Fall is the time of pumpkin spice lattes, wearing cute sweaters, and getting ready for Halloween! It’s also arguably the best time in the year for new TV show releases and the return of beloved titles. After a rather weak summer season, October hit us with some familiar titles to get us pumped up for spooky time!
American Horror Story: Roanoke started off quite weak and disappointing, coming off the hype of its teasers with a plot that looks like a diet version of Murder House. But not to worry – Scream Queens is here to redeem the horror genre in 2016.
Satirical, full of self-aware, self-deprecating humor, and starring the brilliant Emma Roberts, season two is even more pastel, campy, kitschy and scream-worthy than the first one. The Chanels are back with a (for?) vengeance, and so is Dean Munsch. The setting has changed from a bustling college campus to a creepy haunted hospital, and the serial killer is green instead of red, and even more diabolical than the Red Devil.
In many ways Scream Queens is Ryan Murphy’s younger, more spoiled child, the one that wears make up and gets to skip school without consequences. Unlike its big sister AHS, Scream Queens doesn’t reset every season – it doesn’t have to. The same characters find themselves in a different setting, with an explanation so thread bare and riddled with plot-holes it might as well be Hester’s prison uniform, but you won’t even care – and you shouldn’t – because you’ll be too busy screaming (of fun).
Every time Jamie Lee Curtis is on screen, her presence and delivery will have you absolutely floored. But amazing acting craft from its stars isn’t the only thing Scream Queens relies on. Tongue-in-cheek comedy, brilliant reference (and entire scenes that look like they’ve been lifted straight from an all-female Silence of the Lambs remake – which please, please, make it happen), and Murphy’s incredible writing bring on a fresh take to the tired cheesy tropes the show likes to make fun of.
The formula of one (or more) murders each episode that worked so well in the first season is back, with a House MD like twist, wherein handsome werewolf Taylor Lautner (you might remember him as the guy in Twilight that Bella should have ended up with, for the simple reason that he wasn’t as creepy as Edward, ahem) plays one of two attractive middle aged doctors who really shouldn’t be this into these fresh-out-of-college (and jail) Chanels. But finding cures for the patients is the least of the medical staff’s concerns, when they can’t save them from the roaming green swamp monster… right?
Let’s not forget that Murphy is no stranger to the medical horror genre. After all, he is the brilliant evil genius behind the bone-chilling Nip/Tuck, which just got progressively darker with each season (could we expect the same for Scream Queens?) and also featured two handsome doctors with dark secrets.
With its colorful palette, which is a far cry from the dark muted tones American Horror Story tends to take, and a plot that doesn’t take itself too seriously, Scream Queens Season Two promises to be the fun show you model all your group Halloween costumes on, and also probably the reason you keep a nightlight throughout most of October.
Happy Chanel-o-ween!