Great art demands pain in the first trailer for American Horror Story: Double Feature
The new season will feature both aliens and mermaids, with the first part starring Finn Wittrock and Lily Rabe
TV News American Horror Story
We’ll be honest: We still don’t totally understand the concept for American Horror Story: Double Feature, the latest season of the landmark FX series that has branched out into a hit-and-miss horror show and a prestige drama anthology (and soon sports dramas and romances). We know the name comes from the fact that it will be about two scary things instead of just one scary thing and we know that one of the scary things is mermaid monsters and the other is aliens, but will the two things end up being connected? Will there be some kind of thematic reasoning for it being a “double feature” beyond the idea of doing two kinds of stories instead of one kind of stories?
Thankfully, this trailer for the first part of Double Feature is surprisingly manageable. There’s nothing too nonsensical happening here, and as a matter of fact, it all starts off with some familiar hooks. A writer (Finn Wittrock) moves to a seemingly idyllic coastal town with his wife (Lily Rabe) in hopes of getting past a crushing case of writer’s block (Alan Wake, anyone?), but as he spends more time with the locals (Evan Peters and Frances Conroy) he finds writing easier and easier… and also scarier and scarier. It seems like drinking blood or hurting people makes you more creative, with Finn Wittrock banging his head like a rockstar when his writing is really hitting a groove—a thing all writers have done at least once, let’s be honest—but the thing about spooky supernatural cure-alls is that there’s generally a high price to be paid. It’s all very Stephen King, especially if whatever magic stuff is going on could be read as a metaphor for substance abuse (and, based on this trailer, that seems likely).
American Horror Story: Double Feature will premiere on FX on August 25.
12 Comments
Honestly, this has me wildly interested. Like you said, it has an eerily similar feel to Alan Wake and anything Stephen King, but it looks really solid. It also seems to be just the right amount of classic AHS, meaning the camp and the bonkers nature of the whole thing are present (yes to Frances Conroy in more amazing attire). Yet, it looks to be a bit more serious than some other seasons? Though knowing AHS, it’s going to get absolutely nonsensical at some point.It’s also giving Lily Rabe yet another fully deserved leading role. She was a large part of why I enjoyed Roanoke so much, for example. Aaaaaand after this, we’re gonna get aliens and man oh man have I waited for the aliens to return.
Hopefully since Red Tide is only 6 episodes it’ll wait until at least episode 4 to get nonsensical.
There have been a lot of Stephen King-inspired or -adjacent series to come out of the renewed interest in horror as a genre in the last few years. (Although to be fair, Stephen King adaptations have been a Hollywood horror staple since he started writing.)In other words, I’m a little surprised it’s taken this long for AHS to tackle Stephen King themes in a more serious way. But I’m here for it. (Yes, obviously they have played with various King aesthetics/influences before, especially in Freak Show and Hotel.)
Oh absolutely, King’s adaptations have been very frequent recently, some better than others. But hey, as long as new creatives get to do stuff, I’m here for them. Agreed, it has taken them a surprisingly long time to develop such an egregiously direct King homage. I suppose Murphy wanted to do his own thing at first? Though idk, both Murphy and King have a thing for problematic sex and strange ghost shit.
LOL, is that about Murphy/King or the ghost story genre generally? “Problematic sex and strange ghost shit” dates back to at least Henry James, whose own work has been very unevenly adapted in recent years.
Oh no no, that’s purely about them in the context of AHS, not the genre in general. Those two things have been a part of horror stuff as far as I can remember hah. In Murphy’s case, I mainly thought about what Murder House did with all of its ghosts and where he could have drawn inspiration from. With King, I was once again reminded of how he wrote the Losers’ sex scene in It. As for the upcoming season, to be frank, the whole “writer goes to small town for inspiration” plotline has been done by many authors, so I guess I can’t just say it’s only King-esque in that. It did remind me of the Castle Rock show though.
I mean, I don’t know that King necessarily invented that trope, but he has certainly made ample use of it—although I guess his version is a usually bit more “withdrawing someplace isolated/rural” than going to a specific town per se. And usually the move-induced madness is more about isolation than peer pressure. But maybe Frances Conroy and Evan Peters will turn out to be hallucinations/imaginary friends of some kind!
Here for it! Especially Francis Conroy getting to be cryptic in fabulous costumes. Honestly it looks like most of my favorite AHS alums are in this one, very much looking forward to next week now!
It’s a very good line-up of alums, pretty much every personal favourite of mine is returning. Aaaaand they snagged Neal McDonough for “Death Valley” so hell yes I’m excited.
Looks more spooky and campy for once.
Seems weird if they weren’t connected with “Horror Stories” coming out and it being an anthology.
Ah, a lot of the usual suspects returning to AHS. Love it.