Easily one of my favourite types of murder mystery is when it also doubles down as a chick flick. The satirical dark comedy television series Scream Queens, which aired in 2015, is the epitome of this. Scream Queens follows Chanel Oberlin (Emma Roberts), who leads the Kappa Kappa Tau sorority at Wallace University, and her fellow Chanels – #2 (Ariana Grande), #3 (Billie Lourd), #5 (Abigail Bresli), the popular girls at the university.
The series followings the sorority’s shenanigans and Dean Munch’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) threat of forcing them to accept the unpopular girls into the sorority. Amidst this, there’s a serial killer on the loose, who’s dressed as the school’s mascot, the Red Devil. The casting gives subtle nods to classic horror individuals such as Jamie Lee Curtis, who was famously Laurie Strode, the final girl in Halloween, and Emma Roberts, who was in American Horror Story and Scream 4.
Emma Roberts perfectly summed up the show when she stated: “It’s Mean Girls meets Friday the 13th”. Not only is it cinematically aesthetic, but it’s also incredibly camp and the creme de la creme of pop culture excellence. The punchy one liners, dramatic designer wardrobe, and memes created, really make it one for the books.
We begin the show to a flashback to 1995 where we see some sorority girls, one of who had a baby in a bathtub during a party. The sorority girls leave her to dance to their song “Waterfalls”, but when they come back, they find the girl dead. We later fast forward to 2015 into the iconic introduction by the Chanels, which lays out the campus backdrop before the killings.
Scream Queens’ unapologetically dry humour delivers every time – who cares about a murderer on the loose if your sorority is now accepting weirdos? And in classic Scream Queens fashion, the body count begins almost casually; Miss Bean meets an untimely end by deep fryer, as one does at Kappa Kappa Tau.
What makes Screen Queens so deliciously addictive is its refusal to take anything seriously, not the murders, not the relationships or the fashion, not even itself. The show weaponises satire to blur the lines between horror and hilarity, making viewers equally invested in who the Red Devil is and who makes the next unforgettable dig. It revels in glitter-soaked absurdity, where death is just another plot twist and pink is practically a personality trait. And yet, under the blood splatters and punchlines, it delivers a love letter to every slasher trope that came before it, celebrating and mocking them.
Scream Queens isn’t just a murder mystery, a comedy or a cultural time capsule. It’s the moment when camp meets crime and decided to look good doing it. And honestly? I don’t think television has ever recovered.
