American Horror Story: Roanoke Season 6 Review

American Horror Story: Roanoke (2011-)
Season 6 - 10 Episodes (2016)

Buy American Horror Story: Roanoke Season 6 on Amazon Video
Created by: Brad Falchuk, Ryan Murphy
Starring: Kathy Bates, Sarah Paulson, Cuba Gooding Jr., Lily Rabe, André Holland, Denis O'Hare, Wes Bentley, Evan Peters, Cheyenne Jackson, Angela Bassett
Rating: TV-MA 

Plot: 
American Horror Story is a horror anthology series. Each season is a self contained story with disparate characters despite using many of the same actors season to season.
Season six is a show within a show, a couple recount spirits encountered at their country home as actors reenact the experience. The origins of the spirits trace back to the lost Roanoke colony.

Verdict
This season had a focus that was lacking last year. While I wondered if this related to the lost colony at all, it is though tangentially. It's a neat link that has no bearing on the season. The show within a show gimmick works, with the first two thirds being a dedicated documentary series and the last third of the season using that to full advantage to create a slasher spoof while we go behind the cameras. This season doesn't have memorable characters like some of the past seasons, but part of that is that most of them are more or less normal. I appreciate this season does things a bit different with the structure, but this isn't even the best haunted house season. American Horror Story  has always been over the top and campy, and this season didn't quite capture that. It's not as much fun.
It depends.

Review
This season of American Horror Story goes for something more grounded as the first two thirds of the season are a show called My Roanoke Nightmare, a docu-series combining interviews and reenactments of a couple's supernatural encounters. I missed that detail in the first episode and couldn't figure out why the actors for the actual experience and the actors that talked about what happened were different people. In episode two, the warnings and dramatic re-enactment note made it clear. Somehow I missed that, but it is a unique structure for this season.

This is basically a haunted house. A couple relocate from L.A. and are harassed by locals, or so they think. A pig man runs around, there are pig children, there's a pagan ritual in the woods. The first few episodes are just weird, especially as I'm wondering how this relates to the Roanoke colony. It turns out the Roanoke colony inhabitants migrated to North Carolina. The colony is still in the woods, demanding a blood sacrifice every year during the blood moon. This season isn't very subtle, though AHS never has been.

We only spend a few minutes actually at the colony. A druid, who is played by Lady Gaga, influenced Kathy Bates character to turn to the dark side basically. It took me a few episodes to realize the druid was Gaga. Then the colony moved to North Carolina. The colony doesn't like outsiders.  The word "Croatoan" that was scrawled into a tree is a warning. If the show explained it more than that, I forgot it. Sometimes you use the word to find off spirits, but not all the time. I like the historical fiction aspect, but I wish it was more than a footnote.

After episode six we get into the larger framework of this show within a show. My Roanoke Nightmare was a big hit so the producer wants to follow up with a reality series that puts everyone related to the show in the haunted house. He's also rigged some fun scares to give the concept some punch. Of course the characters have plenty of drama. You're pitting the 'actors' against the 'real life counterparts' and there's some discord over how the actors played the characters. The actress Kathy Bates plays went mad playing the role of the butcher and isn't invited. That's when this becomes a slasher.

There's also some teens that track down the location of the show and witness some horrific things and then a paranormal investigation show breaks in and experiences even more horror. This is meant to bolster an ending with a heroic sacrifice but the numerous shows within the show just make this a complicated scramble to create a solid conclusion. The main takeaway is that the colony still lurks in the woods. It will never stop.

American Horror Story: Hotel Season 5 TV Review

American Horror Story: Hotel (2011-)
Season 5 - 12 Episodes (2015)


American Horror Story is a horror anthology series. Each season is a self contained story with disparate characters.
Season five focuses on the Hotel Cortez in Los Angeles. The hotel is home to the eccentric owner, a homicide detective, serial killers, and more.

American Horror Story: Hotel Season 5 Review

American Horror Story: Hotel (2011-)
Season 5 - 12 Episodes (2015)

American Horror Story: Hotel Season 5

Buy American Horror Story: Hotel Season 5
Created by: Brad Falchuk, Ryan Murphy
Starring: Lady Gaga, Matt Bomer, Kathy Bates, Evan Peters, Finn Whitrock, Denis O'Hare, Sarah Paulson, Chloë Sevigny, Wes Bentley, John Carroll Lynch, Angela Bassett
Rating: TV-MA 

Plot: 
American Horror Story is a horror anthology series. Each season is a self contained story with disparate characters despite using many of the same actors season to season.
Season five focuses on the Hotel Cortez in present day Los Angeles. The hotel is home to the eccentric owner, a homicide detective, serial killers, and more.

Verdict
This show is fun and that's why I anticipate it coming to Netflix every year. Adding Lady Gaga as a main cast member was an interesting choice that worked well, and I liked the move to a present day.
Unfortunately this season sacrifices story quality for scares. With so many disparate story lines occurring concurrently it feels unfocused. This season is packed full.
There aren't any shows quite like this, but the story quickly became muddled until the last few episodes brought this together. The last few episodes were good, but it normally doesn't take me three weeks to get through a show I'm enjoying. While you'll have to power through the middle episodes, you can at least take solace in the fact that the season ends well.
I'd recommend this for American Horror Story fans, but it is not a good entry point if you've never seen the show. This season's narrative is cumbersome.
Watch it.

Review
American Horror Story is fun. There aren't many long form scary tales on television and this indulges on all fronts. You name it, this season will probably indulge it. Blood, sex, rock and roll. Lots of blood.

Kathy Bates is desk clerk Iris.

Moving this season to present day was a great move. There have been more than enough period pieces, and this show needs to jump around. The first episode includes not so subtle hints to The Shining (1980), with a similar carpet pattern and twins in the hallway. This season is much less nuances and cerebral than The Shining.
This hotel seems stuck in the '50s from style to even some of the inhabitants. This is a murder hotel, and while this gets grisly and creepy, where is plot, set up, or story?

The Countess (Lady Gaga) and Liz Taylor (Denis O'Hare).

I guessed in the first episode that everyone in the hotel was trapped inside as a ghost. That's partially true. Lady Gaga plays the Countess, the hotel's owner. Matt Bomer is Donovan, her boy toy. In episode two we learn they are vampires and this hotel is where they feed. It's strange that no flags are raised when people check into the hotel, but never check out.
The season plays with a love triangle between the Countess and Donovan, with the third wheel ever changing. This includes new owner of the hotel Will Drake (Cheyenne Jackson) and Finn Wittrock playing both model Tristan and golden age actor Rudolph.

Evan Peters is the hotel's original owner and a serial killer. He still haunts the halls. He hosts a dinner for serial killers, all since dead. We discover this tidbit of information does have a point, but it was a fun diversion to watch the actors chew the scenery with those characters.

Wes Bentley is Detective John Lowe, though they should have given him three names.

This season felt like less horror and more mind assault with copious amounts of blood, jump scares, and scary images tied together with the loosest of thread. I never did learn who the faceless beast that hides inside beds is. Maybe its just a demon of the junkie Sarah Paulson plays. If this season tells us, I missed it.

This show isn't very subtle, and neither are the vampires. Delusional killers instead of vampires could have had more depth, but we learn later in the season that we actually have both. The depth the show tries to give the Countess and Donovan never quite helped erase their blandness.

This gets borderline absurd when a classroom full of children become psychopath vampires. This season turns a bunch of people, and these kids kill an entire school in a few hours, then the story is dropped. When we pick it back up, they're feeding on pizza delivery men and hiding out. What about the school massacre? What about the body count they're piling up? This show only ever flirts with realism, but this plot line was too much. Children are monsters... literally.

Liz and Iris, guns blazing.

Once we get into the last few episodes, some of the odd plot lines begin to make sense. This season is a lot of smoke and mirrors, that never overcomes the problem of too many story lines and characters. There are too many characters to care about, and some of them should have been culled.
The kid vampire plot line could have been culled, the Rudolph backstory as well.
I've only mentioned half the characters from this season. There are many more.

Ghosts trapped in a hotel is a great idea, but this season just throws way too much on top of that. The last episode excels because it keeps it simple and focuses on the group of ghosts trapped in the hotel. I wish we got more episodes like that. Complex plots doesn't always equal creative or smart stories.
The last episode does directly reference American Horror Story: Coven season 3.