American Horror Story- Asylum

Um, er – confused is how I’d sum it all up – mind you I think that’s the feeling the makers were looking for with this opening episode of the second season. Of course they couldn’t use the same trick they used for the first season, since the suspense of the first season was created by the viewer never really knowing what was going on, and after watching the first episode of Asylum I guess they’ve achieved the same compelling puzzle for a second time. The story took place in two timelines – the modern day in which a young couple break into the closed down Asylum only to find something lurks in the darkness, and the early Sixties when the asylum is very much open and just about to take in two new patients. A young man accused of killing his wife and a lesbian journalist who has fallen foul of the formidable Jessica Lang.

 

The first series was basically about a young family living in an haunted house, and the series cleverly played with stereotypes and cliches and carries the viewer towards a satisfying conclusion that would put most horror movies to shame. The second series also seems to be playing with familiar horror tropes – madness, stern Catholic nuns, human experimentation and unseen beasties, though it is anything but predictable. It was also nice to see a nod to the Pinhead character from Todd Browning’s Freaks.
It’s far too early to give much of an opinion on the series as there’s no way of knowing which way it will go – it’s anything but predictable and it’s certainly very creepy. There’s a suggestion of extra terrestrial involvement in this storyline and although I’m as confused as a stoner with a Sudoko, I’m eager to see the next episode.

 

 

Countdown to Halloween: Enter the Asylum

American Horror Story: Asylum

On FX (stateside) tonight

 

American Horror Story 2 – bombshell

American Horror Story was one of the TV events of the year and fans have been left eager for more. When the season ended the entire Harmon  family were dead and Constance was left to raise the antichrist – there has been much speculation as to where the characters, both living and dead, will go in season two. But show creator Ryan Murphy has stunned fans by telling Entertainment Weekly that none of these characters, not even the haunted house will appear in the second season.

 

“The second season of the show will be a brand new home or building to haunt,” the series producer  and co creator  said. “It will also have a new overriding theme… and a different cast of characters.

Look for cast announcements to be made in February, as Murphy concluded with this interesting tease: “There’s a clue in the last three episodes where we say what the second season will be. The idea is for American Horror Storyto be an anthology of various scary tales. There are all sorts of different American horror stories to tell.”

American Horror Story – the end…..

SPOILERS – Well we finally had a happy ending but only after the last living member of the Harmon family was sent off swinging into the afterlife – of course that’s not to mention a new family terrified into leaving the house. And amongst all this we had the usual mayhem and creepiness that has become a hallmark of this truly bizarre and original series. I, for one, have loved the entire season and I’m not at all let down by the ending – though what happened to the ninety minute episode we were promised. This episode was normal length and it did feel rushed in the way it dealt with gathering all the loose ends together, Ben, for instance, was killed off in the first ten minutes. Then we saw him reunited with his dead family and then it was fast forward to the new family moving in, and the Harmons scaring them out of the home so that they could avoid the inevitable tragedy that would befall them if they remained. This scene ticks all the boxes of the haunted house genre and there are one or two genuinely scary moments.

There was a great scene in which the ghosts were getting the house ready for Christmas and Moira was invited into the Harmon family, even becoming godmother to the baby. The dead one that is since the living spawn of Tate is being brought up by Constance and the episode ended with that demon baby slaughtering his nanny and then grinning at Constance. Credit to AHS for producing an addictive first season, which it capped off, fittingly, with an oddly heartwarming holiday tableau of a dead family and their damned roommates around a Christmas tree, even adding a festive soundtrack.

Can’t wait for the DVD box set so I can watch it all over again.

American Horror Story episode 11

Warning this review features spoilers – well, I should have expected it but the show threw another curve-ball and took me off guard. I had been convinced that Viv would be the only one left alive at the end of this first season, but how wrong was I and episode 11, The Birth once again turned everything on its head. The episode featured the most weird birth scene ever seen on the screen – Rosemary’s Baby eat your heart out – as Viv is forced to give birth in the house with a ghostly medical team to help her. The first baby we are told is dead, but it is taken away before we see it so expect some developments there and then the second baby is born and whisked away by Constance and once again we don’t see this child. Viv of course dies from the birth and has a touching ghostly reunion with Violet.

 

This leaves Ben the only living member of the cast and the final episode is certain to be a stonker. Will Ben decide to die so he can join his family in the afterlife? Will our gay ghosts split up after the revelations of the penultimate episode? Will Tate reconcile with Violet? And what the hell does son of Tate look like? After the final episode I will give a first season overview but as for now I’m eager for next week to come. This, to me, has been the TV show of the year.

Excellently weird.

 

American Horror story…nearing the end

As we grow ever closer to the climax of American Horror Story things are hotting up – So it turned out that Violet was dead but then I’ve suspected that for awhile now. My guess is that it will also turn out that Ben was killed in last night’s episode and that Viv will be the only member of the family to survive the first season – though she could die giving birth since all indications are that one of the twins she is carrying is the anti-Christ, fathered by Tate who is pretty much the devil personified. I’m not sure about Constance and Jessica Lang’s performance is turning out to be one of the best things about this stylish, scary and quite mad show. In the latest episode we finally found out what happened to Larry and the truth behind his Freddy Krueger complexion. There were several truly horrific scenes – the ghosts of Larry’s children for one and Violet discovering her body for another. You know the show may not make much sense at this point but it’s never less than enthralling and is, in my opinion, a true triumph for the small screen.

Well we’ve only got two and a half episodes to go, episode twelve being a  ninety minute special and I can’t wait. At the beginning of this year the small screen horror event everyone was waiting for was, The Walking Dead and yet American Horror Story has eclipsed it and then some….

American Horror Story: Season Finale news

FX’s hot new drama series American Horror Story‘s 13-episode first season will be actually 12.5 episodes. The horror drama’s first season finale on Dec. 21, which had been slated as two-hour, will now be 90-minutes. The trimming of the finale is a result of American Horror Story’s very aggressive production schedule which left no breathing room.The show has already been picked up for a second season after a very strong run of ratings.

American Horror Story – what the fuck’s going on???

 

 

 

 

 

I’m enjoying American Horror Story, even if the myriad twists and turns are leaving me confused. I can only describe the show as a little bit Twin Peaks, mixed with Ghost Story and a sprinkling of an LSD trip I once experienced at the tail end of the Seventies. We’ve had four episodes thus far here in the UK and I’m frantically avoiding spoilers on the net since I think the US is now somewhere around episode eight or nine. The show started off with nothing we hadn’t seen before – a couple and their teenage daughter leave their big city life after the hubbie has an affair and the momma suffers a miscarriage, and move into a restored mansion but the house holds more than its fair share of secrets and ghosts –imagine the Amityville House on steriods.

To kick off there were the twin ginger kids who died in the basement back in 1978 . Then there are the gay couple, the most recent owners, who died in a murder suicide, and then there’s the maid who appears as both a sexy vixen and an old hag, and that’s not to mention the strange lady next door and her Downs Syndrome daughter. Addy. The bad vibes seems to stem from the “doctor to the stars” who owned the house in the 20’s and tried to bring his own dead child back to life Frankenstein style. Or at least that’s what I think has happened – I’m not really sure. Remember that tag line at the end (or was it the beginning) of each episode of cult comedy, Soap – Confused, you will be. Well I most certainly am.

 

 

Regardless of how all this eventually turns out it has to be said that the show offers a fun ride and many genuinely scary moments – the acting is mostly superb and the writing cleverly done – little tidbits that build on the story are drip fed to the viewer making for some truly compelling television.

 

There are moments that are absolutely horrific, but the overall feel of the show is one of an all pervading creepiness. The news is that this strange show has been renewed for a second season so maybe we won’t get all the answers with episode twelve, but all the same I’m hooked. I only hope that this all makes sense in the end, that the various plot threads can be brought together as a satisfying whole and that the writers don’t dilute what is looking like a remarkable TV series by stretching things out to deliver more episode to a network who now find they have a major hit on their hands.