‘American Horror Story 12’, or when motherhood becomes a nightmare | Television

In the new season of America’s Scary 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, two things happen that have never happened before. The first is that Murphy and Falchuk, as creative leaders, are handing the reins to award-winning playwright and cult actress Hayley Pfeffer (she’s worked mostly on Broadway but has also appeared in several Noah Baumbach films and the author series. …

In the new season of America’s Scary 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, two things happen that have never happened before. The first is that Murphy and Falchuk, as creative leaders, are handing the reins to award-winning playwright and cult actress Hayley Pfeffer (she’s worked mostly on Broadway but has also appeared in several Noah Baumbach films and the author series. got bored And Flight of the Concords). Another thing is that, for the first time, the story being told is based on a novel. And he puts a twist on the Ira Levin classic that Roman Polanski brought to cinema in 1969: Satan’s seed.

This is the name of the novel written by Daniel Valentine fragile state And no, the protagonist is not someone in the shadow of her successful actor husband—as was the case in Levine’s damning fiction, which essentially concerned Polanski’s brutal murder of Polanski’s then-wife, a very pregnant Sharon Tate. Family—but someone who’s going to win an Oscar. An actress, Anna Victoria Alcott (an Emma Roberts with just the right touch of naivety, desire and ambition), whose career takeoff coincides with her husband undergoing extremely harsh fertility treatments to have a child. Successful husband, artist Dax Harding (none other than Gilmore Boy Matt Zukri).

Since its inception, in 2011, as a franchise destined for inventory horror Made in AmericaMurphy and Falchuk’s series—then the second they co-created Rare Avis which was held as his first blow And what limits had already been explored mainstream And strange: Nip/tuck– has innovated in such myriad elements that it has practically created a genre within a genre, pioneering diversity – not just ethnic and neurodiverse, and of course, weirdBut age: they were the first to return the spotlight to women over 60, starting with Jessica Lange, in unexpected roles, unique to this day—and using a powerful plastic aesthetic that sublimates every last cliché. Rediscovered here.

Of course, the fact is that the continuity of the anthology was, from the beginning, provided by artists who were always the same (Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Lily Rabe, Frances Conroy, Lang himself, among others) and who crossed paths. Even the juiciest series of variations marked an earlier and later in the lead roles, which for once gave them, and consequently the characters, the true driving forces of each season. To which must be added the reworking of these characters: ghosts, witches, serial killers, FreaksThe survivors of the end of the world, not forgetting the victims, were filled with all the noise imaginable, who would never be victims again.

The way Pfeiffer picks up such a famous and elusive gauntlet as a guest host this season is, in a sense, impeccable. It also respects the style of the shots – the minimalism that is not afraid to go around the world and in the film, sometimes, upside down – but, of course, the invincible rarity of the characters – but also, aesthetically: here a pair of women in feathered black who do more than chase the protagonist. Takes the cake—so much so that the sensationalism, if no one knows there’s been a change in the category heading, isn’t even noticed. Unless you think carefully: there is hardly any night, and there is a lot of light, in Pfeifer’s terms, in which direction, in more than one chapter, is the tyrant Jennifer Lynch.

The story is, one would say, simple: at the center is just a woman, who wants something she doesn’t have and is controlled and used by those around her. Pfeiffer uses the body as a trigger for a nightmare—and yes, something out of the cinema of Julia Docournau (Titan) the way he does it, without batting an eye: notice the hair scene infinite—, and, for the first time, Murphy and Falchuk make the classic, something painfully intimate. The inevitable loss of control in the face of a reality that becomes destabilized because no one but you is watching—remains a horror of induced paranoia, in a world that has become a fragment of a system without which there is nothing. them

A horror legend

Criticism of Hollywood and its heartless cannibalism—it needs to devour stars to propel itself, to feed the dream factory—takes on shades of soliloquy. Kim Kardashian, in the role of an 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 the stepmother of the classic fairy tale – who lures the protagonist into a trap. Who must choose between Oscar or life. Yes, Alcott (Roberts) has been nominated for an Oscar and should now embark on a promotional career that will ensure it. But that means forgetting everything else. A motherhood consists of what suddenly becomes possible, between a memory gap and a nail-pierced wrist.

Pfeiffer’s proposal has a certain domesticity to the Murphy/Falchuk formula that is, however, formally effective, given that it is a season in which control is a powerful villain. A control that, sensibly, extends from Roberts’ nightmare to the contemporary world in which the very famous actress interacts with him—or all of them, since they are the ones who see her, and who direct her from afar. agenda. — heck— from his own mobile phone. No, it is not social networks that control us because they are nothing but mirages. It is ourselves, and our accepted status of slaves to systems of systems – almost personal – who do it.

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