On Sunday night, MTV’s highly anticipated new show Scream made its world premiere at the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival, two weeks in advance of its small screen debut on June 30th. Right before the big screening, Daily Dead had the chance to briefly speak with some of the cast members, including Bex Taylor-Klaus (who also has recently popped up on both Arrow and iZombie), Amadeus Serafini, and Carlson Young, as well as Jill Blotevogel, who serves as an executive producer and writer on Scream.
Here are some of the highlights of what we learned about MTV and Dimension’s new series:
Jill Blotevogel on being respectful of Wes Craven’s original film that inspired Scream the TV series:
This series has been a long time in the making and for me, what has always made Scream so special has been the humor. I’m a huge genre fan and I can remember being blown away by Kevin Williamson’s original script that took a terrifying story and still managed to find ways to make it entertaining and funny without compromising the horror at all. I think that’s something that still stands out today.
And while we’ve still got the teen drama aspects in the TV series version, we had to build a bigger mystery because essentially, those were 90-minute mysteries. We’re trying to do 10 hours, which is a much bigger feat—and if all goes well, six more seasons and a movie after that [laughs]. But I do think that all the things that fans have enjoyed about the movies, they will enjoy about the series. Plus, we do have a couple of really cool kills too.
Jill Blotevogel on whether or not MTV gave them certain parameters in regards to how far they could go with the content and the violence:
I think in general we’ve been in a constant state of adjustment because this is such an important franchise to everyone involved. The process has really been about trying to determine just how dark this moment should be or how funny it should be here. It’s a constant give-and-take, but I think overall it’s been the fact that because everyone involved with the series has so much love for the original Scream, we’re all doing our very best to try and honor it here.
Jill Blotevogel discusses taking Scream the TV series out of Woodsboro:
There’s always going to be someone out there who isn’t happy that we changed the mask or that we didn’t stick with Woodsboro or involve Sidney in the story too, but I think that allowed us to create a new show and mystery that feels fresh because we don’t have to stick to a strict history. And I’m hoping that fans will realize that coming into the series and embrace it as a brand new chapter—not necessarily with the original characters—but as something that can stand on its own two feet while still paying homage to what came before it.
Amadeus Serafini tells us that the devil is in the details when it comes to Scream:
This project does have a totally different spin to it. There’s a lot more story here, just because of how long we have to tell this story, and our writers have found some very clever ways of sustaining that mystery. And I definitely urge those who watch the show to really pay attention to our characters' backstories and where we come from because that all comes into play in relation to the overall story. The details are everything here—it’s all leading somewhere.
Carlson Young on being in the dark in regards to what her character’s fate will be during the first season of Scream:
It’s to the point where we almost dread getting the episode scripts because we don’t know if we’re going to die or not. There are a lot of surprises in our show, though, where you think you know but it’s a total swerve, and I think that’s the coolest part about the writing on the show. Everybody’s fair game.
That being said, I do think there is a ton of freedom when you’re working like this because you don’t get caught up in what’s going to happen—there’s no point, so that gives you time to just focus on your character and keep them in that moment.
Bex Taylor-Klaus discusses her initial reaction to the series and also being immersed in the mystery of Scream’s overall story:
I was already slightly separated from the film series because it hadn’t fully sunken in that the audition pages I had, which had the word “Scream” on them, was the same “Scream” as the movie franchise everybody loves. It didn’t really hit me at all until I booked the role and then it was like, “Oh my god, this is Scream” [laughs].
But I do love everything being so up in the air. I’m a big fan of crime and mystery genres, so getting to be a part of that and getting to be immersed in that kind of story is amazing. I don’t know who the killer is either, and so I’m right along with the rest of the cast as we all are trying to figure it out for ourselves. It’s fun—when we hang out, we’re often trying to piece together the scenes we just did in relation to other things to see if we can try and piece it all together ourselves. It feels like a game of Clue.
Heather A. Wixson was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, until she followed her dreams and moved to Los Angeles in 2009. A 14-year veteran in the world of horror entertainment journalism, Wixson fell in love with genre films at a very early age, and has spent more than a decade as a writer and supporter of preserving the history of horror and science fiction cinema. Throughout her career, Wixson has contributed to several notable websites, including Fangoria, Dread Central, Terror Tube, and FEARnet, and she currently serves as the Managing Editor for Daily Dead, which has been her home since 2013. She's also written for both Fangoria Magazine & ReMind Magazine, and her latest book project, Monsters, Makeup & Effects: Volume One will be released on October 20, 2021.
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