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college can be murder. But on Fox’s horror-comedy Scream Queens, which has been picked up to series for a fall debut, it’s surviving college that’s the real life-or-death challenge. From Glee creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan, Queens is an homage to the slasher movies of the ’80s. (Or as Murphy puts it, “Heathers meets Friday the 13th.”) The premise: In 1995 Wallace University was rocked by a tragedy that befell a Kappa sorority pledge. Now, 20 years later, someone dressed in the school’s Red Devil mascot costume appears to be seeking revenge and picking off the student body. “Every character has the motivation to be the killer,” says Murphy, who promises that the first season’s mystery will be wrapped up. “It’s not revealed until the last episode, when literally the mask of the Red Devil comes off and we say, ‘Boom! Here’s your killer!’”
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Jamie Lee Curtis has become a genre icon thanks to her role in Halloween. So Murphy was hell-bent on having her play Dean Munsch. “If I didn’t get Jamie Lee Curtis, I didn’t want to do it,” he says. “The show is a tribute to her in many ways.”
