Scream TV series Bella Thorne as Nina

MTV breathes new life into the Scream franchise with an all-new series. The opening pays homage to the first film with another dumb blonde victim but this time she’s got it coming. Nina (Bella Thorne) and Tyler (Anthony Rogers) are murdered after uploading a video outing their classmate Audrey (Bex Taylor-Klaus) as a lesbian. The killer, or killers, give Nina a taste of her own medicine. They taunt her with video from her hacked webcam and threaten to upload it to the internet.

The advent of social media may be the most glaring change but what’s not apparent from the preview is that the story has moved from Woodsboro to Lakewood, a town with its own troubled past.

“It came down to the idea that the show need to be a fresh world that still retained the spirit of Scream, its sense of humor and, of course, a masked killer,” executive producer Jill Blotevogel told TV Guide.

The laughs start when Nina tries to call 911 and the voice recognition hears Pottery Barn. The killer still has sick sense of humor. “Head’s up,” reads a text preceding Tyler’s decapitated head being thrown at Nina.

The rest of the characters appear to be safe for now. The first season is 10 episodes long so Ghostface 2.0 will have to pace himself.

“We want the emotional stakes for our characters to have weight, and that is the reason that we’re not killing someone in every episode,” said executive producer Jamie Paglia. “We have found other ways to get the thrills and scares. Expect to see a lot of boundaries being pushed.”

A suspenseful build up is a vital component to scary movie according to the gang’s resident nerd, Noah (John Karna), who explains the rules much like his original counterpart, Randy (Jamie Kennedy).

“You have to care to if the smoking hot teacher seems too interested in his female students,” Noah reveals in a promo. “You have to care if the team wins the big game. You have to care if the smart girl forgives the dumb jock. You root for them. You love them. So when they all are brutally murdered, it hurts.”

It’s the kind of disturbing insight that we’d expect from the mastermind behind the killing. Even Randy admitted that he would be the prime suspect in a scary movie. Although he turned out to be innocent that’s no guarantee they won’t switch things up. Remember: EVERYBODY’S A SUSPECT! (except Nina and Tyler)

Scream premieres June 30, Tuesday 10PM on MTV.