TV Review: American Horror Story (Season 6, Episode 1)

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

EPISODE: CHAPTER 1

THE SCOOP: Matt, his wife Shelby and sister Lee recount the horrifying time spent in rural Roanoke, North Carolina.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW. IF YOU'VE NOT SEEN THIS EPISODE, STOP READING HERE!

THESKINNY: And it came! After months of successfully diverting fans with its clever thematic misdirection, mysterious marketing, scent-throwing promos and tight-lipped teases, the wild rumors and hasty hearsay have all come to an end…as the sixth season of American Horror Story finally unveiled in its premier chapter the year's key objectives. The what: A mock reality docu-series called My Roanoke Nightmare. The when: the recent past.  the where: Roanoke, North Carolina. The who: Matt and Shelby, a handsome young couple who've agreed to recount their scarifying experience at a moldering old house they bought on the cheap, outbidding a trio of greasy rednecks in so doing. Andre Holland and Lily Rabe play the couple who give direct-to-camera confessionals, while Cuba Gooding Jr. and Sarah Paulson play the couple in a dramatized TV account of what they went through. It's primarily Cuba and Sarah we see acting, Andre and Lily we hear narrating. A pretty nifty conceit, one dexterously dished by director Bradley Buecker with a very simple, straight-forward and formalistic approach to the storytelling. Ever re-Inventive, highly intriguing and promisingly inimical, after all the hoopla, we're stoked to state AHS6: My Roanoke Nightmare is off to one hell of a start!

So Matt and Shelby moved back East to where his family is from, landing a too-good-to-be-true two-storey house in the North Carolina sticks for a mere $40,000. They out-auction a threesome of Duck Dynasty rejects who clearly take umbrage with their interracial union, intimating threats and the like. Soon, Shelby wonders out into a hail storm only to realize it's actually a deluge of human teeth raining down. Then a dead pig is left on their front porch. Trying to settle down with perhaps too much red wine, Shelby soon sees a pair of spectral figures floating down a long hallway. Not creepy enough? When taking a soak out in the hot-tub, Matt away on work in Raleigh 100 miles away, we see Shel suddenly grabbed by the dome, violently submerged underwater and cut with a broken wine glass. When she comes to and calls the cops however, not a single trace of it can be substantiated.

What the hell is going on? Is the place haunted? Is Shelby losing her goddamn mind? Are those twisted Deliverance rednecks out for sadistic fun and games at best, cruel cold murder at worst? What the hell gives? Along to help find some answers comes Lee (Adina Porter in interview, Angela Bassett in reenactment), Matt's ex-cop, ex-pill popping sister who doesn't believe a word Shelby has to say about the house. Meanwhile, Matt just brushes it all off as local yokels pulling stunts to get them to move out of their new home. That is, until he sees the videotape mysteriously playing in his basement! 

Indeed. After awaking from her slumber to howling noises, Lee summons Shelby and the two investigate the eerie 16th century abode. They find an inhuman web of wicker-totems and yarn-spun dolls – True Detective style – adorning the entire spiral staircase. When they follow the sounds further, a freaky videotape involving some kind of pig-faced beast, or masked madman thrashing around in the woods with an unnamed victim is randomly playing. It's here that Matt and Shelby believe these shenanigans are no longer a sick prank, and soon decide to high-tail it the f*ck out of there.

At least, Shelby does, but can't get too far before slamming a woman with her car in the middle of the road at night. It's Kathy Bates, who sedately and silently ambles into the woods, surely luring Shel in as some kind of sacrificial lamb. Shelby gets lost of course, soon stumbling upon a wicked torch-lit ritual, a bearded Wes Bently among the patrons, who appear to have scalped a man – still alive, yelping helplessly – as the other hooded figures spectate. What happens next to poor Shelby is for us to discover next week. One thing we know is that she's alive and well enough to tell the tale, so how the writers keep suspense escalating throughout will be as integral as anything to the success of the season.   

But so far, I'm all in. Chips in the middle. While the new season is clearly pulling from a cavalcade of recent viral hits – BLAIR WITCH, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, GHOST HUNTERS, THE CONJURING, etc. – as a newly conceived season of AHS – framed as a show within a show, and not very meta about in doing so, but straight-faced – it feels fresh and unlike anything we've seen from the anthology skein in the past. I really dug how simple, solemn, focused and paired down the whole premise of the first episode was – essentially giving us three main characters to squarely identify with – and all solid actors in Bassett, Paulson and Gooding Jr. there to lend instant credibility.  No flash, no sizzle, no over-stylization, just an efficient back and forth between documentary subject and dramatic recreation of such. I loved the scenes dripping with portent – the grainy pig-man footage, the ominous wicker work, foreboding atmosphere of the house itself, etc. And while there wan't a ton of bloodshed here outside of a whacked pig (or was that a dog?) and that dude in the end who got his scalp flayed off, the seeds of unspeakable evil have most certainly been sewn in the first frame of My Roanoke Nightmare. I'm genuinely zealous to see what's to germinate this season!

KILL OF THE WEEK: No one died on screen per se, but the future of the dude whose dome was grossly excoriated to the point of looking like a wet pink helmet ain't looking too good.

BLOOD & GORE:

• A slaughtered pig-corpse, slathered in blood.
• A bubbling scalp-job, wet pink membrane on display

WTF CHARACTER MOMENT: One does have to question why Shelby would follow a woman who just survived being slammed by a car into the woods in the middle of a fog-ridden night. Come on, Shel!

MOST BIZARRE SCENE: Without a doubt, for me the most outlandish thing was that grainy VHS video of that hideously deformed pig-man-beast. Who or what was that supposed to be? A f*cking Wendigo?