WARNING: SPOILERS!
There has been a lot of hype around the newest season of FX’s “American Horror Story.” Fans have been bombarded for the past few weeks with promo after promo, each one more obscure than the next.
I personally spent a lot of time lying on my bed, furiously researching fan theories, trying to figure out what in the world this season’s theme will be. I was even convinced the theme was going to be “The Mist” after one particularly convincing dinner conversation with some fellow AHS fans.
Well at last we know. And boy, oh boy, was I wrong.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have now entered “American Horror Story: My Roanoke Nightmare.”
The theme is inspired by the lost colony of Roanoak, a 16th century colony established on Roanoak Island in modern-day Dare County, North Carolina. About 115 people disappeared between 1587 and 1590, leaving virtually no trace of their whereabouts besides a skeleton and the word “Croatoan” carved into a wooden post. Spooky, right?
There’s a lot of mystery and lore surrounding the fate of America’s famous vanished colony, and this season of AHS will be milking it for all that it’s worth.
In the sixth season’s first episode, we see the return of some of our favorite AHS players like Sarah Paulson, Lily Rabe and Angela Bassett, as well as “American Crime Story” star, Cuba Gooding Jr., and a glimpse of our good friend Kathy Bates. (And maybe Wes Bentley? Did anyone else see that?) Other AHS veterans we’ve been promised would return, like darling Evan Peters, Denis O’Hare, heart-throb Matt Bomer, and TV’s new queen, Lady Gaga were not featured in this episode, but we’ll see them soon, I’m sure.
Director and producer Ryan Murphy is taking the series in a whole new direction. Murphy himself introduced the season, stirring up images of Rod Sterling circa 1960 before an episode of the “Twilight Zone.”
Seaon six takes on a mockumentary style, complete with one cast of narrators and one of dramatic reenactors. So far, our story centers around a West coast couple who have fled to a charming North Carolina country-side manor following a series of personal tragedies. But of course, their too-good-to-be-true dream house is actually more like a haunted mansion where no one ever turns any lights on.
And yet, there is something far more grim about this story. This was genuinely frightening to watch. Murphy took us beyond the usual AHS mystery and dark intrigue of previous seasons and took us to a much more sinister place. Spooky, indeed.
But I can’t quite put my finger on what it is that’s so scary. In fact, I can’t quite put my finger on a lot of things about this season, like where exactly is this going?
So far we’ve got a creepy house, Blair Witch twig people, a pitch-fork and torch mob, and some mysterious twisted Brigadoon-like village people running around in the woods around the creepy, dimly-lit house. How this is going to get stretched over an entire season is beyond me, but I’m intrigued.
After all, Murphy did say in multiple interviews that he was taking season six in a new direction, and doing something different from the other seasons. So far, “My Roanoak Nightmare” is definitely different from anything we’ve seen before.
So where’s this going? Who are the scary people dressed in traditional colonial garb? What is up with the pig man? Where is Lady Gaga? I don’t know. But I do know that we’ll be one step closer next Wednesday to uncovering the mystery of Roanoak.
