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Television Show: American Horror Story: Season 6: Roanoke
Year: 2016
Creators: Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk
Starring: Kathy Bates, Sarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr.
Review:
This season of American Horror Story is a documentary, found-footage about a couple who move from Los Angeles to North Carolina. They purchase a house at an auction, winning the bid over some locals who are straight out of the backwoods. The couple is Lily Rabe and André Holland. There is a show about them surviving the ordeal and they are played by Sarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr. on the show.
This show explores the colony of Roanoke and how they moved to where the house on this property is. The reenactment of them is Kathy Bates as their leader. She loses her colony when her son, Wes Bentley, and the rest of the colony want to go on without her, thinking she is ruining them. She ends up being aided by a witch, Lady Gaga, to take back over her people. She also kills them, cursing them on this land.
Problems start when Holland’s sister, a former police officer who has a drinking problem comes to stay with them. She is Adina Porter and played on the show by Angela Bassett. When her daughter is brought there and turns up missing, a search party is formed to find her. When there are no leads though, a psychic is called in, Leslie Jordan, to help find her.
The butcher, Bates, is coming for them though as the blood moon is rising. Porter kills her ex-husband and doesn’t remember it. Holland also makes love to Gaga and Rabe sees it. This is tearing their family apart. They end up finding the little girl and having a run in with the local backwoods people. They do survive and this show is following the events that happened to them.
The creator of the show is Cheyenne Jackson and his show is a hit. He comes up with the idea to have the actors and the cast return to film a follow-up season. Are all of the ghosts that Rabe and Holland claimed they encountered real? Or was it something they made up to make it famous? Will everyone survive another blood moon on this property?
I am a big fan of American Horror Story, even though none of the seasons have been able to compare with the original for me. I still find each one entertaining for different reasons. For this show, I am a big fan of the A Haunting television shows, so I found this interesting them exploring the Roanoke mystery and having this couple survive this ordeal in the woods. It was quite interesting. This season, like the many of the others, tells us how this land is cursed and shows us how the curse started and then others that have become a part of it. I found it also interesting that a follow-up to the hit and having everyone come back. It then turns into almost a supernatural slasher where we know only one survives. It was kind of fun trying to figure out who that person would be. I liked that they tied back in to season one with the Piggy Man. I do feel that the ending was a little bit weak. I was interested and how it ends just lost me there. I think that this might be my least favorite of the ones that have come out, but I did enjoy they tried to do something new.
The acting though is superb. The cast that they keep bringing along is great. Bates is wonderful as the butcher as well as the actress who is trying to cling to the character and is unstable. Paulson is solid as usual in this show. Gooding was a good addition. I do think he might have been a bit underutilized. Rabe was solid as usual as well. I also liked to see Denis O’Hare, Bentley and Evan Peters. For O’Hare and Peters, I’ve been a big fan since season one and Bentley has been solid since joining the show. I also want to shout out Bassett who has also been really good since joining. The rest of the cast round it out very well.
One of things that I always know coming in are the effects are going to be good. This show uses what looks to be both practical and CGI. I see no issues with either of them. It never takes me out of the show, which is definitely a positive. The blood looks real and the characters do as well. I thought it was a nice touch with the Asian ghosts looking like they’re from The Ring or The Grudge. The editing of the show was a little bit slow for me. Not all of the episodes got me excited for the next and the tension didn’t build as much as I wanted. The score was solid though. That is another thing I’ve come to expect from this show as well.
Now with that said, I am adding this show to my horror film research due to treating this as an episodic film. The story is contained and resolves itself. I feel this show did some good things. Going to the faux documentary/found footage was a solid choice. I like the setting and location. That does build fear. I also love exploring the history of Roanoke and those that are real people getting pulled into the curse. It doesn’t build the necessary tension and I think part of that is on the editing as well as story. The acting was superb across the board. I thought most everyone was excellent or round out their role very well. The effects are something else that was well done and the score works for what they were going through. I unfortunately found this to be the weakest of the seasons, but still worth a viewing in my opinion. If you’ve watched the past seasons, give this a chance. I think this one does do some good things and the reference to past seasons is fun.
My Rating: 7 out of 10