A New Dimension in Horror

Bloody Face is arrested - Pic courtesy of FX

by blogSpotter

Today we finally had a day of pleasant 68 degree sunshine after a brutally cold 6 weeks. The weatherman says 44 days of winter have been significantly colder than average and I can believe that. I have fallen off the workout wagon partly due to the cold. Hated what I saw as I walked into Starbucks.. I saw a chubby old guy staring back at me – it was my own reflection! Let’s put this unpleasantness aside and talk about my new favorite binge-watching TV obsession.

AMERICAN HORROR STORY

There are so many cable channels now, and so many shows, it’s hard to keep up with them all. American Horror Story (AHS) debuted in 2011 on the FX channel. In general I don’t care for the horror/fantasy genre and don’t like violence. The main poster for this show is off-putting – it shows a creepy face crying tears of blood. I said “I’ll pass!”

Then (2 years later), a Facebook friend posted a clip of Jessica Lange jauntily singing “The Name Game” in an insane asylum. I was intrigued – I could tell this was a different kind of horror story. I decided I’d check it out and was completely drawn in. AHS is an anthology series – the brainchild of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. Their previous hit series is Glee, so this is quite a turnabout. The show has a little bit of black humor and playful camp going on – this isn’t like a Freddy Krueger movie. The first season gave us a “Murder House” where prior victim/residents haunt the newest upscale family moving in. Season 2 gives us a Catholic mental hospital notorious for the abuses carried out by psychotic nuns and one ex-Nazi. I have yet to start on Season 3 but hear that it’s good.

In ordinary discourse, we communicate with letters and numbers – simple graphical icons. AHS takes iconography to a next level. It serves up religious, cultural, and sexual symbols which may affect us very deeply depending on how religious, moralistic or superstitious we are. Some screenwriters might get on a moral high horse to teach you some kind of "lesson" with these symbols.. Murphy and Falchuk go a different way. They play on your squeamishness so as to shock you. The show is actually a lot of fun, once you realize that you’re being played. The show very deliberately pushes your buttons – don’t watch if you’re thin-skinned or easily offended. AHS very much calls to mind David Lynch’s Blue Velvet – a movie where grim murder is served in a wrapper of subtle humor.

A single episode of AHS offered up Nazis, nuns and aliens – what more could you desire? The show is like a collision of X-Files, Twilight Zone and Hairspray. The acting is superb – Jessica Lange is a mesmerizing standout as a deranged, aging Southern Belle and then (in a separate anthology) as a sadistic, calculating nun with a past. The acting in the series is truly outstanding from every corner – the performances are very skillfully layered.

I once read a definition of camp. “Camp is seriousness that has failed”. In the case of AHS, camp is a fun house look at that seriousness – one that is very much intended to fail. It leaves you aghast at the start and smiling at the end. Shows like this are a rarity – and American Horror Story is a show that demands you watch the entire series on Netflix when time allows.

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