Two things happen that have never happened before in the new season of American Horror Story, the long-running and always experimental and narratively brilliant and twisted horror anthology series that Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk co-created in 2011. The first is that Murphy and Falchuk are handing over the reins as creative directors to Halley Feiffer, award-winning playwright and cult actress (she has worked primarily on Broadway, but also appears in several Noah Baumbach films and author series such as). Bored to Death and Escape of the Conchords). Secondly, the story told is based on a novel for the first time. And it's one that puts a twist on the Ira Levin classic that Roman Polanski made into a film in 1969: “The Devil's Seed.”
The novel, written by Danielle Valentine, is called “Delicate Condition” and no, the protagonist is not in the shadow of her successful actor husband – as was the case in Levin's damning fiction, which is inevitably connected to the brutal murder of a heavily pregnant woman. Sharon Tate, Polanski's wife at the time, from the Manson family – but someone who is on the verge of winning an Oscar. An actress, Anna Victoria Alcott (an Emma Roberts with just the right amount of naivety, desire and ambition), whose career launch coincides with the very harsh fertility treatment she must undergo in order to have a child with her husband. Successful husband, artist Dex Harding (none other than Gilmore boy Matt Czuchry).
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Since their inception in 2011, as a franchise aimed at inventorying American-made horror series, Murphy and Falchuk have created the second series after this strange bird, which was considered their first hit and already explored the boundaries between mainstream and mainstream bizarre: Nip/Tuck – innovated in so many elements that it practically created a genre within the groundbreaking genre in diversity – not just in terms of race and neurodiversity and of course queer, but also in terms of age: you were the first in women over 60 to return to the spotlight, starting with Jessica Lange, in unexpected, previously unique roles – and with a powerful sculptural aesthetic that sublimates each and every one of the reinvented themes here.
Of course, the fact that the continuity of the anthology was ensured from the beginning by actors who were always the same (Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Lily Rabe, Frances Conroy, Lange herself, among others) and whose paths in one The series of the The juiciest variations also marked a before and after in the main role, which was exceptionally assigned to them and thus also to the characters, the true driving forces of each season. Added to this is the reworking of these characters: ghosts, witches, serial killers, freaks, survivors at the end of the world, everything you can imagine was filled with nuances, without forgetting the victims who would never really be victims again.
The way Feiffer takes on such an illustrious and elusive gauntlet as guest host this season is impeccable in that sense. He even respects the style of the shots – the minimalism that doesn't shy away from going around the world and sometimes filming upside down – but of course also the unbeatable rarity of the characters – also aesthetically: here the pair of women in black with feathers , which do more than just hunt down the protagonist, take the cake – to the point that the feeling of not knowing that a change has occurred at the top of the series isn't even noticed. Unless you think carefully: there is hardly any night and a lot of light, in Feiffer's bet, which in more than one chapter leads the oppressive Jennifer Lynch in the direction.
One would say the story is simpler: the focus is just on a woman who wants something she can't have and who is controlled and exploited by those around her. Feiffer uses the body as a trigger for the nightmare – and yes, the way he does it has something of the cinema of Julia Docournau (Titane), without a veiled wink: pay attention to the scene with the endless hair – and He interprets the Murphy and Falchuk classic for the first time, something painfully intimate. The inevitable loss of control in the face of a reality that becomes unstable because no one but you is watching – the terror of induced paranoia – does its rest in a world in which those who have become part of a system would have nothing without them.
macabre fable
The criticism of Hollywood and its heartless cannibalism – its need to devour stars in order to move and feed the dream factory – takes on the characteristics of a macabre fable. Kim Kardashian, in the role of the agent and at the same time the best friend of the character played by Roberts, is the wolf in sheep's clothing – or the witch or stepmother of a not-at-all-classic fairy tale – who lures the protagonist into a trap who has to choose between the Oscar or decide on life? Yes, Alcott (Roberts) is nominated for an Oscar and must now embark on the advertising career that can secure it. But that means forgetting everything else. Including motherhood that might suddenly become possible amid gaps in memory and nail-pierced wrists.
There is a certain domestication of the Murphy/Falchuk formula in Feiffer's proposal, but it is formally effective because this is a season in which Control is the powerful villain. A control that wisely extends from Roberts' nightmare to the contemporary world at the moment the very famous actress communicates with him – or with all of them, because they are the ones watching her and taking her out of the Directing remotely – through the agenda. –hacked– from her own cell phone. No, it is not the social networks that control us, because they are nothing more than a mirage. It is ourselves and our accepted state as slaves to a system of systems – almost individualized – that does it.
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