First Photos: Jamie Lee Curtis & Ryan Murphy’s Scream Queens

This fall, American Horror Story creators Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk, as well as Glee co-creator Ian Brennan, launch a new anthology series, the horror-comedy murder mystery Scream Queens. Though clearly meant to be a funnier and more pop-oriented than the FX terror series, Scream Queens has similarly amassed a varied and exciting ensemble, including original slasher scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, AHS vet Emma Roberts, Keke Palmer, Abigail Breslin (Maggie, Zombieland) and chart toppers like Nick Jonas and Ariana Grande. After a series of teasers, EW has debuted the first photos from the series alongside a talk with Murphy which pegs Scream Queens as a comedic college-set piece in the spirit of classic slashers and more quippy, knowing 90s fare like Heathers.

Until now, Scream Queens has been described as simply a show about a series of murders on a college campus. In the talk, Murphy delves into much greater detail, describing the series as a proper “murder mystery whodunit,” explaining, “It’s sort of the idea of what would happen if you put something like Heathers meets Friday the 13th to those genre pictures like “Massacre on Sorority Row” [note: maybe he’s conflating House on Sorority Row and Sorority House Massacre], that early-to-late ’80s exploitation horror thing.”

Of the plot, Murphy says, “It opens in a flashback to 1995 at the sorority where something horrible happens. It’s a mystery that goes unsolved. Flash forward 20 years to today, and it looks like someone is out for revenge. Something horrible happened to a pledge and on the anniversary of that crime, someone is out for vengeance.”

Clearly, Murphy is influenced by school-set prank-gone-wrong slashers and motives here. If this was an Uproxx piece, I’d ask “Want to feel old? Your prank-gone-terrible can now  take place in 1995 and realistically foster deep-seated hatred and slasher vengeance”

Murphy goes on to describe Emma Roberts’ sorority president, Chanel and Curtis’ progressive dean, as well as the other performers and their characters. For the full talk, visit EW. Find photos from the series, below.


Photo Credit: Steve Dietl/Fox

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