The stars were tight-lipped. The producers were mum. The writers and directors were mute. And the sneak peak ads that started filling our feeds and screens were all over the map: a bald man’s head getting stapled? A baby mobile made out of knives? A family with glowing eyes? What the…?
Anticipation was high. DVRs were set and checked. The minutes ticked down.
And then. And then?
My Roanoke Nightmare began.
Wow. American Horror Story made an amazing left turn this season and changed the entire format of the show. What used to be a straight-forward (-ish) telling of a scary fictional (-ish) story, is now (temporarily?) a reality program where Shelby and Matt (Lily Rabe and Andre Holland, respectively) are a young interracial couple who buy their first home in the woods of North Carolina. They talk directly to the camera (like so many of the current ghost hunting shows) while dramatic re-enactments intermittently are shown to illustrate the action. We see Shelby and Matt relate their true experiences, then we see “re-enactment” Shelby and Matt (played by series regular Sarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr.) acting out what the real Matt and Shelby talked about.
Got that?
Odd things begin happening around the house: A storm of large hailstones that, upon closer examination, are human teeth; inhuman screams are heard from the woods in the wee hours of the night; a slaughtered pig is dropped on their front porch; and, in one creepy scene, the house is surrounded by people with torches while Shelby and Matt’s sister, Lee (Adina Porter/Angela Bassett) are locked in the basement while a weird found footage movie plays on the TV; when they come back upstairs the entire house is filled with handmade twig figures (a Blair Witch nod if ever there was one). Matt chalks up these experiences to racism on the part of the locals, but after Shelby is nearly drowned in the hot tub, they know things have turned deadly serious.
Shelby honors her fight-or-flight instincts and hops in her car, driving away quickly, done with this mess. She is upset, crazed, and emotional. And distracted. In one of the best jump scares of the episode, she runs her car smack into Kathy Bates in period costume. After a brief moment, Bates stands up and walks into the woods as if nothing has happened. Shelby follows. And is soon surrounded by other people in period costumes holding torches while little twig-people hang from the branches of the trees.
As I was watching this, I greatly admired the audacity of creators Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy for completely reinventing their popular show. I was intrigued and hooked, even as I was questioning: are they running out of steam, relying on easy scares and cliche character arcs for this sixth season, or are they doing a spot-on recreation of these types of shows, complete with music stings to signify when the scares happen? I’m hoping it’s the latter.
The most important thing is: I want to know more about Matt and Shelby, and I want to spend more time in their world. And that is the highest praise I can imagine. Here’s to another great season! See you next week!
