The latest American Horror Stories could put a baby to sleep
"Ba'al" frustratingly pivots the series away from humor and into the realm of horror that takes itself a little too seriously.
TV Reviews Manny Coto
American Horror Stories’ latest episode has a promising premise. Pregnancy horror is the genre of one of my all-time favorite films (Rosemary’s Baby) and I will unfairly compare all works to it, but the idea of a playful spin on it with Billie Lourd seemed like a chance to do something better than most recent knock-offs have. The synopsis that FX on Hulu offers for the episode—“A wife does the unthinkable for a chance at a successful pregnancy”—implies something in tune with that genre. But, well, it’s not. Instead, “Ba’al” gives its protagonist a child within the first 10 minutes. How does she finally have a child after trying IVF five times (and being recommended to not continue by her doctor), you ask? Well, pop a statue of Ba’al, god of fertility, under your bed, and you’re guaranteed an offspring in no time at all.
The episode lazily plays at Rosemary’s Baby plotting every so often without really committing to it, instead becoming a kind of haunted house movie and/or demon movie that isn’t very interesting. It’s all just… painfully generic. Even the opening credits, which so far have been delightfully creative and themed to each episode, feel like they were done last minute; just a mish-mash of the kind of images you’d find in any forgettable horror release that went straight to streaming, from pentagrams to demon shadows. It’s all about the aftermath of pregnancy, the exhaustion and frustration that comes with having a child. But I’m sorry to say it’s no Babadook.
Rather than try to comment on the way women navigate postpartum depression, writers Manny Coto and Ali Adler have zero interest in diving beneath the surface with a character like Liv. Its grandest proclamations come in the form of your basic TV therapist talk, with someone actively stating, “No, a baby cannot hate its mother, but it’s not crazy to sometimes get that feeling.” There is no attempt at going deeper into that concept because it’s too busy having a pointless ouija board scene for kicks.
At the least there’s something interesting about Lourd’s performance here. Everyone around her is void of anything resembling personality, but she actually gets to try doing something. Some moments she comes across as though trying to be a Goop-inspired new age mom truly succumbing to the exhaustion, and it works. The few times she gets to get a little crazy are ideal for her, but that Sanaa Hamri cast someone adept at deadpan delivery and saddles her in a role that allows her little to no chance for getting a laugh is just baffling. She spends half the episode practically looking asleep or awkwardly pouting, and it’s a damn shame.
But so much of the episode feels lazy. Ba’al could be replaced with practically any demon who’d be down to bone and the plot beats are not just predictable but uninspired. Worst of all are the twists that come up near the end. Now, look, I don’t like becoming the person who nit-picks logistics in TV, but the entire shitty noir twist at play here is miserable executed and staged. The gaslighting of Liv is nonsensical at best, but if the show bothered to lean into its humor instead of using it as a lazy twist, it could have worked. It feels more like an afterthought than anything here, pretty much an excuse for the actual Ba’al to show up and go on a poorly lit murdering spree. The deaths are as uninteresting as the plot twist reveal, and even more boring is the way the episode closes out. But the sensibility of American Horror Stories is present at the bitter end. Of course the people that work on this show would close an episode by having a woman wanting to fuck a demon just to have another baby, but it’d be nice if they’d have the decency to be that playfully stupid the whole time instead of dragging us along to get to that point.
The thing with doing an episode like “Ba’al” is that it has to, at the bare minimum, be more interesting than other recent television works that play with demons, pregnancy, and children. I admittedly feel so little motivation to write about this episode because there’s just not much to say about it, and my thoughts keep going back to another show currently on air: Evil. Evil has done, well, kind of everything that “Ba’al” does, but much better, in a number of episodes. It’s got evil sperm being put into women going through IVF, potentially possessed children and fetuses, demon hauntings that are actually both funny and scary, and actual navigations of motherhood and psychology that are compelling to watch. I wish the latest American Horror Stories was even half as good as any given episode of Evil. Sadly, it’s not, but at least next week will offer something completely different (or so I hope).
Stray observations
- Can I just say, once again, watch Evil? I’m sorry, I just really love that show, as well as most of Robert and Michelle King’s other work, and I simply try to highlight it whenever possible.
- May be dumb, but something that finally hit me today was how bland I find so much of the set design on Murphy’s shows, particularly AHS. There’s such a sterility to every bedroom and household that exists within his work and where it sometimes works (say, Nip/Tuck), I just find it kind of ugly and tiresome here. They feel totally un-lived in and like sets instead of places where anyone would actually exist.
- In what universe does NCIS spend hours making a guy look more like a demon than a corpse? I don’t watch NCIS but I also don’t think it would have something that looks more like a Buffy villain than a dead body.
- Okay, no, sorry. I’m here to nitpick again. What in the fuck was this incredibly long con job by a guy who didn’t want to have a baby and just wanted money? Like, he put years into this plan and his group of friends was just going along with it? It’s just so dumb and not at all creative. I’m so annoyed by the logistics of it! Find a better way to gaslight your wife, my guy!
40 Comments
That’s not what Ba’al looks like.
Yes! Watch Evil everyone!
I was definitely also thinking while watching this episode how thematically it reminded me of elements of Evil, except Evil does it all better.
I re-subscribed to paramount plus to watch this show, partially because I read this review and umm…Does this show get a LOT better after the first two episodes because so far it’s fucking awful. Especially the demon who keeps haunting them, goodness gracious just ground the second episode to a complete halt.
It definitely grew on me, mostly because while it’s still a case of the week kind of show, it took some swerves I wasn’t expecting and the cast is very strong. The incel ep was one of the strongest. It also might not be your cup of tea, which is OK. Maybe give it a few more eps? Sorry in advance if you resubscribed and still don’t like it
Sorry, Juan. You clearly have no taste if you enjoyed the first four episodes, yet disliked this one. This was the closest thing we have gotten to the magic of the first few seasons of American Horror Story. I’m not sure if you realize this, but horror is not supposed to be about comedy- it’s supposed to be about horror, and this episode definitely delivered.I give this article a big F.
It had a few The Conjuring/Insidious/Paranormal Activity/any other random PG-13 rated paranormal horror franchise from the last decade style jump scares and not very good ones, that’s hardly “delivering”.
The twist – which the entire story relies on – was completely nonsensical.
Was the doctor who told them they couldn’t have children just going along with the husband? If so, why weren’t they at the “We Drove Billie Lourd Insane 2021″ wrap party?
How did they pull off stunts like the demon popping up and disappearing in the blink of an eye- once behind Billie Lourd’s back and she’s not even aware of it? (Remember actual supernatural events do not occur until she summon Ba’al in the hospital.)
If the husband was so adamant about not having children why didn’t he just get a secret vasectomy and claim to be shooting blanks?
Comedy and levity in horror films has been around for decades, going back at least to the era of Universal Monsters. Not every horror film has it, but it happens frequently enough that it’s a trope at this point. Especially in American horror films. So your argument is a little nonsensical. It’s built into American Horror Story, that is a given. Asylum – which is probably the most “serious” season – has Jessica Lange breaking out into song.
Matt had done steroids and umm, sat in hot tubs and he was drugging Liv with psychoactives. So there’s a canon explanation, just rather goofy
Serious? OK…
I’ve enjoyed this a lot more than most critics too. But hasn’t AHS been camper than a row of tents from day one? I don’t think it was ever ‘proper horror’ even at its best (Asylum).
Thanks for reading!
Also, like, let’s not pretend American Horror Story has ever been truly self-serious considering Murder House was basically a game of “who raped and killed who” and Asylum had this gem (among plenty more insanity):
I know people love to shit on this sequence, but it’s supposed to be tonally jarring and weird, right? It’s an experiment that doesn’t work, but it’s a lot more creative than anything we got out of Apocalypse or the 1980s season.
Dang I needed that, I forgot how completely hilarious that sequence was and how the entire ensemble looked like they were having the time of their lives. Lange still has the moves!
Don’t talk shite lol
Horror is not about comedy? Not always, sure, but they go hand in hand quite often and some of the best horror movies are blatantly comedic. Literally wtf are you talking about.
Honestly, the others weren’t even super funny. I’d definitely rather have horror in my “American *Horror* Stories” than comedy every episode
I think Billie Lourd has oodles of charm, sad they wasted her here 🙁
This show has pretty much sucked outside of the movie ep, and that was just so-so. I’ll try to convince my better half to just skip this ep, sounds stupid.
It’s weird that, with a chance to get a bunch of different horror writers and combine them with your AHS cast like Lourd, they’ve just stuck with the same writer over and over(this Manny Coto)…Like imagine Lourd with a great horror dramaedy writer, who can allow her to get the horror and drama in, along with some one liners..
I’ve found this odd as well! I don’t dislike Coto so far, but it’s odd that he’s basically been at the helm of the grand majority of the series (and is apparently directing on top of writing next week to boot)
Yeah, why him? Because he has a history with 80s anthologies like Tales from the Darkside? His collab this week IS from the Murphy/Falchuk stable (she was one of the main writers on The New Normal which really should make her ideal for horror…) but it still seems weird to hire an established, relatively, well, old, straight guy to really helm this series, which, when Murphy works with “new” writers to his production team is not the “type” he hires.
(she was one of the main writers on The New Normal which really should make her ideal for horror…)
Was I the only one who noticed how everyone is wearing beige and white throughout the entire episode? It must be a rich person thing, I guess.
No, that’s kinda mentioned in the review and goes along with the set aesthetics. Like I said it made me think of 70s horror like Demon Seed. So it was definitely done on purpose, but yet as usual, didn’t really add anything.
There was that “XX” anthology film a while back that did a bit of a take on the “my baby is the devil’s son” concept and while I don’t think it was anything spectacular it at least delved a little bit in to the conflict of a mother who loves their child but also really really doesn’t like the idea of raising Satan’s spawn.
Yeah, pretty awful and dull. While the gaslighting element in terms of execution makes NO sense (as you say, it was a plan that took years) I also found it completely obvious—or at least I knew from early on that the husband was in on it or something. Also, the final twist that she would get her supernatural revenge was just so so obvious.
I will say: “There’s such a sterility to every bedroom and household that exists within his work and where it sometimes works (say, Nip/Tuck),
I just find it kind of ugly and tiresome here. They feel totally
un-lived in and like sets instead of places where anyone would actually
exist.”
In this example, at least, I do think that aspect was 100% on purpose, going for the look of some 70s and 80s horror films like Demon Seed and showing this woman being haunted, or whatever, in such a cold and austere setting. It just probably made everything more boring to me, but…
The dialogue in this episode was so awkward and exposition heavy, even for productions from Murphy/Falchuk (and I know they didn’t write this episode), like the bed talk where the wife reminds her husband that she’s insanely rich because of an inheritance, etc.
The dialogue was so staid! And I think you’re right re: intention, but the problem for me is that that aesthetic is never really challenged, commented on, or broken in any way. I really wish they’d tried anything.
Oh, I definitely agree with you. I mean that’s often a problem with Murphy/Falchuk productions anyway–they go for a certain aesthetic for whatever reason (but usually because it is referential in some way) but then don’t really do anything with it.
I had high hopes for American Horror Stories, especially when I saw the Murder House immediately show up in the first episode. Unfortunately, they brought the iconic architecture and cat suit from Season 1 without any of the characters or actors that made it so memorable. It’s too bad, too, because it has potential. I used to love horror anthologies like Tales from the Crypt, but this doesn’t have that charm. American Horror Stories is too good to be bad, and too bad to be good. Its big budget and talented acting can’t allow itself to excuse weak stories and bad writing. Poor special effects and bad acting is what makes so many horror anthologies entertaining, especially when they took themselves seriously. American Horror Stories needs to decide whether to be good or bad, because being both is boring. This is exactly why The Happening didn’t work as the B movie Shyamalan claimed it was meant to be. You can’t have expert effects and A list actors when you’re deliberately trying to make something bad. Sadly, I don’t think American Horror Stories even knows its bad, which makes its sense of self importance downright annoying.
I agree with all of this. However, slight spoiler, but check out the Wiki entry for the finale, episode 7 of this series to answer some of your first comment…
Personally, I don’t get why they’re using the same guy to write and direct every episode. There’s ton of talented horror writers out there and this would be a good time to go all out crazy creative.
I just came by to say that I agree about Evil. Terrible name for a show, but so so good. Fully fleshed out characters, interesting plots, a great blend of horror and comedy. (I was truly spooked by the elevator game episode.) And, like the opposite of a point this article makes about AHS, the family house in Evil is so got-dang charming and believable that I want to actually live in it.
Where does one find Evil? (The show, that is!)
Season one was on CBS but it’s been moved (with slightly upped content) to Paramount +
Agree on weakest episode yet. But still a B- for seeing Ronen Rubinstein playing a classic ruthless heiress manipulator for which Robert Wagner (A Kiss Before Dying) and Rob Lowe (Maquerade) are now too old and Gaslight co-star Joseph Cotten (Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte) too dead for. Yes that part could have been better written.
The twist surprised me because he acted convincingly and there were no subtle hints from his side. Such guys are always bland – but so are the very nice guys. I thought her doctor and the blonde bitch were behind it and there were too many people involved in the plan to believe it. The scene in the jail was entertaining though and should have been the end.
SPOILER ALERT:
Do fertility doctors recommend IVF when the male demonstrates a low motility and sperm count with every attempt?
I assume the doctor wasn’t in one the scheme, so why would he attempt so IVFs knowing that his junk doesn’t work, but his wife carries all of the burden for each attempt?
They could have solved the two biggest problems with episode one by making the teenager characters early 20s instead (less creepy) and casting Billie Lourd in the Kaia Gerber role (she was horribly flat and Lourd would have brought a more balanced humour to the episode).
The entire show looks more and more like a collection of discarded concepts for entire seasons of American Horror Story (“Hey, how about a direct sequel to Murder House?”) stripped to fit as a few episodes that could be shot during the pandemic (“Rubber (Wo)Man” and the finale) plus dropped B-plots that could never fit in a regular season.For the record, “The Naughty List” was already done better as “Christmas Activity”, the Christmas-themed Paranormal Activity parody from NTSF:SD:SUV:: like a decade ago, an episode entirely made of found footage shot at Kove’s house (she had put cameras in every room as she wanted to preserve every bit of her lovemaking). One after one, the entire NTSF crew gets brutally slaughtered by an evil Alaskan Santa Claus. “Christmas Activity” even had the benefit of a last minute reveal that it was all a ploy to force Sam, the Jewish guy at NTSF, to embrace Christmas and christianity, and that the beheaded bodies were just the effect of yoga, lots of yoga.
So I’m late as hell to this, but man this was trying so hard to be a modern day Rosemary’s Baby with quirky “I’m not like other demon baby horror movies” twists. I was half expecting Ba’al and Billie Lourd to just turn to the camera and wink at the audience while doing it.Hell, it was like I watched an entire season of AHS in 40 minutes. Starts of fairly intriguing (even great in some cases) and just completely goes off the rails in the back-end. Obviously not the case with every season of the parent show, just to clarify.My biggest gripe here was Lourd herself. She has proven many times to be charismatic as fuck, but she was just a wooden slab here. It has to be a case of direction, because we’ve seen her chew the scenery in Cult, Apocalypse and 1984. But hey, at least she looked good when playing crazy and I was envious of that outfit when she visited Matt in prison. But Lourd aside, the entire episode became a clusterfuck of confusion and inconsistency. Others have asked the relevant questions already and far better than I could, so I’m not going to repeat them, as lazy as that may seem. All in all, I expected Stories to be more creative and really let different creative teams flex their muscles, but I guess Murphy and co. like to play it safe and within tropes. Looking at you “Drive-in” for unceremoniously killing yet another potentially great LGBTQ+ character because… for the trope? Idk.Oh! One thing I did, weirdly, enjoy, were the opening credits. I actually think they’ve been the best ones so far. Okay, Feral did it better, but I still really liked these as well. They were just the right amount of creepy in my eyes and promised something far better within the actual episode than what we got.