by Doward Wilson

Fox’s Tuesday night Scream Queens is the best comedy I have seen since I first saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show many years ago. Led by the Original Scream Queen herself, Jamie Lee Curtis, the cast of older favorites and fresh young faces is a balanced mix of talents and abilities.

The directing is sharp and cutting. The actors and actresses own their characters. The acting is over the top, campy, and funny. Welcome to the KKT Sorority, the cream of society and nobody else. Meet Chanel, the current president, and her clones, Chanels Two through Five; Jamie Lee Curtis is the college president, who is determined to bring the high-flying sorority to its knees. Grace is our heroine, and Chad is the man on campus who every woman—and man—wants.

The show opens with a scene from 1995: the birth of a baby to a sorority sister who didn’t know she was pregnant. The girl dies and the body is disposed of. Twenty years later we find a serial killer dressed in a Red Devil suit, wielding a chainsaw, and going after our sorority girls and their fraternity boyfriends. Grace and her boyfriend, a campus newspaper investigative reporter, tie all this to the birth and death 20 years earlier.

This show gives us the best mix of camp, soap opera, and slasher film that I have ever seen. After the first three episodes, I can’t wait to see where it goes next. Check it out for a fun night of entertainment.

Check out episodes on the show website.

Doward Wilson is retired after 48 years of working, starting when he was 13, and helping out on his grandparents’ farm. He devours mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, and fantasy and enjoys a variety of television shows ranging from Bones to Dr. Who, especially the mystery movies from the Hallmark Channel. He has been a movie projectionist for indoor theaters and drive-ins, a waiter, a secretary/administrative assistant, a restaurant manager, and an office manager. He has lived in San Francisco, Philadelphia, the Jersey Shore and Southern Iowa, and currently resides in Independence, MO, where I grew up.