The New ‘Scream Queens’ Trailer Gets Pretty Evil

Since an ancient curse forces Ryan Murphy to produce as many new shows as humanly possible, he had find something to fill the Glee-shaped hole in Fox’s schedule or risk losing his soul to that ancient Sumerian demon he summoned all those years ago. The new Scream Queens trailer makes his new series look like the strange halfway point between Glee and American Horror Story, which is appropriate since he also created the latter.

Like American Horror Story, Scream Queens is a horror anthology series. Unlike American Horror Story, it looks self-aware and goofy, a show ready and willing to pick apart horror tropes rather than simply repurpose them. The winking begins with the casting (Jamie Lee Curtis plays a college dean) and it continues through the actual premise, which follows Emma Roberts and her sorority sisters as they’re stalked by a devil-masked killer.

Although the show initially gained garnered bad buzz from genre buffs (no, Ryan Murphy, you didn’t invent the horror comedy), the new trailer showcases a series that looks to appeal to the more casual horror fan. The idea of a slasher deconstruction is nothing new to the jaded horror convention crowd, but this looks like a teen-friendly package that will appeal to the same crowd that made Ouija a success. If this footage is any indication, Scream Queens will be a huge hit and it will infuriate a lot of guys with VHS collections. The show will premiere this September on FOX.