Anthology centres on campus creepiness
SCREAM QUEENS Debuts Sept. 22, Fox/City
I scream, you scream, we all scream for Scream Queens. The new horror anthology series from Ryan Murphy (Glee, American Horror Story) promises both fun and fright, and Abigail Breslin is wellprepared for her role as a snooty yet shrieky sorority sister.
“I don’t really need to practise because I scream at everything — it’s, like, an alarming problem. I’ll scream at a bug in my room,” she says with a laugh.
“I lose my voice a lot on the set, and then I get in trouble for screaming too much. I kind of just overdo it. Go big or go home.”
Scream Queens centres on the prestigious Kappa House at fictional Wallace University. Chanel Oberlin (Emma Roberts) is the queen bee who rules her underlings — nicknamed Chanel No. 2 (Ariana Grande), No. 3 (Billie Lourd), No. 4 (Lindsey Shaw) and No. 5 (Breslin) — with an iron fist.
But when freaky things start happening — like a gruesome beheading via lawn mower — the sorority sisters and the university dean (Jamie Lee Curtis) are forced to revisit a 20-year-old murder mystery in the house.
Breslin, who at age 10 earned an Oscar nomination for 2006’s Little Miss Sunshine, has long favoured projects that walk the dark side.
“For the longest time, my mom was really worried about letting me see horror movies because she thought I was going to be scared. But when I was 12, I was like, ‘I’m going to go see a horror movie!’ And I saw the The Haunting of Molly Hartley.
“It was great and I loved it. I’ve been a horror movie fan ever since.”
Now 19, Breslin has appeared in zombie flicks such as 2009’s Zombieland and this year’s Maggie. And, she says, working with fake blood isn’t as icky as people might think.
“A lot of people get grossed out by fake blood, but it’s actually pretty chill. They have fake blood that they put in your mouth, and they have different flavours. You can get coffee flavoured, you can get mint. Bubble gum, vanilla.
“I tried to stay classy with mint. Tried to keep it sophisticated.”
Scream Queens being a horror anthology, there’s always the threat of getting axed — both literally and figuratively. Murphy himself has said a character will die in each episode.
“You know, I don’t usually think about ways that I would like to die, but I’d say like if it was up to me, my character would die from partying too hard,” says Breslin, laughing.