Screams of Joy for Scream: An Unauthorized Musical Parody

Synopsis

There is nothing better than the nostalgic feelings of watching your first horror movie over and over again. Or is there? What if someone turned it into a musical? And for the songs, they used throwbacks to the time the movie came out!

If you are a Scream fan, like me, and like musicals and campy, silly fun, then Scream: An Unauthorized Musical Parody is just up your alley. Troy Heard and Brandon Scott Grayson with The Majestic put together another masterpiece, with a live band for all of the 90’s songs you could imagine. They played “Just a Girl”, “What’s Up?”, “Bye Bye Bye” and dozens of others that 90’s kids could not help but recognize, and sometimes sing along.

 

According to Fangoria, Heard had fan support for the idea before he even wrote the show. He put a post about it on social media and declared that if he had enough engagement in 4 hours, he would do it. He got replies within minutes!

The Good

Visually, this show was a masterpiece of a parody. The characters and costumes looked like the original movie, sometimes to an uncanny degree. The actor that played Stu, Joey Derby, was a dead ringer for Matthew Lillard. Tatum’s outfit was almost identical to the plaid skirt outfit Rose Mcgowan wore in the film, even down to the white boots, and Katie Marie Jones captured her flirty spirit, even sometimes flirting with the audience.

And oh, the songs! Everything from Blink-182, the 4 Non-blondes, N’Sync and Backstreet Boys. Billy Loomis and Sidney Prescott singing “Kiss Me”, the song in every teen romance of the decade especially tickled my fancy.

They played the songs that made us laugh and cry back when Scream first came out, and they still make us laugh and cry today.

The actors used the entire theater as the stage. Sidney’s window is in the stands, Gail Weathers talks to the people in the front row. It entirely encompasses the audience. Even our favorite villain jumps into the audience to dance, to everyone’s delight.

The Bad

The main downside of this show to me is the $50 to $60 price tag. Makes it a bit hard to afford on a tight budget, and makes you think twice about seeing it again, even if you really want to.

The only other negative I can think of is if you don’t like campy horror. Because this was definitely a parody; a Tatum running around the stage holding the doggie door after she died type parody. A Ghostface calling Casey Becker names type parody

Overall

I cannot stress enough how hysterical this musical was. But in case my words don’t say it enough, maybe the words of another fan (and a good friend) will help convince you:

Wildly entertaining, extremely strong actors extraordinarily comedic. I have never seen the original scream but I have seen scary movie I feel like if you’ve seen anything in that vein you will fully understand what’s going on loved it -Marisa Miller