Scream: Resurrection - The Deadfast Club

Much like The Marked Ones for Paranormal Activity, a nice diverse change in the formula can sometimes freshen up material starting to go stale. When I discovered (on Facebook of all places) that there would be a third season of Scream (called Resurrection) on VH1 with a mostly African-American cast I was quite optimistic and hopeful thanks in part to the change of venue and just the different characters involved from the previous two seasons.

The opening of the first episode, The Deadfast Club, sort of winks at us as Paris Jackson answers to the phone to a supposed survey caller asking her about her favorite scary movie and answers the door to a kid with a retractable toy knife in the Ghostface mask/costume. Dressed as “Florence Nightingale” , Paris tells the kid to be careful with the knife she paid a lot for her “bad boys”. Later a football player and the kid in the costume arrive at a junkman’s metal yard, soon encountering Tony Todd with a hook hand…get it! Yes, I marked out for it, what can I say?

As you expect, the kids are introduced. Keke Palmer, with bullhorn and plenty of vigor, already brings up the POTUS and signing a petition, getting detention for sounding off right into a teacher’s face about her second amendment rights. Jocks talk about the big game and football, with the usual one-upmanship. Then an uber driver is knifed into the throat with a grocery bag suffocation for good measure. Marcus wasn’t available but someone in the Ghostface mask and costume was.

Collins, the smart aleck quarterback, Deion (D-Day), the running back (and main male lead), and Liv, the girl that comes between them. The title of the first episode of the third season essentially has a group of principles assembled in detention. Deion and Liv, after the altercation with Collins, are told to go by the teacher who has enough of their voiced criticism because of the quarterback’s nonsense. Beth has piercings, black liner and lipstick, and what might be considered “goth décor”. Palmer’s Kym doesn’t want anyone “putting her in any boxes”, resisting the label of rebel when the description of the characters from The Breakfast Club. Beth and her book, “The Mortal Coil”, get little time in detention, with her telling the class she’s a “horror girl”. Amir (Christopher Jordan Wallace), is a DJ and the “nerd” mentioned in dialogue. Manny (Giullian Yao Gioiello) is Kym’s asthmatic gay friend, sort of a sidekick she tries to encourage pursuing a potential mate.

Mary J Blige is the mother of Deion (RJ Cyler; “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”; “Power Rangers”), hoping he can’t keep himself out of trouble, recalling Halloween, seemingly a conversation that evokes serious ill will. Deion is the one that receives the phone call from Ghostface, claiming to be “Marcus”, informing him that those he knows (the inner circle) will die, wanting to “play a game”. A costume party with plenty of Ghostface costumed party-goers leaves Deion plenty uncomfortable. He was frightened and tased. Marcus, we learn when the Ghostface tormenter calling Deion tells him to admit to his haunted past regarding the twin brother who died at the hookhand of Tony Todd to the inner circle, tells the detention club that he fears for their safety. Avery Collins, rival of Deion, is tossed from a balcony at the costume party onto a wooden spike, impaled and immediately dead. The detention club congregate at a tattoo parlor.

It seems the killer’s game, according to Beth, is that those hunted aren’t on the outside who they are on the inside. And each fits a particular slasher cliché. 2.5/5