‘Scream Queens’ Review – Pilot/Hell Week Episode 1

Scream Queens Cast Photo
Ariana Grande, Emma Roberts, Abigail Breslin and Billie Lourd in ‘Scream Queens’ (Photo by Steve Dietl / FOX)

Fox’s Scream Queens kicks off on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 with a special two-hour series premiere airing at 8pm ET/PT. Episode one (titled “Hell Week”) sets up the horror comedy with a gory flashback to Kappa Kappa Tau House at Wallace University in 1995.

A shocked sorority sister walks through a party with blood on her hands, a joke is made at her expense about menstrual blood, and ultimately the mean girls who rule Kappa are forced to deal with an unwelcome, unexpected baby and with a death of one of their sisters. It’s obvious the baby will ultimately play a big part in Scream Queens, and the way she’s introduced to the world makes it even more obvious she’ll be the one audiences will be rooting for to survive Ryan Murphy’s (American Horror Story, Glee) new series.

Flash-forward to 2015 and it’s Emma Roberts as Chanel Oberlin who’s the current Queen of Mean. Chanel rules the Kappas with an iron fist, with her minions – played by Ariana Grande (#2), Billie Lourd (#3), and Abigail Breslin (#5) – scurrying to do her bidding. The minions have all been renamed Chanel with a number designation as the only way to tell them apart because Chanel #1 didn’t want to be bothered to learn their actual names. Every aspect of their lives as sorority sisters, from their coffee drinks to their choice of wardrobe accessories, is determined by the narcissistic Chanel #1.

Chanel #1, however, has met her match in Dean Cathy Munsch (the amazing Jamie Lee Curtis) who declares her hatred for everything about sororities, and about Chanel #1 in particular. When Chanel asks if Dean Munsch is a lesbian because of her last name or if she was just born that way, the dean points out that in the real world people just don’t talk that way. But where would the fun be in having a Sorority Bitch Queen who isn’t wickedly insensitive and anti-PC?

Series co-creators/writers Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan establish in the show’s opening 15 minutes Chanel’s lack of filter and her ability to find her opponent’s biggest weakness and use it against them. They also establish Dean Munsch as a force to be reckoned with and as someone with a questionable past who could be equally as ruthless as Chanel #1 in getting her way.

And speaking of getting her way, if Dean Munsch had hers Chanel and the Kappas would be shut down permanently as punishment for a horrific event from the school the previous year. That doesn’t happen as Gigi Caldwell (Nasim Pedrad) from the national Kappa chapter rushes in to save the day. However, Gigi doesn’t like the way Chanel’s been handling the chapter and with Dean Munsch’s help demands the doors be opened to anyone who wants to pledge. That means Hester (Lea Michele as a nerd with a neck brace), aspiring politician Zayday (Keke Palmer), legacy Grace (Skyler Samuels), candle blogger Jennifer (Breezy Eslin), and deaf Taylor Swift fanatic (Whitney Meyer) are supposed to be welcomed with open arms. Of course they’re not, with Chanel #1 determined to make their lives a living hell.

As the pledges begin to learn what it takes to be a Kappa, the body count rises. Who is doing the killing? The audience will know one of the killers as the death scene plays out on screen, but there’s also someone in a red devil costume and mask running around the campus who’s apparently the main death dealer on this killer campus.

Don’t get attached to any character in the 15 episodes of season one of Scream Queens as Murphy has promised there will be plenty of deaths. Some characters will survive and will reappear in season two (in a different setting), but Murphy says viewers can expect a death a week and can expect to be kept in the dark as to the main killer until season one’s finale. There will be a lot of red herrings, and judging by episode one pretty much any character could ultimately be named the Red Devil killer.

“Hell Week” also introduces the supporting players including Oliver Hudson as the attractive college professor dad of Grace; Glen Powell as Chanel’s preppy boyfriend, Chad (of course he’s named Chad!); Nick Jonas as Chad’s suck-up BFF; Diego Boneta as a coffee barista and the college’s newspaper editor; and Niecy Nash as a completely out of her league security guard who doesn’t carry a gun. Murphy and company have assembled a first-rate cast and have somehow managed to introduce each over the course of the show’s pilot episode in a way that actually allows the viewer to get to know the peripheral players.

Scream Queens isn’t as sharply written as American Horror Story nor is it as dark, bizarre, or gory. The comedy pokes fun at easy targets, and there are scenes in which Chanel’s razor-sharp barbs are brutal and uncomfortable. Roberts does such a terrific job in delivering the lines that they almost feel too genuinely cruel to laugh at. Scream Queens goes for the jugular and doesn’t back down, and no subject matter is off limits. The twisted sense of humor in Scream Queens knows no bounds, with racist and homophobic slams on unsuspecting targets part of Chanel #1’s repertoire.

Of course, since Scream Queens is aimed at a slightly younger crowd than American Horror Story, there’s more of an emphasis on romantic entanglements. But the humor works well for all ages (except younger viewers) and should work well for both sexes.

Scream Queens has a lot in common with the original 1996 Scream from horror maestro Wes Craven, which is bizarre given there was actually an MTV series this year based on that film’s concept. Scream Queens carries on the Scream tradition of a slasher story told with dark humor and gore better than MTV’s Scream pulled off. Hopefully, episodes two through 15 will up the ante further and the story will not lose its bite as the series unspools.

Fox’s Scream Queens will move to its Tuesday night at 9pm ET/PT time slot on September 29, 2015.

GRADE: B