Hell Breaks Loose in 'Scream Queens' Season 1

From left: Chanel #3, Chanel #5, Chanel Oberlin, Zayday and Hester.

Leave The Devil to Them . . .

Halloween is three months away but that’s no reason to not dive into the hilarious horror that is Ryan Murphy’s Scream Queens. I just could *not* wait until October to spill the beans on this series. Seasons one and two have both aired on Fox, but much like how I finally watched American Horror Story this past year, I was late to the game on catching Scream Queens live.

Watching it on DVD though, has been kind of amazing. This is unlike quite any other show that’s on cable today- even American Horror Story’s various incarnations. Scream Queens debuted in 2015 and takes place at Wallace University -- a fictitious school that has a SoCal vibe. A masked murderer in a red devil costume rips through the campus, terrorizing students and wiping out anyone who has any kind of association with The Kappa Kappa Tau Sorority house. President and resident Queen Bee on campus is Chanel Oberlin (Emma Roberts) a self-involved diva with a killer wardrobe, a rocky relationship with her hot-but-still-a-weenie boyfriend Chad Radwell (Glen Powell) is infuriated when Dean Cathy Munsch (Jamie Lee Curtis) wrecks the whole sorority system in a single blow. The new rules? Anyone can pledge the frats or the sororities.

#squAHHHH!d goals

Flanked by her squad of fellow Chanels, Chanel #2 (Ariana Grande), Chanel #3 (Billie Lourde) and Chanel #5 (Abigail Breslin) Chanel’s reign is threatened by the arrival of six new pledges. Including a blond song bird and self proclaimed Deaf Taylor Swift , an androgynous Asian labeled Predatory Lez (Jeanna Han) sassy ethnic Zayday (Keke Palmer), neck-and-body-brace wearing Hester (Lea Michele), an unapologetically creeptastic with a penchant for spouting out morbid facts and hardcore obsessing over Chanel, and  basic incoming freshman Grace (Skyler Samuels).

When hazing the new pledges for Hell Week ends in a gruesome murder, paranoia and terror descends upon Wallace University. With the sighting of the Red Devil, bodies start dropping, and the campus goes under high alert. This mysterious murderers killing spree brings to light some dark secrets from Kappa Kappa Tau, a tiny detail from its sordid past once though to be more of a myth turns out to be not just real, but a real danger to the current Kappa Tau girls and anyone who gets close to them.

Fueled by an electric and snappy soundtrack, led by a cast of quirky and flawed characters, and with impressive cinematic caliber scenes and camera work, Scream Queens is the total package. The mystery at the heart of the plot is layered and ever winding, and with each new discovery there are yet more questions and more shadows.

My what a wicked smirk you have....

The storytelling is legit, and fans of Riverdale, Bates Motel, and American Horror Story are sure to be hooked on watching what goes down. From the design and decor of the sorority house, to the individual and distinctive looks of each of the girls Scream Queens is stylish and artsy yet still manages to feel like a small indie flick rather than a slick Blockbuster.  While it may not have the same gruesome and grim tone as American Horror Story there are moments with graphic blood and gore. There’s no question that Scream Queens is definitely a slasher show, but it also is a satire of the horror/slasher genre and Greek life.

The dialogue exchanges amongst the girls and the boys in the Dickie Dollars Scholars Fraternity are hilarious. But also INCREDIBLY offensive. If you can’t laugh easily or find the humor in some of the snarky and often not politically correct quips then Scream Queens will leave you feeling butthurt. It’s all in good fun, and it really revels in pushing the limits and toeing the line. Some of the jokes may go too far, sure, but by no means is a mean or hateful show in any way.  As Chanel Oberlin, Emma Roberts screeches, throws legendary temper tantrums and fires insults at anyone remotely different than her and her underlings. She’s insensitive to say the least but is still not totally despicable. Unlike Roberts’ turn as haughty Madison Montgomery in American Horror Story: Coven Chanel Oberlin is not just a stone cold bitch, even though that’s the trope that defines her in the very beginning.

Funeral Couture Chanel.

This is true for many of the other girls. The Chanels aren’t just brainless sheeple going on shopping sprees and drooling over cute boys and designer clothes. Sadie Swenson aka Chanel #3 (Billie Lourde) is smarter than she seems. And one of her fashion staples, her wide array of ear muffs -sometimes glitzy, sometimes fluffy -- it turns out are a must-wear for her every single season because of very specific and very freaky reason. Chanel #5 is Libby Putney (Abigail Breslin) an eager-to-please, constantly anxious and uptight, try-hard who has the uncanny ability to date boys who get hacked apart by the Red Devil and is hated by her parents.

Perhaps one of the most meh characters of the lot is one of our rotating leads-- Grace Gardner (Skyler Samuels) who does have a somewhat significant role in progressing the storyline, isn’t particularly interesting. She’s the standard pretty-but-doesn’t-know-it, Good Girl, and she becomes fixated on cracking what happened in KKT’s sordid past --and possibly even claiming some of that infamy for herself. Her relationship with student Pete Martinez (Diego Boneta) is bland and dull. Not only does he look about THIRTY and hardly like he’s living in a dorm on some college campus, but the chemistry between the two is just lukewarm. These two characters are duds, but there are still plenty of others that make Scream Queens a riot. ESPECIALLY the Dickie Dollars Scholars including Gay Boone (Nick Jonas, who is surprisingly hilarious), posh Brit Earl Grey (Lucien Laviscount) and of course Niecy Nash as total scene-stealer Denise Hemphill the Secure Enforcement Solutions Officer assigned to “protect” the KKT girls. Her sass is off the charts, and her criticism towards the girls stupidity to rush into cliched horror story traps makes her an instantly lovable and hysterically funny character.

Scream Queens is a blend of absurd and outrageous horror with satire and scares galore. It’s freaky and funny and in-your-face from the very first scene to the last. Scream Queens is surprisingly disturbing and driven by an impressively planned out arc of mysteries and mayhem. It’s anything BUT predictable. Click off the lights, fire up the TV and get ready to laugh and scream your pretty little head off.

Sadie aka. Chanel #3 because Billie Lourd is kinda amazing.