OK, so it's not Scream the original movie. It's not smart or sophisticated and it's not a fresh and exciting new take on an old genre. But if you let go of all your preconceptions and expectations, it CAN BE something else. It can be a summertime guilty pleasure; and that's not at bad thing at all. Because it's actually pretty easy to be entertained by something you don't expect much from
and if you do that with this show, you give it the potential to deliver.
First, everybody has something to hide so by the end of episode 2 you know that much of what you've seen isn't what it appears to be. Sure, it's been done before but in some cases, and with these people, the humans are just as scary as the ghosts! If nothing else, trying to figure out who's going to mess with whom and why can actually end up fun. Or, put another way, let the backstabbing begin and just try to follow the knife!
So what if the history of the camp has been seen and done before in any number of ways. We haven't seen it done with Tony Todd, who floats through the show like an avatar of death and destruction without giving the viewer enough knowledge yet to be certain of why he does it or what it actually means. So, bad guy? Yes. In this context? No way to know yet.
And by the end of episode 2 it would also appear that filing this show away in a box marked "guilty pleasures 2016" might not be a half bad idea. So give it two episodes, get out your popcorn and surrender your disbelief, cynicism and critical analysis. Don't try to take it apart, take it for what it is and enjoy the ride. It's not brilliant, surreal or groundbreaking. But neither is a trip to the old state fair and we enjoy going to that every year in spite of it all!
