Who is the killer in scream season 3

Well, there you have it: the possible conclusion of the Scream franchise, which will be remembered as the television equivalent of a wet fart in the annals of horror. The lengthy delay between seasons (almost three years) should have been all we needed to know: this “Three-Night Event’ was VH1’s way of dumping a turd of a season and wiping their hands clean. But their hands are not clean. Not. One. Bit.

Two days ago, I wrote the following in my review of Scream: Resurrection‘s first two episodes:

“Scream: Resurrection benefits from not being boring. It’s bad, but at least it’s entertaining.”

My, what a difference four episodes can make. Each set of episodes was worse than the last, with the finale being a particularly egregious miscalculation of viewer expectations (Did you want Deion’s football scholarship drama to take up half of the finale’s runtime? Scream: Resurrection seems to think that you did.). I could spend this review picking apart the series scene by scene, but that would be a waste of my time and yours. This is a bad show and that’s all you need to know. However, it would be prudent to discuss the one aspect of the finale that likely won’t sit well with many horror fans (you know, the show’s target audience).

***SPOILERS for the finale of Scream: Resurrection***

As revealed in the sixth and final episode of Scream: Resurrection, the killers are revealed to be Deion’s (RJ Cyler) step-brother Jamal (Tyga) and Goth-girl horror expert (and Resurrection‘s Randy stand-in) Beth (Giorgia Whigham). Jamal was upset because his father married Deion’s mother (Mary J. Blige) and began to treat Deion like more of a son than Jamal. When he met Beth, who reveals herself to be a sociopath, she fostered his jealousy into a murderous rage and used him to start a killing spree because, well, she just likes killing people.

Yes, out of all of the Scream films to rip off, Scream: Resurrection chose to rip off Scream 3. Jamal’s motive is essentially the same as Roman’s (Scott Foley): He’s upset because his daddy loved his stepbrother more than he loved him. It’s certainly a (boring) choice, but Jamal isn’t the problem with Resurrection‘s finale. You see, while Beth being the killer seems clever (unless you count Scream 4‘s Charlie, Scream has never had the Randy-type character be the killer before), Beth’s motive monologue is problematic to say the least. Her explanation is as follows:

“I was born bad. Unlike you and your little “Deadfast” besties, I don’t lie to myself about it…[When I take my mask] off, nothing changes! I always knew I was a sociopath. I mean, why do you think I love horror movies so much? I watched every single one I could get my hands on until I realized it just wasn’t quite enough. Why should Michael Myers get to have all the fun when I could be a better monster because I’m not just some actor behind a mask. This is who I really am on the inside. [Silence] C’mon, that was a killer monologue! Literally!

Focus on that part in bold, would you? Because no other line of dialogue spoken in this finale matters. In case you glossed over it, here it is again:

“I always knew I was a sociopath. I mean, why do you think I love horror movies so much?”

Do you feel mocked? You should. It’s a tiny line that takes up mere seconds of screen time, but screenwriter/showrunner Brett Matthews is being insulting at best and downright irresponsible at worst. That one bit of dialogue reinforces the stereotype non-horror fans associate with us all too often and because of it, Scream: Resurrection now has the distinction of not only being one of the most boring horror television shows ever created but also one of the most offensive.

Never before have I seen a television series disparage its audience to this degree. Did you know that sociopaths love horror movies? No? Well, Scream: Resurrection is here to school you on that subject. To top things off, the series suggests that horror films can be used to appease or tame sociopathic tendencies in its (sociopathic) viewers, but when they’re not hardcore enough to satiate our vicious bloodlust, we’ll go on a killing spree. Alright.

It’s as if no one on the creative team had ever watched a Scream film before. The films have always done an excellent job of distancing the sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies of their killers from horror fandom. While it is true that the two are not mutually exclusive (obviously, a sociopath can be a horror fan and vice versa), the films took great care to ensure that they were sending the proper message (i.e., horror fans aren’t automatically sociopaths). Do I believe that this was an intentional message? No. I just don’t think anyone put any thought into it (something that could be said about this entire season). Scream is smart. This isn’t smart.

In Scream, Billy (Skeet Ulrich) says “Movies don’t create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative.” In Scream 2, Mickey’s (Timothy Olyphant) motive is to blame the movies for his killing spree, all the while noting that that isn’t the real reason he is killing. It’s just the reason that will make him the most famous. The same applies to Jill (Emma Roberts) in Scream 4. She doesn’t like horror movies because she is psychotic. She just wants to be famous and uses the original Scream (er, Stab) as a blueprint for her master plan. The distinction is important, and Scream: Resurrection does not make that distinction.

At the end of the day, Resurrection delivers an extremely problematic message to its viewers and goes against everything the film franchise stood for. The films respected horror fans. Scream: Resurrection shits on them. At least we now know that whatever the next entry in the Scream franchise is it can’t possibly be worse than this dreck.

To hear more of my thoughts on Scream: Resurrection, check out this week’s bonus episode of the Horror Queers podcast, in which Joe Lipsett and I read the series to filth:

‘American Horror Story’ fails to punch above its weight with a deep, raw idea that’s unfortunately stuck in a shallow episode and grave.

“For a minute. For a thousand years. Forever.”

Horror is full of fascinating figures who make enthralling arguments for why the dead are more valuable than the living and the persecution that frequently follows this philosophy. Titles like Re-Animator, Deadgirl, The Autopsy of Jane Done, and so many others uniquely examine life, death, and the blurred lines in between the two. American Horror Stories’ “Necro” attempts to also bring grief and romance into the equation with this failed experiment that falls short in some seriously tone deaf ways, but still manages to scratch the surface of some compelling ideas.

“Necro” focuses on Sam, a passionate mortician who finds herself at a crossroads in life. Sam has to shoulder most of this episode and Madison Iseman (Goosebumps 2, Annabelle Comes Home) rises to the occasion in the role. Her performance remains a highlight through the installment’s messier portions. “Necro” is at its best when it just allows Sam to bask in her work and the episode captures the genuine artistry that’s behind the craft as well as how this is a gateway towards Sam’s deeper relationship with her subjects. She even engages in thought provoking discussion over what a sacred honor it is to be involved with the death process and how it connects her back to ancient Egyptian rituals.

This introduction on Sam and death is effective, but the larger concerns that begin to plague her are where “Necro” grows more generic. Sam struggles with her bland-yet-on-paper-he’s-perfect boyfriend, Jesse (Spencer Neville), who’s never been able to understand her and pushes her further towards a “job or him” scenario. This ultimatum is hardly fair, but these concessions turn into a running theme for Sam through the episode. She finds herself talking more to the corpses that she works on than her living boyfriend. 

Jesse hammers the idea into Sam that it’s her “weird” job that’s the problem, which is a destructive thought that begins to work for her until she meets Charlie (Cameron Cowperthwaite), the antithesis of Sam’s close-minded, safe existence. Charlie is a sage gravedigger who sees corpses as more than just hunks of meat, which naturally touches Sam. There’s heavy flirtation that stems from steamy conversations over reincarnation, cremation, and other death rituals. They make for entertaining ice-breakers, but they also help build upon “Necro’s” themes. This earnest relationship helps Sam and Charlie confront their past trauma, with both of them experiencing difficult childhoods where they’ve overcome substantial loss, yet in ways that have also taught them to better value death and its connection to life.

“Necro” is a surprisingly patient episode of American Horror Stories and there’s not much danger within the first-half beyond Sam’s errant trauma flashbacks. This creates more of a mystery over what all of this is building towards, which is also unfortunately where “Necro” ultimately falls apart. While this isn’t exactly American Horror Stories’ necrophilia episode, it for all intents and purposes will go down as such. It’s a wild generalization to equate grief and trauma to necrophiliac tendencies and a death kink. It’s actually not a terrible idea to attempt to earnestly pathologize this condition, but it’s far beyond the capabilities of American Horror Stories, a series that rarely traffics in tact and nuance. In the end, a lot of this just feels empty, but kudos to Iseman who goes all in here and commits to a lacking script.

The final act goes on to progressively torture Sam, which includes the worst intervention of all-time, until her life further devolves. “Necro” continually stigmatizes Sam until all of her pain cascades into a devastating, bitter conclusion. The chemistry between Sam and Charlie never comes together and their scenes mostly amount to flashy, yet empty, dialogue like, “This is what it really means to be alive!” and “You’re disgusting…and beautiful.” None of this ever properly elevates from creepy to romantic. The same is true for “Necro’s” big finish, which aims for Romeo and Juliet style catharsis, but feels completely unearned. Sam also shouldn’t feel that she needs to kill herself out of embarrassment over how far her life has fallen. It leaves her even more powerless than where she begins at the start of “Necro,” lifelessly going through the motions with Jesse.

“Necro” is directed by Logan Kibens, a newcomer to the Ryan Murphy universe, but she’s no stranger to horror television having previously cut her teeth on Amazon Prime’s I Know What You Did Last Summer as well as an episode of Hulu’s Monsterland anthology. Kibens does a serviceable job here in an episode that’s well-acted and keeps moving along, but it lacks a distinct visual language and fails to do anything that stands out from past installments. The most evocative sequence in “Necro” is Sam’s “romance,” where ethereal music and gauzy lighting temporarily take over to harken back to ancient rituals, but it still falls short. Like many American Horror Stories episodes, the greatest shortcomings here are the script rather than Kibens’ direction and I’d be curious to see what she does with another episode of the series that’s more entrenched in supernatural material. 

“Necro” is a glib, reductive, disappointing episode of American Horror Stories that takes big swings in a completely different way than last week’s “Facelift.” American Horror Stories isn’t the first series that one would expect to apply empathy to its subjects, but the sarcastic, sensationalist nature of “Necro” becomes one of the episode’s biggest hurdles. Even the title itself plays like a stigmatizing playground slur that’s meant to hurt Sam rather than celebrate or understand her unique condition. American Horror Stories isn’t beyond telling tender, careful stories about humanity, but there’s not enough to hold onto in “Necro” and what is there just feels too mean-spirited or delusional at the cost of its victims. That’s not to say that “Necro” needs to “fix” Sam or idolize her perturbing pathology, but there are still ways to execute this concept that can be full of frightening, sterile visuals that also highlight the haunting romance of Sam’s story.

“Necro” is cold in all of the wrong ways.