The body count rises!
We took a quick survey after this third episode of Scream Queens and it is turning out to be the favored slasher show among the Overlook regulars. I also found out that I was not the only one just enjoying the watch, not looking for clues and taking note of where people are at what time. That was fun to do during Scream, but Scream Queens is more of a sit back and watch the blood flow kind of treat. And that is not to say that the show doesn't have its own intelligent quarks because it's got no shortage of horror references and homages to some of the greats.
What is it about Scream Queens that just insists that you watch, enjoy, and heckle the choices characters make? What made Scream the polar opposite? Casting for sure; Scream had an all unknown cast with a few exceptions. We didn't know these people very well, so there was really no way to tell what kind of show they would be in or what their characters were prone to doing. Now in Scream Queens we have caricatures of the roles that these actors are type casted as: Ariana Grande played an airhead like she also did in Sam and Cat, Emma Roberts plays a mean bitch like she did in American Horror Story and everything she's been in, Lea Michele plays a competitive and over excited fangirl like she did in Glee. Everyone knows their roles and knows how to make them good. This show is also much better at embracing the possibility for comedy in the slasher genre. The entire script is a tribute to the bloody subgenre, but in an all inclusive kind of way. The comedy is almost stronger than the horror aspects, but those are still strong. But also, Scream Queens isn't hiding anything. Within the two weeks the show has been on the air, we've already been given reason to suspect everyone and we also know that there are at least two killers. Or at least two people who walk around in the now banned Red Devil costume with chainsaws and fight people.
Scream Queens is putting a new twist on everything; they are treating the 90's as its own genre and switching who does what in the story. Like I mentioned last week, there are a ton of role reversals written into this show, most notably the male and female characters. That's why we have a female dean who unapologetically hits on the father of one of her students, and a fraternity who are close nurturing friends while their opposing sorority does nothing but haze each other. The kills on this show are crazy, like dismembered by a chainsaw with blood squirting everywhere crazy, but the fact that this particular death was so similar to one often quoted part of a Monty Python movie made it more comedy than intense gruesome murder. And once again, the music selections in this episode reinforced the 90's genre appreciation.
Scream Queens is a much more transparent show; it's not really hiding much from us and giving us everything we want right away. I think it's best to just enjoy it with some friends!
-Huntress
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