Thursday, October 9, 2014
American Horror Story: Freak Show kick-started its run with "Monsters Among Us," introducing us all to (most of) this season's cast of characters. Which, granted, has always been one of the funnest parts of this anthology series - seeing what kind of characters all the actors are playing this year. Last year, so-and-so was a jerk but this year she's a saint. Last year, he was a Franken-Frat Boy, this year he's a Lobster Lad. One of the surface benefits of having a dependable troupe year in and out.
But our curiosity regarding the new roles and the new setting isn't enough to make us forget that American Horror Story has been delivering diminishing returns ever since Season 1. Each season has proven to be weaker than the previous and some of that is due to the fact that a lot of the show's tricks have already been played. Most of it though is because of hinkey storytelling and, as of last year's Coven, the jumbling of the tone (Stevie Nicks music video opening featuring cast participation) and the dilution of actual stakes.
But our curiosity regarding the new roles and the new setting isn't enough to make us forget that American Horror Story has been delivering diminishing returns ever since Season 1. Each season has proven to be weaker than the previous and some of that is due to the fact that a lot of the show's tricks have already been played. Most of it though is because of hinkey storytelling and, as of last year's Coven, the jumbling of the tone (Stevie Nicks music video opening featuring cast participation) and the dilution of actual stakes.
It was said that this year's Freak Show would be a return to darker stories à la Asylum. And not just because it takes place in the 50s (in a Florida town called Jupiter). My immediate worry here is that there are many of us who just aren't rattled by "freaks." One of the promos for this season showed a guy with a forked tongue and - well - that's not scary. That's Jim Rose Circus 101. In fact, people voluntarily do that to themselves. They may as well have just shown us a guy with stretched earlobes.
So my hope is that this season doesn't rely too much on human oddities (either real people hired for the show or the cast in prosthetics) to provide the scares. Because some of us have already been to the 1992 Lollapalooza side stage and most of us have already seen the X-Files episode, "Humbug" (featuring a Florida freak show town). Though it's worth a mention that former X-Files producer/writer James Wong is one of the AHS producer/writers.
From the looks of things in "Monsters Among Us," straight-up murder might be the name of the game this year when it comes to terror. Whether it was Bette (one half of Bette and Dot) frantically stabbing her mother or that crazy clown killing the couple out on a picnic, there's a lot of stabbing going on. And maybe that's what was meant by the whole "return to Asylum." No magic. No ghosts. Just human horror. So far anyhow. And I'm fine with that. I'm open. I don't see Freak Show being able to play with history like Murder House (Black Dahlia, Richard Speck), Asylum (Anne Frank) and Coven (Delphine LaLaurie, Marie Laveau) did, but who knows? Maybe there are legendary circus stories to tell that I'm not even aware of.
Jessica Lange (in her reported final AHS role) is Elsa, a German ex-patriot who runs a traveling rural freak show (Fräulein Elsa's Cabinet of Curiosities) with the hopes of people seeing her talent as a singer. Sarah Paulson fills the "new group member" role this year (like Taissa Farmiga did in Coven) as conjoined twin sisters who Elsa believes can help sell more tickets. Evan Peters is the show's "Lobster Boy," Jimmy, who earns extra cash on the side using his webbed digits to pleasure unfulfilled house wives, and Kathy Bates plays Jimmy's bearded-lady mom, with an accent that seems part Irish, part Romy from Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.
Outside of the midway, Frances Conroy plays a rich socialite and Finn Wittrock plays her entitled son, who wants to buy Bette and Dot much in the same way Francis wanted Pee-wee's bike. Overall, the characters are laid out for us quite effectively. Elsa is delusional, Bette is naive while Dot is wound tight, and Jimmy is rebellious (and totally willing to murder anyone who threatens the members of the show). The true horror of the show, that damned swamp clown, seems rather separate from the side show story at this point, though his murder spree is scaring locals and he's seen, at one point, sitting on a ride at the show while no one else is around.
And look, while some elements of this premiere episode didn't land, and I might have my own reservations about the authenticity of the "world of the show" being sacrificed in the name of glitz and glam when Elsa (last name Mars) sings the 1971 David Bowie song, "Life On Mars?," even though it's 1952 (Freak Show's going for the now obligatory AHS musical number early), the killer clown is awesome.
I don't want to oversell him too much, especially since AHS producers bragged early on that Freak Show would contain the scariest clown anyone's ever seen (there's some stiff competition out there), but he was truly horrifying. I won't rank him in the pantheon of horror clowns, but his particular look and explosive savagery was on point. And the fact that he swipes kids, and sporadically has the mind of a child himself, makes him all the more atrocious. So "bravo!" to American Horror Story for this one. And I also dig the new credits, with the stop-motion animation and the altered music.
origin : ign.com