American Horror Story: Halloween (Part 2) review

At this point, the show has lost me as any sort of a fan. I honestly feel like some sort of scientific observer, watching to see what they are going to do with their narrative and discovering that it seems, everything is more interesting if they just make most of their characters ghosts. There is something inherently flawed if your ghosts draw more sympathy than your protagonists. That is, after all, why they are called protagonists.

At this juncture I honestly don’t care what happens to Ben (Dylan McDermott) or Vivien (Connie Britton).  She’s the biggest whiner in the world outside of a certain former sister-in-law that I have and he is essentially a lying, cheating borderline sociopath.  And who doesn’t recognize a foreign penis inside them unless the Rubber Man’s is the exact size and shape of Ben’s which I highly doubt.  What Vivien doesn’t realize is that Hayden (Kate Mara) would be doing her a favor if she cut her fetus out).

What I find, well, ridiculous is that the dead can walk through the night on Halloween, but the dead from the house also seem to be able to walk around wherever they want as well.  It is certainly convenient that the dead can walk free on the night Violet (Taissa Farmiga) and Tate (Evan Peters) finally have a date.  SPOILER  ALERT:  That way we can confirm what we have been suspecting for awhile now – that Tate is also a ghost.  Apparently, an impotent ghost when it comes to really liking a girl.  He blames it on his meds (can meds even work on a ghost?) when they are at the beach and he can’t get it up, but it’s obvious that something else is bothering him.  I’m sure his girl/mommy issues (because there are ALWAYS mommy issues) will slowly be revealed in coming episodes.  Furthermore, while he might be impotent with his – appendage, he seemed to do fine with a substitute phallus, the gun he used to kill several of his classmates at a high school shooting over a decade before.

Speaking of phallic symbols in this episode, Ben’s phallic substitute of choice is the giant knife he keeps grabbing to not only defend himself and his house but to destroy the individual (Hayden) who he already sullied with his own phallus which has come back to — bite him in the ass.  Furthermore, the phallic symbolism continues when Hayden acquires a large piece of long broken glass to substitute for a knife to cut out Vivien’s demon seed.  A symbolic phallic abortion?  But no… Hayden does not get to do this in time.  Ben appears, mans up and confesses he cheated on poor Vivien just a bit more.   Ben is now screwed.  Vivien kicks him out of the house by the end of the episode.  Then Luke (Morris Chestnut), the security guy, takes Hayden to the local authorities only to discover she disappeared in the back of his car at sun-up.  Violet must also deal with the knowledge that Tate is not only Constance’s son (Jessica Lange), he’s a mass-murderer.  Quite a pick to lose one’s virginity with.  At least she’ll have stories to tell, if she survives the deflowering and the actual relationship.  Perhaps Tate will kill her as well and she and Tate will end up in the horror house forever.  Not my choice of destiny but I guess it works for them.

American Horror Story: “Home Invasion” Episode 2 Review

We’ve entered the second week of American Horror Story and it isn’t any clearer what the show is really about.   The one message coming through pervasively, however is that women are evil and a threat, selfish and conniving.  The men just seem to be horny.  And prone to hearing things and sleep-walking.

SPOILER ALERT:

The show’s narrative signature trope seems to be a death-a-week related to the house.  This week’s death involves nurses (one is apparently a nursing student) and a psycho, literally.  If you aren’t sure, the music from Hitchcock’s Psycho screeches as the creepy madman stabs the virgin nurse in the back as we watch.  Since he hates women and he comes at her from behind, if you were a psychoanalytic film theorist, you would claim that is symbolic for anal penetration of the most violent kind.  Notice that fate is bestowed upon the more attractive, skinnier of the two.  Psycho guy’s sexual choice for his games.  The overweight nurse gets drowned in a tub in her uniform.  Either way, both women probably wished they’d gone with their roommates to see The Doors at the Hollywood Bowl.  It is 1968.  Who stayed at home in 1968 when there were groups like The Doors playing?

Ben (Dylan McDermott) has a new patient this week, Bianca (Mageina Tovah), who knows all about his house since it is a famous Los Angeles murder house and she informs him it’s on the murder house tour.  In her session she recounts a dream she keeps having about being chopped in half by an elevator door.  It’s hard to tell if she is making this up or she really does have the dream but one thing is clear:  she’s a weirdo.  Ben receives a call from his former lover/student, Hayden (Kate Mara) informing him that she’s pregnant.  He lies to Vivien telling her that he’s going to visit a suicidal patient in Boston.  Honestly this is a bad call.  He shouldn’t go to Boston to be with her, even if she is having an abortion.  That signals that he still has feelings.  But it’s painfully clear that Ben is never going to be completely faithful.  Even if he says he will just sleep on the couch.  The betrayal in this instance began when he lied to Vivien (Connie Britten) and continued when he arrived in Boston AND stayed at Hayden’s place.  It begs the question:  what kind of a psychiatrist is he?  Certainly not one that has learned healthy boundaries.  The man walks around the house naked at night with a teenager daughter living there.  That’s just creepy.

Right before Ben leaves, Constance (Jessica Lange) bakes cupcakes she poisons with ipecac (she has Addy spit in them for good measure), which is originally meant for Violet (Taissa Farmiga).  Vivien and Constance share a moment about her pregnancy and Constance says all her children were born with defects with the exception of the one who died.  Vivien tries to share one of the poison cupcakes with Constance but she rebuffs her about weight and age.  Then Ben tries to eat it.  Finally, the cupcake helps save Vivien and Violet who get into a fight.  Violet puts the cupcake outside her door.  Then Bianca (Ben’s new patient from earlier) and two of her friends break into the house to re-create the 1968 murder we saw at the beginning of the episode.  Tate (Evan Peters) hides in the house and helps Violet.  Bianca eats the poisoned cupcake and later killed Tate kills her with an axe as she vomits.  The police make a comment once the body is found that she was almost sliced in half (so her dream was real or maybe the house liked the idea).  Her two cohorts are ultimately killed by Tate in the basement.  Ben leaves Hayden’s abortion to rush home to his family.  We discover Tate is Constance’s son and Tate, Constance and Moira (Frances Conroy) agree to clean up the mess since it isn’t “the first time that’s happened” after Tate shows them the bodies.

Perhaps the only disturbing element to this show is the strange level of violence related to the female characters.  It’s as if female desire has run amok and displaced the order of the world in Los Angeles.  If you aren’t sure, watch the scene between Constance and her young lover (Michael Graziadei) as she ignores Addy’s pleas for help and locks her in a closet so she can have sex.  Or the fact that Vivien doesn’t notice she’s been impregnated by a stranger in a rubber/latex suit.  Even Violet seems to be attracted to Tate, who is essentially a murderer and possibly a ghost.  The home invasion is caused by Bianca’s sick desire to follow the cult of a perverted killer and even Abby wanders unchecked through the house and talks to ghosts, desiring freedom and chaos.  Moira, who could possibly be a ghost herself, seems to be quite a slut when the opportunity presents itself.  So, are the problems of the house related to this female problem?  I’m wondering… Time will tell.

American Horror Story: Pilot Review

Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, creators of shows such as Nip/Tuck and Glee, are attempting to bring a Horror/Thriller/Melodrama, American Horror Story, to the small screen on fx.  The premise begins simply enough, Boston couple, Vivien (Connie Britton) and Ben (Dylan McDermott), have marriage problems. She had a miscarriage and withdraws emotionally. He had an affair with one of his students and she caught him. They move their maladjusted teenage daughter , Violet (Taissa Farmiga) with them to Los Angeles for a fresh start. I guess nobody has informed them that you never get a fresh start in Los Angeles.

SPOILER ALERT:

The house they buy, as we see in the opening sequence, is evil.  People go in and they die (we get to see two twin boys murdered in 1978 – I personally thought they deserved it after vandalizing the house).  If they don’t die, they kill other members of their family.  Either way, you seem to be screwed if you go into that house.  The Keepers of the House seem to be a trio of women:  Constance (Jessica Lange, in her first TV role that we are reminded of non-stop) who is a neighbor and a failed actress; Addy (Jamie Brewer), Constance’s daughter who has Down’s Syndrome and is obsessed with the house; finally, the real housekeeper who comes with the house somehow, Moira (Frances Conroy) and a younger version of herself (Alex Breckenridge).  These women seem to have some strange control of the house or commune with it.

The pilot follows the trials and tribulations of the Harmon family adjusting to the house and their new Los Angeles lives.  Violet meets one of Ben’s patients (her dad is a psychiatrist), Tate (Evan Peters) who is quite frankly, terrifying.  He doesn’t fit in at school and has fantasies about killing people he likes.  Because THAT is really healthy.  He likes Violet.  He promises to help her with girl bullies.  She tells him she doesn’t scare easily until he gets her to take one of the girl bullies down into the basement.  Then through a very choppy editing sequence, we see that Violet is attacked as well as the girl bully.  After that, Violet tells Tate she never wants to see him again.  Hmmm.  I wonder what he does once he doesn’t like you.  Oh yes, and there is some trolly sort of creature involved in the attack and you cannot be sure if it is Tate as well as the trolly creature or an actual trolly creature that was Tate.

As we learn in the beginning of the pilot, Ben can’t keep it in his pants.  And if he claims that Vivien was pushing him away and he looked elsewhere for some comfort, I think we can all see he is really a pig and a horndog as he gets excited as soon as he sees Moira, the housekeeper.  Now, while we see Moira as an older version (Frances Conroy), and that is the version of her Vivien meets and sees, Ben sees her as a younger version of herself, who is quite frankly, dressed like a French maid ready to get it on.  Ben walks in a bit later on the young Moira, let me see how I shall say this… playing with herself, which makes him immediately have to go jerk off in the other room.  A short time later, she shows up in his office, exposing her breasts to him and asking him to touch her when Violet walks in.  Because maids always do that.  Okay, maybe they do in Hollywood considering the scandal surrounding a certain former California Governor.

Vivien doesn’t get left out of the sexual chaos in the house.  A man (she thinks it’s Ben) shows up in a Latex suit covering his face and they end up having sex.  In the meantime, Ben is sleepwalking and somehow woken up by the neighbor, Constance, who is wandering in his backyard.  I’m guessing Frances has something to do with Latex Man.

Finally, Ben gets visited by a former tenant of the house who tells him they have to get out.  The house/voices in the house got him to kill his wife and daughters.  Ben gets angry and tells him to leave him alone.

The premiere of this pilot did very well in ratings for fx.  It beat the Nip/Tuck premiere and the Sons of Anarchy premiere for their respective pilots, so unless the ratings plunge, I’m guessing American Horror Story will be around for at least this full season.

On a sidenote:  Ryan Murphy is working on a Hitchcock project (a documentary possibly from what I can gather) and apparently he is obsessed with the music from Vertigo.  If you watch the pilot, whenever you hear the creepy Bernard Herrmann music you will know something bad is happening.  Just like in Vertigo.