Jamie Lee Curtis explains how 'Scream Queens' is so much more than horror
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. –Scream Queens, a mix of comedy and horror from American Horror Story's Ryan Murphy, is getting a thumbs up from somebody who ought to know: Jamie Lee Curtis, who has starred in such genre classics as the Halloween films and The Fog.
Granted, Curtis has an interest here, playing a college dean waging war against a sorority leader (a mesmerizing Emma Roberts) who hurls outrageous insults and models stylish ensembles with equal aplomb in the buzzy Fox series, which also features Glee's Lea Michele and singer Ariana Grande. (Murphy, who also produced Glee, announced Wednesday that Queens will launch with a two-hour premiere on Sept. 22.)
Curtis tells Paste BN why she likes the show so much during a reception after a screening of the first hour on Wednesday:
“This is first off a comedy. A lot of things pretend to be comedies, want to be called a comedy, there are comic situations, but they don’t make you laugh. This makes you laugh from the beginning. And then, it’s really scary. The horror trope is well-served here – the classic use of camera, sound, visuals – to convey real terror. So, there’s a sequence that’s generally scary, but then in the middle of it, there’s something really funny that happens that you laugh at and then it just gets incredibly dark, violent and scary.”
Murphy, who is a longtime Curtis fan but hadn't met her before he cast her in Queens, says, “I wouldn’t have done it without her because she’s the ultimate scream queen.”
Murphy and fellow executive producers Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan are big fans of horror.
“Back in the ‘80s, this scream queen thing was a genre unto itself. It was Halloween, Friday the 13th, always a big feminist parable wrapped around horror and I loved that and people haven’t done that in a while,” Murphy says. “I love when Halloween comes and AMC comes on with all the Halloweens and I’ll watch them over and over and over. I love that tradition.”
Curtis, who calls Halloween “a straight-up slasher film,” says Murphy, Falchuk and Brennan honor the horror film but add a contemporary edge.
“This show shows their devotion to that genre with this modern lens over it: writing, culture, fashion. They are steeped in the genre and then they’ve been able to modernize it.”