One of the best horror films to come out this year so far has been Scream VI. The film continued the story from the mega-successful 2022 reboot. While those films exist in the same universe that director Wes Craven started in 1996’s Scream, there was an 11-year gap between Scream 4 and the fifth entry. In that time MTV released a series based on the popular franchise appropriately titled Scream: The TV Series. The series originally ran for three seasons from 2015 to 2019. During the series’ lifetime, it found a chillingly comfortable streaming second home on Netflix. However, after almost a decade on the platform, all three seasons of Scream: The TV Series are leaving Netflix in August.
What’s the Scream Series About?
The first two seasons of Scream: The TV Series had nothing to do with the traditional Ghostface, Woodsboro, or Sidney Prescott that horror fans all knew and loved. Rather than continuing in the same continuity as the films, the series followed Emma Duval (Willa Fitzgerald) and the town of Lakewood as they dealt with a killer who took on the haunting legend of Brandon James. This was an unfortunate kid who was killed years prior in a tragic accident. The killer dubbed the “Lakewood Slasher” forced Emma to unravel the town’s dark past which included her own morbid family legacy. While many horror fans were upset at the time that the series disregarded the canon, it allowed Scream to be reinvented in some very clever ways. Like the films, the series was still very meta, focusing on how the horror genre had to adapt to the TV format and dissecting society’s true crime obsession. This was with all your usual horror references sprinkled in for good measure.
The series was Scream mixed in with I Know What You Did Last Summer and Prom Night. There was such a rich lore at the heart of Emma and Brandon James’ story which made it a lot more than your average murder mystery slasher. The characters were endlessly entertaining, the kills were graphic, the atmosphere was intense with the series being a bit darker than the previous films at the time, and the original musical score was one of the best in modern TV history. The series also took full adventure of Scream being in the 21st century with things like Podcasts, social media, and mental health having a major focus in the narrative. Many of those things would be elements explored in the latest pair of Scream films, but the series was ahead of the curve in that regard. Craven was also an executive producer on the series which was his last credited work before his death in 2015.
However, you can’t talk about the series without discussing its third season. Because of the series’ lack of popularity and low ratings, MTV decided to go in a different direction. They abandoned Emma’s story altogether even though Season 2 left the Brandon James plot thread on a brutal cliffhanger. Instead, the season, retitled Scream: Resurrection, followed a new group of characters led by Keke Palmer (Nope) in a more traditional Ghostface plot. Although not in the same universe again as the films, Roger L. Jackson did return as the voice of the famous masked killer. However, that couldn’t save a pretty generic horror season and the series was quickly canceled.
When’s the Scream Series Leaving Netflix?
Scream: The TV Series is leaving Netflix on August 31, 2023. That means horror fans still have a bit over a month to watch all 29 episodes. Only Season 1 is available on DVD, so this might be your last chance to watch the entire series unless it gets picked up by another streaming service. While the series had its flaws, it’s a very underrated slasher that’s more than worth the watch. It kept the franchise alive just long enough for the world to get renewed interest in Ghostface on the big screen and without the series we might not have gotten the new Scream films. A pair of films that have been fully embraced by the genre community.
