AMERICAN HORROR STORY on FX- Page 16

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 12:49pm

I'm glad Jessica Lange is working, but if this show goes into a third season, I hope she plays a more multidimensional character. Not that she's not good at the Baby Jane style camp (which would probably be more fun to watch her do if the show was less mean spirited and bleak), but she's capable of more.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 12:56pm

Actually, I think Jessica is pretty nuanced. Honestly, I don't think she is campy. Yes it's big and broad at times but it's also very detailed.

A woman like Constance had her flowery, showy moments but they seemed authentic. Sister Jude is repressing her rage and passion so I assume that requires broader strokes.

I think Jessica is doing some of her best work.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 1:18pm

You're right, bettyboy, that the kid and the reporter are the good guys to the extent that they haven't--as far as we know-- done anything wrong. But they're just sort of passively good guys. I feel like we didn't get to establish any sort of investment in them before they were strapped in at the asylum.

I think what worked so well in the first series was seeing this fractured family trying to pull through and establish a new life. There was one through line to care about. And that was clear in the very first episode.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 2:09pm

"I missed the first season but I'm assuming this show is supposed to be high camp right?"

IMHO, yes. Though I find some of the imagery genuinely scary, camp is the main way I can ejoy it. Murphy of course thinks it's psychological and not camp at all (*eye roll*) but I suspect even he realizes... Actually, he can be pretty clueless, so maybe not.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 2:14pm

I thought Lange's performance was completely over the top campy. Not saying I didn't enjoy it. Her and Cromwell were two of the only highlights for me. But I don't think there's anything subtle about a nun who wears red lingerie and has a closet full of whips.
I guess there were a few scares but it all felt like things I've seen before.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 2:34pm

I still find her riveting.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 4:40pm

Reggie said: "All good to know; I've deliberately tried to not read much about this. I guess I'm just not a sci-fi fan, so the alien stuff turned me off. But that's just me. I'll definitely keep watching"

I'm the same--sci-fi turns me off (although, as has been pointed out to me, a lot of stuff I like can, and is classified as sci-fi, but mostly if something has aliens or spaceships I have to be persuaded to watch it--even stuff like Firefly which I watched due to Joss Whedon, though I admit I don't love as much as some fans of his).

So I was worried about the aliens, but from what I've seen, and from the hints given in the Summer, they'll be treated in a much more horror/gothic way, if that makes sense.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 4:46pm

There's also going to be some supernatural (exorcisms, etc), but I suppose if Murphy islegit about being DePalma esque it will be far less than the grand guignol of last year (which I guess was meant to be Shining-esque). With DePalma even when he touches on supernatural qualities in Carrie and The Fury, it's not in the same way.

I get what you mean about being able to root for the family from the get go last year--except I kinda gave up on them (OK, not so much the mom and daughter, but the dad seemed incompetent, self absorbed, and an idiot by basically the end of episode 1), and it did of course suffer from the fact that they took so long to get out of the house.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 5:00pm

The names some of these horrors get ("Murder House," "Bloody Face") sound like placeholders put in until something more creative could be figured out.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 5:08pm

Rubber Man. The Gimp. I dunno if that's on purpose, to point out that they know they're being derivative of a bunch of horror elements--though I suspect Murphy just thinks it's clever :P

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 5:11pm

Maybe I need to watch it again but I really think they missed the mark if they are trying to emulate DePalma. Except for the Carrie score.
I thought it felt more like a bad episode of The X-Files or maybe a Silent Hill movie.
Phyllis...I agree with you about the names too. Bloody Face??

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 5:22pm

I mean, why not just call him Meathead?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 6:14pm

I admit the main thing about DePalma I noticed was that music--and the insane asylum reminded me a bit of the brief one at the end of Dressed to Kill. I wish they WOULD go more full on DePalma, even if it would make it cheesier, I'd enjoy that (maybe we'll see some split screens and an attempt at one of DePalma's classic, dialogue less stalking sequences like in Dressed to Kill and Body Double...)

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 6:20pm

I'm also glad Tate's wife is/was black, because I think Ryan Murphy shows always handle race with such sensitivity and nuance. And it gave Jessica Lange the chance to ask if the dark meat slid off the bone.

And according to that EW interview with Murphy, we're supposed to root for Jessica!

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 6:29pm

I just finished watching it. Some initial thoughts -

1) I've always wanted to throw shlt in Lily Rabe's face, so that was fun.

2) The way this episode was shot and edited is my favorite thing about it. It's as if they got an actual horror director to film it (at least this first episode)

3) Aliens? Really? I mean...really?

4) Lange is fantastic and very different from last season and much more evil. Hopefully she can keep the balance between evil and pure camp. I thought she managed it pretty well in the premiere.

5) I'd give it ** out of **** I'm not sure what the whole point is to this season yet. Someone above said they set the whole season up but I beg to differ. Unless of course this season will be about aliens skinning people while a lesbian and a nymphomaniac try to escape from an asylum that's torturing people. Because if that's all there is to it, the next 12 episodes are going to be kind of lame and repetitive.

6) They'd better give Clea DuVall something more to do than sit home and cry.

7) I didn't mind the "Bloody Face" name or whatever other names they had. They seemed very appropriate to what a 1960's killer would be called by the press. But the fact that he's still "living" there now, is he a ghost? Are we going to be jumping between the past and the present to what's living there now? Again, I think there was a lot set up but it doesn't really amount to a whole lot. Yet.

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 6:52pm

Watched it last night! Very different than last season already. I really like the asylum aspect - super creepy, and they are executing it pretty well. Can't wait for the rest of the season.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 6:57pm

"I'd give it ** out of ****"

Jordan, I spent five minutes trying to think of what dirty words you could possibly have typed, since I didn't know any two-letter ones.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 8:26pm

Personally i loved it. I thought it was shot very well, Jessica was insane, she was the perfect line between camp and horror. The story got my attention much more than the pilot episode of the first season and i loved the first season.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 10/18/12 at 11:48pm

I really wish they'd nix the recycling of old horror movie scores. It completely took me out of the scene with the Carrie score playing over Lana's entrance into the asylum. Why not give some composers with memorable horror credits like Harry Manfredini or Alan Howarth some work?



Slant reviews AHS: season 2

Updated On: 10/18/12 at 11:48 PM

[StockardFan]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 9:07am

I have to watch this not late at night, I keep dozing off. I'm going to watch it this afternoon while I'm wide awake.

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 9:22am

I refuse to overthink this and just enjoy the ride. I thought it was fun. I got so excited to see Clea Duvall!

Oh, and I'm calling everyone who pisses me off, Lana Banana!

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 11:05am

I just find it crazy how Ryan Murphy doesn't get sued for plagiarism, there were lines Jessica Lange said that were almost literally straight from DOUBT and she's been directed to play it exactly the same (though she's surprisingly less hammy than she was in last year's story). They even have a young nun playing the Amy Adams character--by the way, has Lily Rabe ever been more annoying? Her whole performance is sooo absurd (and the throwing sh!t part was taken straight from SILENCE OF THE LAMBS). The entire asylum thing has been done to death, most recently in Martin Scorsese's SHUTTER ISLAND which basically has the same plot sans the nuns. I love the ensemble (save for Rabe), but Ryan Murphy is just so insanely unoriginal.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 11:34am

"...by the way, has Lily Rabe ever been more annoying?"

Only every single time she's ever stepped foot onto a stage.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 11:42am

Shutter Island was a pastiche, much like this. I never took AHS as original. I expect taking actual true crime stories and horror movies like he did last season. I also dare Ryan Murphy to not have more out of place Holocaust imagery than Scorsese had, because you know Cromwell was probably connected to Nazis with that background.

And honestly, asylums without inhabitants throwing feces at others is, yes, expected, but not really out of place. Silence of the Lambs didn't invent it.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 12:17pm

There is no such thing as "almost literally".