone apparently has a screwed up secret that they are keeping from everyone else, whether it be blackmail, stalking or a student-teacher affair. One or two characters having a dark secret that they are keeping hidden from everyone else works, but it becomes unrealistic when almost every character, both main and supporting, has a dark secret. It is especially strange because while these dark secrets might be motivation for one character to kill another, it is not motivation for the mass murder spree that occurs.

Even the drama is ridiculous. For example, in the second season, a character reveals to another character what their secret is. The secret is the most predictable and clichéd idea that has ever been used on the show, and it gets played off like it is sheer brilliance on the showrunners’ part.

With cliché characters, writing and ideas that the showrunners seem to think are innovative and brilliant, MTV’s “Scream” manages to obtain a so-bad-it-is-good ranking when it easily could have been a dull and uninspired television show with a premise that was shorter than its seasons.

Entertainment grade: A

Critical grade: D

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