EPISODE: SEVEN MINUTES IN HELL
THE APPETIZER: In order to plumb dark and devious secrets out of Chanel, a few of the gals arrange a Kappa House slumber party. With doors locked and windows sealed, the Red Devils still infiltrate the house and up the kill quotient.
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW. IF YOU'VE NOT SEEN THIS EPISODE, STOP READING HERE!
THE ENTREE: Now how's that for a full-fledged feast! Following the second act of Scream Queens 3-part Halloween event last week, the ferociously fecund "Pumpkin Patch," we now close shop on All Hallows Eve by spending a seedy and sordid "Seven Minutes in Hell." Good shite! Now, as a self-contained three-piece, we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of the action that was stranded last time out. Chanel and Zayday are cattily vying for Kappa House president, which ends in a tie after a split vote. And with the holiday hampered by a lame ass curfew, a few of the gals suggest, much to Chanel's chagrin, throwing an unchaperoned in-house slumber party bash. If for nothing else, Grace and Zayday may squeeze some secrets out of Chanel's nasty and nefarious ass. Then, in what essentially becomes an undeniably fun one-act, single-storyline riff on the SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE or HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW kind of camp-and-kitsch slasher showdowns, our harried harem of nubiles come under the direct target of the Red Devils' siege. Let the party begin yo!
The sick soiree opens about as sophomoric as you might guess, with a hot round of spin the bottle, where Chanel #3 gets a chance to express her odd sexual fixation with Sam, the Predatory Lez. But when the former shuns the latter, a rousing game of truth or dare follows in short order that reveals to all that #3 if the odious offspring of one Charles Manson. They all know it now, just as they soon learn that there is indeed TWO Red Devils. Meanwhile, Chad Radwell and his Dickie douche-rag brethren get wind of the part and mobilize a REVENGE OF THE NERDS style panty-raid. Doesn't quite play out the same however, especially when Radwell's amputee homey Caulfield – the one who got both arms lopped off by the Red Devil – is gorily dispatched for good this time. He's pulled off a ladder, struck twice in the sternum with an axe-blade, then foully decollated as his head goes rolling down the lawn like a croquet ball. And if you think that's a doozy, how about the other half of Chanel #2's spit-roasting team, Roger? Yeah well he catches a face full of hot nails when, upon making out in the titular Seven Minutes of Hell, a Red Devil pops up and toast the nail-gun plum in the dude's cheek.
And believe it or not, that wasn't even the most affective death of the week. Nope, that honor goes to poor Sam, who after getting into a tiff with Chanel #3, is banished to the basement to spend some time in the blood-crusted bathtub where all this shite started 20 years ago. There she's unceremoniously met by her maker in the Red Devil, who at first strikes Sam's head against the bathtub. Then, after a gnarly plea for her life, and a granted wish of getting the killer to unmask right before doing the deed, Sam is felled by a plastic-bag suffocation while lying in the tub. Not the most graphically unnerving, but with such a key recurring character, it doesn't need to be. And this is where a major step was taken this week, one I've been calling for time and time again. There needs to be major character deaths in order to sustain any kind of emotional investment in what's an otherwise borderline cartoon of a satirical series. Here the right note was struck, where the blood-count was kept high by way of two insignificant frat-douches and the emotional resonance kept high with the loss of a core player. Props to journeyman TV director Michael Uppendahl for, no pun, nailing his inaugural foray into the Scream Queens universe.
All in all, I quite dug killing Seven Minutes in Hell. I loved the shut-in, single locale and unified storyline that enclosed all collegiate characters inside the walls of a killer's lair. I loved the obvious homage to SORORITY ROW and SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, and how within the confined walls of the Kappa Mansion, shady secrets came to light in a way that saw certain characters implicate some, eyeball others, etc. The whodunit tension was ramped up to satisfying heights, particularly in the absence of all adult characters. Save for the final scene, where was Munsch? Wes? Hemphill? Gigi? All MIA! I dug how, even without those key cogs, the murder-mystery was not only kept intact, but intensified as well. Hell, I even dug the gag about Chanel #5 rocking vaginal teeth. Or Chanel saving Zayday in the end from Red Devil's killer clutch, a turn you might not see coming in past weeks. Most of all though, it's the baleful balance between substantial and insignificant bloodshed this week that made it all worthwhile. Three dead bodies, one of grave import. Let's see of those impregnable numbers can be sustained over the next nine weeks!
KILL OF THE WEEK: Since one of our recurring young pledges finally went undone, I'd have to say a fine fare thee well to Sam, our Predatory Lez. Sure, the actual suffocation in a plastic bag wasn't the most brutal we've seen, but that she was a core character actually gives the death some serious weight. Besides, the tease about getting the killer to remove their mask, only to say in her last breath "I knew it was you" only adds to the intrigue.
BLOOD & GORE:
MOST PLAUSIBLE SUSPECTS: But for Pete, it seems most of the students are accounted for during each death this week. If so, then all of the adult characters become key suspects. I still say the obvious choice is Boone and Gigi working in tandem, but where's the fun in that?