I didn’t think much of the announcement that Scream would continue as an MTV series. I’m not as big a fan of the first movie as I thought I was and even if I was I could always go back and watch that. I’m not the kind of person who gets bent out of shape about the mere existence of remakes and reboots.

But, I was curious to see if this new version of Scream was any good, so I watched the first episode on On Demand a few episodes into the season and was instantly hooked. This wasn’t necessarily groundbreaking entertainment, but it had plenty of mystery, surprisingly gory kills and a cast of characters I actually found myself liking (partially because many of them reminded me of older actors I already like).

The basic plot of the show is that high school student Emma finds herself in the middle of a series of murders that lead to plenty of discovers about her friends and family members. Like any good slasher, you’re not quite sure who to trust because the show is packed with shifty characters with something to hide. As the 10 episodes progress, names start falling off the suspect list — mostly because they get killed — but you’re still not quite sure who it could be or why (though I did figure it out about three episodes before the finale or so).

One of the more interesting aspects of the show is that it unfolds fairly naturally. Instead of front-loading everything with the kind of information you don’t necessarily need right off the bat (like that Brooke and Jake actually have an interesting and complicated relationship that goes back years), those details are revealed as needed. In a world where horror movies feel the need to info dump like crazy in the first 20 minutes, this was a nice change. Relationships and their intricacies should be revealed over time, not all at once for the audience’s absorption.

I should probably note at this point that the only horror shows I’ve ever watched with any consistency are Tales From The Crypt as a kid and Dexter. Overall, I enjoyed the experience and, even though I agreed with the kid who looks like a Topher Grace clone that a slasher probably couldn’t sustain a show, I was impressed with the engine driving the series.

So, what about the finale reveal of the killer’s identity? I have to say that I called it a few episodes out from the end. Let’s call this SPOILER TERRITORY, though I won’t say specifically who was involved. Based on what I’d seen, I was fairly certain that none of the kids were slicing up the townspeople because of what we’d seen and the way they acted (unless the writers decided to cheat the ending, which I was a bit worried about). Because of that, I assumed the bad guy was probably one of the older characters, but even that list continued getting narrowed down.

Want to hear some of the more outlandish theories that popped into my head? At one point I wondered if the sheriff was actually Brandon James. At another, I wondered if the mom was actually testing Emma to see if she was worthy of their weird family. There was also one about the roguish, often-disappearing Kieran, maybe that he was also the son of Brandon James, but that would have made everything with Emma ultra weird.

All in all I’ve had a great time watching this new take on Scream. I liked the films when they first came out, but never fell hard for them like I did earlier franchises or even Final Destination, but there’s plenty of building blocks to work with (masked killer, voice changer, unknown killer(s?), teen antics) to play with and make something brand new. I’m not sure if I want to fill my viewing time up with horror shows — it can be a lot watching hours and hours of murders/investigations/scares instead of just 90 minutes — but  I enjoyed this experience and will be back next season to see what happens.