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EW: Where did the idea for this show come from?
RYAN MURPHY: Brad and Ian and I, all three of us, were always obsessed with the ’80s/early ’90s slasher genre that was always about young people and always about coming of age. So we loved that and we decided to sort of be inspired by that idea. That was sort of the impetus of it. 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, that early-to-late ’80s exploitation horror thing.
I really like the idea of doing a comedy and doing sort of anthological comedy. What I love about it is when it’s funny, it’s funny. And when it’s scary, it’s scary. One thing too that I hear all the time from women about American Horror Story is, “I love the idea of it but it’s too scary and I can’t watch it.” So the question we asked is, “How do we keep it scary but write something for that audience?” It doesn’t have the gore of American Horror Story but it certainly still has the scares.
The other thing it’s inspired by is it’s a real murder mystery whodunit. In the very first episode you meet all the characters and then the killings start happening on this college campus. Every character in the piece has the motivation to be the killer. So when you’re watching it, part of the fun is, Okay who did it? It’s not revealed until the last episode when literally the mask of the Red Devil, who is the killer, comes off and we say, Boom here’s your killer.
It’s also a show about the sorority/fraternity system in our country and what’s happening with that so it’s a satire about that.
What’s the basic plot of Scream Queens?
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.
RYAN MURPHY: Brad and Ian and I, all three of us, were always obsessed with the ’80s/early ’90s slasher genre that was always about young people and always about coming of age. So we loved that and we decided to sort of be inspired by that idea. That was sort of the impetus of it. 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, that early-to-late ’80s exploitation horror thing.
I really like the idea of doing a comedy and doing sort of anthological comedy. What I love about it is when it’s funny, it’s funny. And when it’s scary, it’s scary. One thing too that I hear all the time from women about American Horror Story is, “I love the idea of it but it’s too scary and I can’t watch it.” So the question we asked is, “How do we keep it scary but write something for that audience?” It doesn’t have the gore of American Horror Story but it certainly still has the scares.
The other thing it’s inspired by is it’s a real murder mystery whodunit. In the very first episode you meet all the characters and then the killings start happening on this college campus. Every character in the piece has the motivation to be the killer. So when you’re watching it, part of the fun is, Okay who did it? It’s not revealed until the last episode when literally the mask of the Red Devil, who is the killer, comes off and we say, Boom here’s your killer.
It’s also a show about the sorority/fraternity system in our country and what’s happening with that so it’s a satire about that.
What’s the basic plot of Scream Queens?
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.
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