If you are at all familiar with my “American Horror Story” reviews, you’ll know that my love for the show and its… quirks… is matched only by my venomous hatred for the show. Every week I both dread and relish that hour I spend on my couch, pen scrawling furiously, eyes rolling audibly, giggling all the while, watching the latest chapter in The Jessica Lange Show.
Most of my IRL friends know about my obsession with sideshow performers, so imagine my conflicting emotions when creator Ryan Murphy officially announced that season four will be sideshow-themed. On this hand, of course the moods of a sweaty tent full of platforms of oddities fit the AHS mold. On the other hand, those very oddities seem to a cynical viewer such as myself an easy way to progress the show’s Skinemax-style taboos and its “shock me shock me shock me” approach to late-night drama. For instance, I can make this prediction with absolute comfort: There will be a hermaphrodite and the character will be involved in some sort of pseudo-fetish sex act. Maybe with Not-Dirty Steve or a clergyman. But I’m calling it right now.
All snarking aside, I will admit to being optimistically curious about the two aspects of the show that I have always admired and praised – the cinematography and the makeup/effects department. What wonders we’ll likely see – tracking shots through a funhouse, terror on a Ferris wheel, and more whirling and spinning than you can shake a riding crop at. And we’ve already witnessed the magic that the AHS makeup team can perform in season two when beautiful actress Naomi Grossman was turned into microcephalic inmate Pepper.
I do hope that a good part of the cast consists of true sideshow performers, but understand that television is a business and there will need to be at least a few household names attached. Angela Bassett, Evan Peters, Kathy Bates, Sarah Paulson and Frances Conroy have been confirmed as cast-mates who will join Jessica Lange’s sideshow set in 1950’s Jupiter, FL. Lange will play a German imm – oh shit, I spoke to soon on that holocaust stuff, didn’t I. *actual eyeroll* No release date or air times have been announced yet, but in the meantime if you can’t wait to get your freak on, check out HBO’s classic paranormal mystery “Carnivale,” and I’ll see you this fall with my AHS reviews!