Today we're going to veer away from movies to talk about Ryan Murphy's new series Scream Queens starring Emma Roberts and Jamie Lee Curtis. We all know Jamie Lee Curtis is the ultimate scream queen, debuting in Halloween and carrying on through the 80s in various slasher films, both good and not as good. Pair her style of horror with Ryan Murphy's and you get one hell of a parody.
Scream Queens is a self-aware interpretation of the slasher and horror genres, making digs at tropes and deep cut references for hardcore fans. The story follows a sorority, Kappa Kappa Tau, with a history of violence and murder. In 1995, a sister gives birth in a bathtub and dies shortly after, leaving a baby girl behind with neglectful college girls and Cathy Munsch (Jamie Lee Curtis). Flash forward to present day as Grace Gardner (Skyler Samuels) tries to join her mother's former sorority without knowing that she is in fact the baby born in the house that is now run by sorority president Chanel Oberlin (Emma Roberts). As the sorority experiences a series of misadventures, they endure violent incidents instigated by Red Devil, a murdering psychopath (or so it seems).
Ryan Murphy's show is padded with laughs and is very inviting to even the most mild horror fan. The prime time airing and network programming prevents it from getting as gory as American Horror Story, which gives the comedy an opportunity to shine. It does what good horror films do: provide you with enough information to fear what's around the corner, but withhold the rest in order to make you come back for more. It turn, it also makes fun of what mediocre horror films do: objectify women and over compensate in masculinity. Many of the guys are over-the-top meatheads with identity crises and many of the girls are extremely materialistic and self-absorbed.
The strong characters defy these stereotypes and deliver realistic performances that are often non-existent in horror films, outside the individual who seems to be the only one to remember rational thought. Scream Queens doesn't approach horror like the Scream movies did, allowing the characters to be aware of slasher films and knowing how to respond to familiar scenarios. Instead, they increase the frequency of tropes, making them obtuse, all the while enforcing the ignorance of the characters to their predicament. The plot has been a classic "whodunit" and it's only getting deeper as the show progresses.
Scream Queens airs on Wednesdays at 9 on Fox. The fifth episode debuts on the 13th, so there's plenty of time to catch up on this excellent show.
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