Ryan Murphy’s Scream Queens is probably the most anticipated premiere of the Fall 2015 season (especially around my house), and boy, am I excited to dive into a new horror series. Most times, American Horror Story (in any iteration) is just way too disturbing for me to watch regularly (especially before bed), so I’m thinking that Scream Queens will be a nice, lighter touch of Murphy-approved horror. But with a new horror show comes the eternal horror question: Who is the killer on Scream Queens ? If I’ve learned anything in many years of screening scary flicks, you can’t count anyone out.
When choosing the killer in a horror film with many famous people, you have to look at the Law & Order rule of casting. It’s usually the actor with the highest celebrity that is the bad guy. The same applies to horror. Scream Queens has so many stars that it’s skewing my usually-tried-and-true theory. Is literal scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis the killer? Maybe Skyler Samuels is the slasher instead. Diego Boneta could be mighty suspicious, but Ariana Grande could just pop in the sorority house to start offing off her Chanel sisters. Since the only video we have of Scream Queens is the anticipation-inducing trailer, I’ve examined the following footage to see who has the best shot of being the sorority house slasher in Scream Queens.
Skyler Samuels
Newcomer Skyler Samuels plays Grace, the main character who most reflects the audience on Scream Queens. From the looks of the trailer, it really doesn’t seem like she is the killer — just that she wants to hunt down whoever is hurting her almost-sisters. It would be disappointing to have her — the daughter of a pledge — be the killer, so I don't think Scream Queens will go this route
Ariana Grande
Though Grande is a big star, her turn as one of the Chanels doesn’t seem like she has many lines at all. While it’s usually the quiet ones that you have to watch out for, I would argue that Grande, despite her pipes, is a little too quiet to be slicing throats at Wallace University.
Nick Jonas
From the first looks, Jonas’ smarmy fraternity guy is the person who you would want to see murdered, but maybe there’s another angle. He could be that poor little rich guy, full of pent-up rage at a school who waitlisted him, sorority sisters who reject him, or a dad that doesn’t pay attention to him minus a trust fund.
Emma Roberts
Roberts plays Chanel, Grace’s direct foil, and she’s the Queen Bee of the Kappa House. I think that having Chanel be the killer would be the most satisfying of nearly every option, simply because it takes a real sociopath to murder everyone you know and then play the victim that you’re sad in their deaths. Chanel, not used to not getting her way, could be mad at the university for making her let some unpopular pledges into Kappa.
Jamie Lee Curtis
Curtis’ character, Cathy Munsch, is the dean of Wallace University, and she openly says in the trailer how much she hates sororities. Perhaps Cathy was rejected from sororities when she was in college and now, dealing with a crop of girls who are just like the ones that she went to school with, loses it and tries to start offing them to get rid of the Greek system altogether. It could happen.
Oliver Hudson
Hudson plays Grace’s father, Wes, and a professor at Wallace University. What if Grace’s mom is the pledge that died in the Kappa House and Wes has hidden it all of these years? Now that his own daughter is a pledge at Kappa, Wes could stop at nothing to protect his daughter from the evil girls who were responsible for the death of his love and Grace’s mom.
Round and round it goes, Scream Queens fans, but we just won’t know who the killer is until this roller coaster starts. I, for one, can’t wait to find out.
Images: Steve Dietl, Jill Greenberg (6)/FOX
