by Alice-Ginevra Micheli, Contributing Writer
We all have that feeling. You know the one: you finish watching a movie and something about it hits you in just the right spot. Whether it was the theme, the story, or even the characters, there was a quality about it that almost makes you want to turn around and go back a second, third, or even fourth time!
Bar the reality of living in the movie theater for the rest of your days, you turn to the rest of pop culture and start to look for other avenues where you can find that same feeling.
Well I’m here to make this plight easier for all. Each month, I will take a piece of pop culture that was prevalent in the social consciousness — whether it is a movie, tv show, or something else — and then recommend other forms of media for those who want to stay in that world a little bit longer.
Welcome to your One Stop Pop, internet!
We all know that January is the dead month in the cinema year. Sometimes it means that TV might release something fantastic, but most times it’s just a time of awards season catch up and anticipation. However, there was one film this time that managed to break out of the ‘first month of the year’ hole, and serve up some satisfaction, and nostalgia, all in one! That film was Scream… or 5cream (if you’re going by fan opinion).
The perfect combination of past excitement mixed with modern storytelling, this film managed to revitalize a franchise that was dangerously close to becoming stale. With the story now reaching its 25-year mark, there was a breath of relief when this new entrant ended up being an actual decent one!
Yes, with this franchise you have five whole films you can watch, but I’m sure there’s some of you who wish for more, who want for variety, and I’m here to deliver it to you.
So let’s get into some other media that you can dig your teeth into if you were one of the many who enjoyed 5cream!
TV Show: Scream Queens
Although only running for two seasons, this Ryan Murphy show has managed to become infamous in the pop culture memory. Memeable, ridiculous, and kind of fun (?), this show strikes the balance of 5cream’s variant tones, as it pens its own love letter to the genre its original created.
Across its 23 episode run, this satirical black comedy slasher show starts at Kappa House, where a sorority that prefers to enroll only the most elite has been issued orders that the house should be open to all, resuming in a bloody mayhem.
From the surface, this show screams intrigue, if only from its cast alone! Touting such impressive young stars as Emma Roberts, Billie Lourd, Abigail Breslin, and Ariana Grande, this is a show for people who want a bit of fearful fun accompanying their good time.
It’s a show that knows what it is and isn’t afraid to present itself in such a way to appeal to only those most specific of audiences, which happens to be those who enjoy Scream and its influenced works.
Honestly, if you like this movie franchise, you’ll like this series. Bonus points if you’re also a fan of any of Ryan Murphy’s other work — in particular American Horror Story and Glee, as this will also strike a chord in a way that is just and true.
Sound interesting to you? Watch the full series on Disney + now, and be ready to prepare your lungs.
Video Game: Until Dawn
What’s more fun that watching a slasher flick play out? Why, playing one of course! And which one should you play? Why the most infamous, spine-tingling, nail-biting game in recent memory, Until Dawn.
Embark on a horrifying adventure as you experience the life of eight friends who return to an isolated mountain lodge where two of their group disappeared exactly one year earlier. Upon their return, things quickly turn sinister, and you’ll have to make the difficult decisions that will mean life or death for each member of the group.
While this may seem like a typical role-playing, interactive adventure game, there’s a couple of twists that the game makers have added to the typical genre piece. For one, there are no do-overs — your choice is set in stone, and if someone dies, someone dies — you have to live with it.
However, while there are no do-overs, you do still get to experience the impact of your decisions, the ‘butterfly effect’ that happens as a result of the even smallest choices you make in your gameplay.
Character- and story-driven, this is a game about impact, consequences, and what it means to literally play the puppet master. Plus, due to the game engine used to produce the visuals, it looks very slick, so you can fully immerse yourself within the world as you play.
Sound like something you’d like to check out? Get it on on the PlayStation, and experience real fear.
Book: One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus
Now, a big drawcard of this type of story is the mystery at its center. The whodunit of it all, the uncovering of a heartless monster, hiding as a friend. Basically, the chance to put your detective hat on and solve the case!
A great recent entrant in the YA world is that of One of Us Is Lying. Think The Breakfast Club meets murder, meets Gossip Girl.
Here, you meet five students as they enter detention: the brain, the beauty, the criminal, the athlete, and the outcast (sound familiar?). Only, the catch is, one of them doesn’t make it out alive. Before the end of detention Simon — the outcast — is dead, and according to investigators, his death wasn’t an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he’d planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. So, which one of them is lying? The answer may surprise you.
Follow this group of miscast youths as they are forced into a whirlwind of unwanted notoriety and suspicion, where the only people who might know how they feel are the same people who might be willing to kill.
This is an incredibly fast-paced novel that will have you racing to the end to unmask the killer, allowing you to find out other shocking secrets along the way.
If you’re a fan of YA, you probably won’t be surprised by a lot of these, but that doesn’t make the experience any less exciting, just like how although we’ve experienced the Scream story five times now, doesn’t mean it isn’t fun every time.
Scandalous, exciting, and the perfect guilty pleasure, I recommend picking this one up at your favourite bookseller and diving in yourself.
Oh, and P.S. if you like the book, there’s an adapted show as well that you can check out on Peacock… you know, if you’re interested.
Choose Your Own Adventure:The Interactive Adventures
Now, here’s something completely unique. One of the first projects created by the collective known as ‘Radio Silence’ (a.k.a. the directors of the new Scream movie), this project was the first interactive movie of its kind.
The first one is called The Time Machine, and can be found here to experience. Here, you’ll follow nine segments and witness the three filmmakers as guys who travel through the centuries in a time machine disguised as a trash can, all while running from government agents seeking to get the time machine back.
The format that these took place in were a series of Youtube videos, where at the end of each ‘segment’, the viewer would have the chance to choose the path forward by clicking through one of the two suggested videos.
Since that first one, they’ve made four others including The Teleporter, The Birthday Party,and The Treasure Hunt, all of which can be found here.
A cool experiment created by a bunch of film nerds before they got to play with some real budgets and money, it’s a fun, and dynamic way to truly experience the early work of some up-and-coming filmmakers, without paying a cent!
Think of it as an escape room that you don’t even have to leave your home to complete, a Goosebumps-esque Choose Your Own Adventure that is more attuned to your adult sensibilities. In short, it’s brief, silly, exciting fun.
Since then Radio Silence have gone on to produce the films Ready or Not and V/H/S, as well as of course (as mentioned) Scream 2022, which goes to show that greatness can come from anywhere.
Tickle your fancy? Jump onto their landing page here and experience one for yourself!
And so there we have it, something to engage you gamer, reader, tv show viewer, and interactive experiencer in you, based on which is itching to be further explored following your viewing of 5cream.
I’ll be back next month with whatever consumes people’s interest most in this second month of the year! Will it be the classic murder mystery coming to our shores, or the latest in a line of video game adaptations with Spider-Man at its center?! Only time will tell.
Until then, thank you for visiting SiftPop’s One Stop Pop. We hope to see you again soon!
You can follow Alice-Ginevra Micheli on Instagram and Letterboxd
Alice-Ginevra Micheli is the master of Sift Pop. You read her article and you are ready for another month of material to watch, even if you dismiss them earlier on. It’s a pleasure reading, it’s an enjoyable time ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️