American Horror Story: Is season 6 the worst in the series?

Everyone has his own preference. The original simplicity of season 1, Murder House . The extravagant and unbridled madness of Asylum . The witch-poufs of Coven or creatures Freak Show . Or the season Lady Gaga Hotel . Everyone will have their favorite, her disappointment, her guilty pleasure. And everyone will have their reasons.

For us, the season 6 of the anthology created by Ryan Murphy and Bryan Falchuk is out category. More than any other , the vintage 2016 has been an enigma, like a vast and endless joke. After ten episodes and a lot of patience, a question: Roanoke is it the worst season of American Horror Story ?

Season 6 yet launched originally good signals. Sold to the great mystery of reinforcement and enigmatic posters, with first the will not announce any theme or title, My Nightmare Roanoke revolves first around . of a new haunted house, with astonishing characters economy saw the liabilities of the series the intention was clear: to return to a story and a clear and strong mythology, after an escalation of characters, monsters and subplots become indigestible.

Any relative ease since My Nightmare Roanoke opens with a curveball ostentatious : a series recreates the strange events experienced by a couple who shares his memories facing camera while the actors replay the nightmare. The opportunity for fans to find familiar faces since Sarah Paulson (first served by writing, whereas it was previously light series) plays the TV version of Lily Rabe , also with Angela Bassett Kathy Bates, Evan Peters, Denis O’Hare, Wes Bentley, Frances Conroy, Cheyenne Jackson or Finn Wittrock among the protagonists.

With 10 episodes, Roanoke is the shortest season. It is also the most boring. The episode 6, which breaks the narrative, was very commented, the team behind the series in the series decided to produce a second season as a reality, with the “real” characters and television versions gathered in the famous house full of cameras. A Loft Story that runs unsurprisingly carnage – in every sense of the word.

If the first part of the season is quite poor, with a staging that recall the heyday of the genre of film (like Paranormal Phenomena , this forgotten movie and forgettable with Milla Jovovich), the second still turns once little chaos. More although the half seasons missed in the series, it gives the impression of gesticulating in all directions, as a diversion and mask a severe lack of invenitivité.

Beyond this curveball smoky and heavy, and repeatedly pressed excessively, the problem of this sixth season is simple: the characters. In American Horror Story , as elsewhere, the strength of the players has always been an engine.

It is no coincidence that since season 2, the series is built around Jessica Lange. Fame and power of the actress demanded a strong heroine, charismatic, with a real dramatic dimension of religion, the head of witches and the leader of the German magazine were so tortured heroines tragic and haunting, like a beacon in the night and often chaotic nightmare seasons.

In Murder hourse , the family was the classic heart of the plot. In Hotel , it was less strong, too flirted with self-parody, but was partly saved by the generosity of some elements – bruised parents, unhappy bitch, vampire diva and her vengeful lovers. Lana Winters, back in this sixth edition, remains one of the most interesting characters and emblematic of the series, to be able to wear the baroque writing his year.

In Roanoke , there is neither empathy nor immersion. Difficult to focus on the cartoons barely sketched, based more on familiarity of the faces on the nature of the characters. The thing is quickly reduced to a dull and rough ride, with many characters that pass at full speed during a few scenes, vulgar disembodied narrative tools. How not to look at a half-eye concerned that poor nightmare when the characters are uninteresting or completely empty when one of them said, “how we will escape this crap to Paranormal Activity” ?

It was not until the last 5 minutes of the last episode to have a real scene asked, taking the time to tell something without hiding behind a formal pirouette. The idea of ​​combining the horror emotion around a relationship between a mother and her child is classic but effective. Regardless, it’s too late.

Taking a more ordinary pleasure perverse to torpedo narcissistic actors, cynical producers, addicted to Instagram and Uber, or users from Youtube, AHS mainly takes the risk of becoming as big a cliché and ludicrous as its common victims. the season quickly up between Sims and Kardashian in a haunted house. It is obviously intended, but it is especially sad end of the season.

Over the episodes, it becomes clear that the season relies less on its characters as its concept. The weight of stereotypes, third degree, multiple set abyss and staging levels (surveillance cameras, worn by actors placed in the recovery or in a studio) demonstrates a willingness to overhaul the kind . An interesting and very smart bet, as the series of Ryan Murphy and Bryan Falchuk took care to approach the genre from every angle. Even the user, and wear very quickly.

Still had it taken the concept proves to par. Because Roanoke is not very smart, or really funny or really amazing in its approach to the genre. No real reflection in the background like in shape, with the bitter sensation to undergo extensive deception.

Another major problem is the lack of horror in this new edition of American Horror Story . Neither generous nor scary nor original, season 6 merely shabby appearances and a handful of gore sequences moderately satisfactory. The threat is multiple men in pig heads at You’re Next psychopaths Amish, through a family of rednecks in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and some discrete classical motifs (the twins, daughter hanging from the ceiling).

So terror meter. No scene, memorable image or death, or at least nothing that is not up to the previous seasons. No creativity in the costumes, scenery or situations: the season seems to have been chewed and chewed to offer only vague trip without chills. The thing quickly prom tunes dressed not do well (Evan Peters in aristo gay), with mundane blood splashes and flat appearance. Assuming appearance campy as to put forward believing be malignant, the series shoots himself in the foot.

The series raked so broad that it ends with a band of ghost hunters exploring the famous house, with a sequence of early warning to indicate that (surprise) the expedition will end in blood. Again, amusing attempt to offer a range of gender (including found footage) becomes a theater of the grotesque and easy. As if the contemporary part of Asylum with Adam Levine and Jenna Dewan-Tatum was stretched.

Even in his worst moments, American Horror Story has always been her appetite ogre, and its ability to generate a wealth of images and compelling sequences – a disturbing latex creature, an offbeat musical number or a psychopath terrifying pace. the mythology of this sixth season, loosely inspired by the mystery of Roanoke (a colony that would mysteriously disappeared in Virgnie the sixteenth century), thus proves surprisingly poor compared to previous seasons.
Nothing will therefore be able to prepare for this sixth season, deeply unsatisfying and unpleasant. With this pattern curveball and recurrent discourse about the cynicism of the hearings and the system, the series becomes an empty shell, too convinced of his own intelligence to correct and overcome its shortcomings. And at a stage when American Horror Story seeks to renew it falsely original story especially recalls the weaknesses of the anthology.

A feeling particularly strong in the last episode, when Lana Winters memorable season 2 will reappear in a few scenes. Before that, there were also references to Murder House and Freak Show . Ryan Murphy mentions repeatedly that the seasons are linked and that fans should expect future bridges between the stories, including saying that Lady Gaga appears in a role related to witch coven .

So hard not to wonder if American Horror Story literally going in circles. And in this little infernal carousel, fun and madness gave way to boredom and discomfort.