In his article Horror and Humour, Carroll identified that while there are “striking coincidence(s)” (Carrol 146) between humor and horror, what separates them is the emotional responses they provoke. While they both deal with the ‘grotesque,’ Horror can make the audience shudder and squirm while comedy ‘elates’ (Carroll 146) with laughter and joy. One of the key conventions of horror is the characters, the horrific monster, the victims, and the Hero/Heroine. The “Heroes” and “victims” must gain sympathy from the audience while the villain must produce fear and disgust. When looking at Horror comedies such as Scream Queens (Ryan Murphy, USA, 2015), the reason it becomes funny is because of the incongruity of the characters with the Horror genre’s stereotypes. By making the heroes and victims unlikable it provokes emotions associated with comedy rather than horror.
Scream Queens is set in an American Sorority house, where the main characters are the rich, obnoxious, Kappa Kappa Tau girls and the Monster is the serial killer dressed as the University’s mascot the Red Devil. The protagonist Chanel Oberlin (also known as Chanel #1) is the head of the clan, and due to her all-around nastiness is seen as the anti-hero, with her death rooted for throughout the series. The Red Devil’s victims are her minions (Channels’ 2-4) and other dislikeable side characters. Their obnoxiousness and exaggerated performance make what would be ‘tragic deaths’ comedic rather than horrifying. This is coupled with exaggerated cinematography and sound effects, parodying regular Horror films. Like other Horror Parodies like the Scary Movie Franchise, in death or ‘chase’ scenes, Scream Queens uses exaggeratedly fast zoom in shots, absurdly loud ‘eerie’ music making the scenes overly dramatic and therefore funny.
This is seen explicitly in this clip when Sonya Herfman (Chanel #2) is killed in the pilot episode. Her exaggerated acting and her vanity seen in that the first thing she does after almost being murdered is make a Facebook status update makes the scene evoke laughter rather than fear.
Noel Carroll, ‘Horror and humour’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57:2 (1999), 145-160.
Scream Queens (Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, Ian Brennan, USA, 2015). Youtube.
Might one also be able to argue that Scream Queens is kind of camp? It plays on a lot of tropes that you see in media like Glee and Riverdale- a melodramatic and over-the-top portrayal of teen/young adult sensibilities that ultimately ends up feeling like a writer’s room full of 40 year old men saying “slay queen.” Something about that feels camp to me…
Also isn’t this the show that the “surprise, bitch” meme came from?
I really liked your observation about main characters in comedy horror films, since they truly do play a significant part in how we perceive that film. If we are not rooting for them when a monster is about to kill them, then it makes as less attached and is more likely to provoke laughter, almost as in early comedies where ‘victims’ are being pranked by ‘rascals’.