I`d just about written American Horror Story off. Season four`s Freak Show attempted something admirable but I got bored after a few episodes. Season five’s Hotel was so bad, I only watched to the end of the first episode because I share a Netflix account, and didn’t want to abandon the episode half way through the obnoxious Lady Gaga sex scene for the others to stumble across. Well I’ve sat down to Season 6: Roanoke and I have to say I am impressed by the improvement.
Each season has a different period and setting, but Roanoke goes one step further with a new postmodern format as well. Roanoke presents itself as a show within a show; specifically a daytime reality tv show about some couple`s time at a haunted house. This makes it quite interesting from the get go, as we get two versions of the story and two versions of every character (the "real life" people and the "actors" playing them in the show). There are gaps between what the real people experienced and what`s being shown by the tv documentary, so there is an underlying suspicion that the reality lies somewhere between either version of events. As the season goes on, Roanoke expands into a whole different bunch of other formats, including reality game shows, fly on the wall documentaries, and even fan made youtube videos. Basically it adds to the kitchen sink all the bargain bin, trashy, new narratives that have cropped up in the last ten years. I applaud that inventiveness, and Roanoke remains captivating throughout because of it.
Character-wise, we`ve got double the normal sized cast in this season. Newcomer Cuba Gooding Jr. bounces off of the series regulars, as well as an unrecognisable (sigh) Lady Gaga. I didn’t have any problems keeping track of all these people, who in typical American Horror Story fashion all have their personal demons, which they shove in each other`s faces. My favourite has to be Kathy Bates though, type cast as an axe-crazy old bat, but showing us exactly why. I was less impressed by Sarah Paulson, who puts on the worst English accent I have seen in years. She’s also the most likely to cause confusion, being that she’s both playing an actress pretending to be someone else, and an entirely different but identical looking character from a previous season.
I make the same criticism of this show every year. It is never scary. There’s a pig man who keeps sending my wife through the roof with tedious jump scares, but it’s all cheap. And considering how terrifying it would be to get lost in the woods for real, I’m surprised to see how television utterly fails to capture that horror every time. What can I say? I should accept this is a slightly overbearing drama that occasionally interrupts the flow with a random monster. But I can’t, because though it admirably tries to give us something new every time, American Horror Story always needs to do better.
An Uptick in Quality
I`d just about written American Horror Story off. Season four`s Freak Show attempted something admirable but I got bored after a few episodes. Season five’s Hotel was so bad, I only watched to the end of the first episode because I share a Netflix account, and didn’t want to abandon the episode half way through the obnoxious Lady Gaga sex scene for the others to stumble across. Well I’ve sat down to Season 6: Roanoke and I have to say I am impressed by the improvement.
Each season has a different period and setting, but Roanoke goes one step further with a new postmodern format as well. Roanoke presents itself as a show within a show; specifically a daytime reality tv show about some couple`s time at a haunted house. This makes it quite interesting from the get go, as we get two versions of the story and two versions of every character (the "real life" people and the "actors" playing them in the show). There are gaps between what the real people experienced and what`s being shown by the tv documentary, so there is an underlying suspicion that the reality lies somewhere between either version of events. As the season goes on, Roanoke expands into a whole different bunch of other formats, including reality game shows, fly on the wall documentaries, and even fan made youtube videos. Basically it adds to the kitchen sink all the bargain bin, trashy, new narratives that have cropped up in the last ten years. I applaud that inventiveness, and Roanoke remains captivating throughout because of it.
Character-wise, we`ve got double the normal sized cast in this season. Newcomer Cuba Gooding Jr. bounces off of the series regulars, as well as an unrecognisable (sigh) Lady Gaga. I didn’t have any problems keeping track of all these people, who in typical American Horror Story fashion all have their personal demons, which they shove in each other`s faces. My favourite has to be Kathy Bates though, type cast as an axe-crazy old bat, but showing us exactly why. I was less impressed by Sarah Paulson, who puts on the worst English accent I have seen in years. She’s also the most likely to cause confusion, being that she’s both playing an actress pretending to be someone else, and an entirely different but identical looking character from a previous season.
I make the same criticism of this show every year. It is never scary. There’s a pig man who keeps sending my wife through the roof with tedious jump scares, but it’s all cheap. And considering how terrifying it would be to get lost in the woods for real, I’m surprised to see how television utterly fails to capture that horror every time. What can I say? I should accept this is a slightly overbearing drama that occasionally interrupts the flow with a random monster. But I can’t, because though it admirably tries to give us something new every time, American Horror Story always needs to do better.