Scream Queens is made by the same minds that made Glee and American Horror Story. I am a completist. I will usually watch a show to the bitter end. I stopped watching Glee after the tribute episode to the actor who played Finn, Cory Monteith, in Season 5 Episode 3 because it didn’t feel touching, just exploitive. If I had any sense, I would have stopped watching Glee after the first season when the show realized that it got popular and became less a story about high school students and a thinly veiled excuse to string a musical theme or artist’s work together to promote iTunes sales. If I had not liked Kurt, Sue Sylvester or Coach Beiste, I would have run the other way screaming. I stopped watching American Horror Story after the first season because there did not seem to be a point except to keep raising the stakes of how far the creators could push the envelope. Good horror always has a coherent, moral subtext and when it doesn’t, it is just torture porn so just count me out.
Scream Queens takes the social dynamic and verbal tone of Glee and mashes it up with a campy dash of the American Horror Story aesthetic, but instead of being gothic, Scream Queen’s roots are definitely 80s cinematic horror. So why would I watch Scream Queens knowing full well that its creators’ products are not my jam? The answer can be summed up in three words/one name: Jamie Lee Curtis! I love her! It also does not hurt that she is in my favorite horror movie ever, John Carpenter’s Halloween.
In Scream Queens, Curtis plays Dean Munsch, and she kicks ass similar to her most famous character in Halloween: 20 Years Later, but exudes way more confidence and has a more Machiavellian manipulative side. Curtis is still kicking ass after all these years even if it is in a more absurd context, but the minute Scream Queens kills off her character, I’m out even with the lure of 80s music and Chad Radwell’s absurd appeal (Glen Powell reminds me of Michael Rosenbaum).
Basically most of the characters in Scream Queens are awful people so it gives license to the writers to have them say the most outlandish offensive things, but viewers can’t get offended because the characters are awful. So occasionally Scream Queens feels like an attempt at satire, but I can’t tell if they are with or against me. I suspect against because the only two black characters are against each other, and feminism seems like a bit of a joke.
Every time I watch Scream Queens, I think that I lose a handful of brain cells. During the first season, the killer(s) seemed obvious instantly. During the second season, which is still unfolding, I didn’t even care because the whole second season’s setting, a hospital, is so absurd that it makes the first season feel like a sober documentary. It helps to watch a handful of Scream Queens episodes as opposed to week to week because I found it easier to get into the rhythm of the show as opposed to the jarring juxtaposition with other shows.
Or you could just not watch Scream Queens, which is probably a better option. I have to give kudos to the actors who manage to say their lines with a straight face and not burst into peals of laughter. They do a perfect job at parodying and mashing up different genres, but I have no idea what the purpose is or how that can be sustainable over a long period of time. Is it empty entertainment or am I missing something?