Being a fan of both horror movies and pretty girls, the Divine One had Scream Queens as one of my Top 5 new shows I was looking forward to this Fall. I knew going into this, that the whole plan behind creator Ryan Murphy (Glee, AHS) was to parody and make fun of slasher films; and with a cast full of talent and promise it seemed like Mr. Murphy might be working his genius again…..
https://youtu.be/-FtenR69qmk
AS IF!!!
Okay, so the story takes place at a sorority house where the leader named Chanel No.1 (AHS vet Emma Roberts), and her minions — who are also a named Chanels No. 2, 3 and 5 — have been forced by the University’s Dean Munsch (Jamie Lee Curtis) to open Kappa House to ALL students. OMG. What a bitch. Like, even the gross fatties and basic hoes? Ew!
But that’s not even the worst part, with all that going on there’s, like, a devil-masked killer knocking off pledges and Kappa sisters alike. How rude! What’s his problem?! So because of the killer on the loose, the Dean orders all pledges to move in to the house to “keep them safe.” Well, that’s just dumb.
AHEM. Okay, sorry. I don’t know what happened back there.
I was enjoying this in the beginning. Roberts comes in like Hurricane Super Bitch and just puts this show on a fast-track pace of motor mouthed dialogue and quick asides about everything going on. After her frighteningly good performance in AHS Coven, Roberts has proven herself well-suited to lead this large cast while setting the pace brisk pace.
The pledges are a mix of random and known names such as the crafty Grace (Freak Show’s Skyler Samuels) who is secretly only trying to join so she can overthrow Chanel, and Zayday (Akeelah and the Bee‘s Keke Palmer) who is perfect in giving all the right amounts of attitude, to the Chanels. But other than them, and the terribly underused Hester (Glee’s Lea Michele), the rest are forgettable and I’m sure will be dead soon. Jamie Lee does her best with what she’s given, as I can only assume there must be more to come if she bothered to take this part. Not for nothing, she seems like the only actress and character who can make Chanel No. 1 feel like a small child.
Yeah, the snarky humor, the conceited attitudes of the Chanels, and the belittling of others is all quite entertaining. But when it comes down to the actual death scenes the show goes bust. They’re imaginative, but in an annoyingly self-aware and pseudo-cutesy way that really misses its target. This show is like watching gladiators fight in the Roman Coliseum, and all I want to do is turn my thumb down when they think they should be spared for their great performance.
Another big problem is that it’s so predictable — especially when they advertise big name talent on the show – you know they’re going to die. It’s different in movies because you only have a couple of hours to spend with the characters; but with many episodes of a TV show bringing in big talent and giving them hardly any screen time makes their deaths anti-climactic. Because this is a Ryan Murphy show I’m going to do my best to see where this goes, but he better up his game unless he wants to hear that he should have just stuck with one American Horror Story his whole life.
Scream Queens airs Tuesday’s at 9/8c on Fox.