“It’s sort of like a twist on American Horror Story: every season is a new season, a new setting, a new establishment — the difference being you will know some of the characters who will live,” Murphy told THR, referencing the fact that AHS has only had one actor play the same character for multiple seasons so far. Scream Queen fans may not want to get too attached to anyone in particular, though, because Murphy also shared that only four would make it out of the first season alive — and they likely won’t get a happily ever after. Instead, Murphy’s plans for Season 2 involve horror genre-jumping.
The four survivors will “go on to a new horror genre,” he explained. By his classification, “sorority” is the horror genre of the first season, continuing a tradition of horror flicks for which sororities were the focus in the ’80s. We can’t help but pity even those poor fictional people that make it out, however. They may survive a campus killer, only to face another as summer camp counselors, or wild kids lost in the woods.
Scream Queens will include many nods to horror movies past, including its title and the casting of original scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, whose career took off when she starred in several scary movies filmed in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Without her, Murphy said they wouldn’t have even done the show. “I didn’t know [Curtis] and called her and said, ‘I’m going to be frank with you, if you don’t do the show, we’re not doing it,'” he told THR. She liked the idea so much that she agreed “without reading a script.”
Along with Curtis, several other stars were cast, including Emma Roberts, Lea Michele, and Ariana Grande. They’ll all play members of the Wallace University community who find themselves in a nightmare situation when a killer begins to terrorize campus, dressed as the school mascot, The Red Devil.
Scream Queens will premiere on Tuesday, Sept. 22 at 8 pm EST, and then move to its regular slot, 9 pm EST, the following week.
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