American Horror Story: Asylum, Welcome To Briarcliff, Ep 201

I have to say that I was riveted by season one of American Horror Story, though I found it confusing and hard to follow in the beginning. I wished I had blogged it because I think I would have appreciated it even more and understood what was going on a lot sooner. I am going to try to blog the important events as best I can. I find myself confused and lost once again this season. Forgive me if I get a few things wrong.

The “Asylum” is called Briarcliff Manor. We get flashbacks to the 1960’s, when it was open and run by Sister Jude. The setting is creepy and very dark and worse still are the “patients.” The official description of the series reads: “A church-run haven for the criminally insane, ruled with an iron fist by Sister Jude (Jessica Lange), a nun with a troubled past… From Nazis and serial killers, to mutants and aliens, no one is safe inside these walls.” I could never have summed it up so well!

The story opens with newlyweds, Leo and Theresa, taking a romp inside the very old, run down, and empty asylum. Why a newlywed couple find that intriguing is beyond me. However we find the couple is very compatible as they both get turned on by the unsettling atmosphere and decide to get intimate in the “Death Chute,” an underground tunnel where they would get rid of dead bodies. However, they never really consummate their plans because Leo’s arm gets ripped out of it’s socket when he sticks it through a cell door, and Theresa runs around screaming and trying to get out and get help. 

Theresa’s screams lead us to a flashback to the 60’s, where we meet Kit Walker aka “Bloody Face.” Kit runs a gas station in the south and has a black bride, which was frowned upon in that era. After a session of love making with his bride, she goes off to make him dinner and an extremely bright light flashes into the bedroom. Kit runs out of the house with a shotgun. He hears his wife scream and when he returns into the house he is confronted by the blinding white light, deafening noise and is pulled up to the ceiling.

Meanwhile, at the asylum, Lana Winters, a reporter, pretends she wants to do a story on the asylum’s bakery, but she really wants to meet “Bloody Face.” She is greeted by one of the residents who she believes to be harmless. However, the creepy looking, insane, deformed drawf-like creature has killed her sister’s baby and cut it’s ears off. Lana meets with Sister Jude and tries to get her to agree to letting her talk to “Bloody Face” for three minutes. “Bloody Face” is due to arrive at the asylum within minutes where he will remain until his trial. Kit “Bloody Face” Walker is supposed to be a serial killer of women and has gotten his name from the fact that he wears a mask made of human flesh. Sister Jude is annoyed with Lana for trying to “con” her and if we know anything about Jessica Lange’s characters, you do NOT cross them! 

Then we meet Grace, the asylum resident who takes a liking to “Bloody Face” and befriends him. There is a good looking priest, Timothy Howard, who considers Sister Jude his right arm. At dinner he tells her when his is promoted from Bishop to Cardinal to Pope, she will be going right along with him. Sister Jude loves that idea, but she loves the idea of screwing Father Tim even more, and fantasizes about it at dinner. We are also introduced to Dr. Arthur Arden, who Sister Jude doesn’t like at all. She accuses him of doing something with the four bodies, who died without family, and mysteriously disappeared. He blows her off. Not the best idea to tick off Sister Jude, but I am the only one who picked up on that! I get the impression that Dr. Arden is a modern day Dr. Frankenstein and is creating his own “monsters” in the asylum, as if there weren’t enough of them already in there. 

Dr. Arthur finds himself alone with Kit Walker and performs a procedure removing a foreign, spiderlike implant from his neck. The implant is alive and takes off and I’m sure we will see it again, don’t you?

And Lana can’t seem to take no for an answer, so she returns to the asylum and sneaks around, trying to find “Bloody Face” only to get caught. Who could have seen this coming? It seems good old Sister Jude has managed to blackmail Lana’s lesbian lover into committing her.  Lana is now a permanent resident of Briarcliff. 

And so ends episode one. I am going to try to catch it on demand and watch it again. I just know I missed some fascinating little twist, turns and foreshadowing! What did you think? I think Asylum is off to a great start and can’t wait to see what happens next week!

American Horror Story Haunts Me!

The birth of the twins tonight!

Every week I want to blog about American Horror Story.  Why?  Because it’s so good!  I have always been a fan of the “horror” genre and watched everything and anything that was considered even remotely scary as a kid.  I even loved Stephen King novels.  This television series has it all.  The writing is great.  There are always twists and turns you cannot expect.  There are only two more shows left to the season and I am already having withdrawal pains. I cannot help myself today. I am caving in to my urge to blog it.  If you haven’t followed the show till now, this is not the blog for you, sorry. 

Let me just randomly pick topics that are getting me excited.  Vivian is going to give birth to those twins any day now, if not tonight.  One is a demon and Tate is the father; the other is Ben’s child.  So far, several of the dead people want the twins.  The gay couple wants both of them.  Constance, the “neighbor” wants them because Tate is father of the demon twin. Hayden and the doctor’s wife each want one of the babies because they each lost one. This is just crazy.  

Meanwhile Vivian and Ben don’t even know that Violet is dead in the basement with maggots eating up her body because they can still see her ghost in the house.  That’s why she has been missing school for two weeks!  And the poor exterminator had to be killed by Tate because he discovered her body while looking for the source of the flies taking over the house.  And, as my daughter points out, how can Vivian and Ben ever leave that house now?  It’s the only place they can still see and be with their daughter, Violet?

If Moira was killed in 1983, why does she look so old to Ben and Vivian?  Ben has just seen the old Moira for the first time, when he started to “see things as they really are” in the house.  But, ghosts don’t age.  They remain the age they were when they died.  Why is Moira different and will we ever get an explanation for that?  

There is something about that house that lets anyone who dies there, haunt it forever. Every week at least one person seems to be killed there.  I’ve lost count of all the dead inhabitants.  It’s almost it’s own little city.  I can sooner count the living people on the series than the dead ones.  Larry, with the burned face, is off to prison. Constance, the next door neighbor, who spends more time stealing stuff from Ben and Vivian Harmon than she does at her own house. Ben and Vivian are still alive, as far as I know.  The real estate agent seems to be alive.  Have I left anyone out?  How much longer will they be allowed to live?  Who knows.  

I could summarize the whole season for those who haven’t watched, but you really should try to find all the episodes and catch up before season two.  There is plenty written about the show online, but it’s NOT the same as seeing it. So if you love “horror” seriously try to watch.  I have a feeling FX will rerun the entire season one at some point and I’ll be watching it from start to finish.  

I can’t wait for tonight’s episode, number 11, The Birth of the twins!

Link with a very quick synopsis of series with pictures: American Horror Story in a Nutshell

American Horror Story: Sneak Preview 11/16

I seem to be obsessed with this show and have to watch it.  Too much happens to blog about it every week, but I just had to say something this week.  I find the show is a "Rosemary's Baby" in a haunted house setting.  So many people have died in that house it's impossible to keep track.  They should post a score card every week, not just of all the dead people, but all the characters.  Not many of them are alive.  I am dying to see that baby when it's born.  Ben and Vivian rarely check anything out.  Something is definitely up with that baby and the sonogram technician even met Vivian at a church to tell her it's a demon with hooves.  What does Vivian say, after pursuing the matter and trying to find out why the technician fainted?  "It was probably a machine malfunction."  Really?  Enough bad things haven't happened in that house to arouse her suspicions and get a second opinion?  And why the hell are they still in that house?  I know they have no money, per se, but to stay they and defy the odds is unbelievable.  No one is that brave.  The house is so damn big and all the locks in the world have not kept anyone out.  I found a sneak preview of this week's upcoming episode "Open House".  I had to watch it and then I figured I would share it along with my new two cents.

I have always loved horror stories and this one has it all, as unbelievable as the episodes are, I have to keep tuning in.  My biggest complaint is that almost the whole episode takes place in the dark and I cannot see what the hell is happening too much of the time.  I hope they fix that for season two...if the family survives to film an episode two.

American Horror Story on FX

A new series started on FX called, American Horror Story and my daughters were going to watch it on demand yesterday, so I joined in. There are three reason why I wanted to watch it: first, to spend some time with the girls sharing a mutual interest, second because I always loved the horror genre and third because I saw that Dylan McDermott was starring in. It’s a far cry from the Practice and he looks a little older, but so what, don’t we all?

We sit down to watch and it starts off like all the horror movies we have ever seen. They pull out all the stops on horror gimmicks, but that doesn’t dissuade me from watching. Even my older daughter, who dislikes horror movies, kept getting pulled back in. You can watch the first episode on demand and the second one airs Wednesdays at 10 PM. Now I am going to write about the storyline, so stop here if you intend to watch.

It opens in 1978, in front of a run down, haunted type house, covered with ivy. Outside there is a little girl who just stands there looking at it. Two boys, homely looking 13/14 year old twins with bats in their hands, are about to enter the house and do some serious damage. The little girls says, “If you go in there you will die.” One of the boys yells at her menacingly and they go on and enter the house, smashing lights, windows and anything that will break. The go down to the basement (big mistake) and see a dead possum oozing blood (this is where I scream at my younger daughter who already watched it and gave me no warning). There are jars all around the basement containing things like little baby body parts and one a whole fetus. One of the evil twins smashes the jar with the baby on the cement floor and releases a “demon” who slits his throat. When the other twin realizes his brother is missing he returns down the steps the get his throat cut.

Fast forward to 2011. Dylan is a married psychiatrist and professor with a teenage daughter. One day Dylan’s pregnant wife comes up unexpectedly to catch him in their bedroom, having sex with a student. She is pissed and miscarries. They remain together, but she cannot have sex with him leaving poor Dylan quite frustrated. In order to start over, they decide to move away. The haunted house described above has been remodeled and in for sale at 25% the cost of the other houses in the area. Full disclosure laws compel the real estate agent to tell them that the previous owners died in the house, a murder/suicide. That doesn’t dissuade them from purchasing the house (otherwise we would have no show). They quickly move in and get settled. Their first uninvited visitor is the little girl who warned the boys about the house. Her mother, played by Jessica Lange, claims they live next door and her daughter is infatuated with the house. Jessica also pops in uninvited and makes herself comfortable, while she relays some of her past the Dylan’s wife.

Dylan, meanwhile, is treating a very strange teenage boy who is quite likely a psychopath. The boy wanders around the house after his session with Dylan and makes friends with Dylan’s daughter. Dylan’s daughter is a “cutter” and uses her dad’s razor blades to slash her arm. The boy sees her and says she needs to slice vertically if she wants to kill herself because that can’t be stitched up. (Isn’t that great information to pass along to millions of depressed teenagers?) The two become fast friends. Dylan’s daughter is being ganged up on at school for smoking. The psycho boy tells her to invite the ringleader over her house telling her she has drugs she sells. The ruse works and the next day the bully from school shows up. She is lead to the basement where psycho boy awaits and scares the life out of her and Dylan’s daughter. When Dylan’s daughter tells him to leave and never come back, he is royally pissed! (I suspect he is dead as are the young girl, Jessica Lange and other characters who haunt the house).

Meanwhile, the old housekeeper, who says she has been taking care of the house for years and under many owners, shows up asking for a job. At first Dylan’s wife isn’t inclined to hire her, but eventually thinks it would be a good idea to have some help. Dylan walks into the kitchen and is introduced to the “housekeeper.” While the wife sees a woman who is about sixty or so, Dylan sees a seductive, hot red head, in her 20’s. He is shocked that his wife wants to hire her considering that he cheated on her with a younger woman, but he is all for it.

Dylan seems to have developed a habit of walking in his sleep, naked. If you would like to see Dylan from the back, completely naked, several times, tune in. He is in shape. It may be the only redeeming aspect of the show, depending on how much you like cheesy horror. One day Dylan hears his wife scream up in the attic. He runs up and sees her looking at a suit of armor. Later that day they make mad, passionate love and it seems all is forgiven. At bedtime, Dylan’s wife sees a man in a suit of armor standing at the bedroom door. She assumes it’s Dylan (I don’t) and thinks he wants another round of kinky sex. She succumbs to her desires and they make love. I could see it was Dylan’s eyes in the suit (which wasn’t really made of armor but black material), but you can’t trust anything in a horror show. A few days later, his wife announces she is pregnant! Rosemary’s baby anyone? I suspect a demon child is growing inside his wife now.

For a little teaser, Jessica Lange is in Dylan and his wife’s bedroom, looking through the jewelry box for something she likes when the housekeeper catches her. They exchange some words. The housekeeper says she can’t take anything or she will be suspected. Jessica basically tells her to shut up or “she will kill her again!” So the cat is out of the bag.

A man, scarred by fire, follows Dylan on his run and warns him to move his family out of that house. He himself was a victim of the demons when he lived there. They made him burn down the house killing his wife and two daughters. But, Dylan doesn’t appreciate the advice and threatens the man. Psycho patient is on the loose. Dylan tries to report him to the police to track down, but they don’t seem to take him seriously.

There you have it. Just think of all your favorite horror shows combined and you have American Horror Story. This is definitely not a show for young viewers. Dylan is naked and even violently masturbates in one long scene. The dead baby’s head in the jar, the outrageous dialogue, blood, violence, sex…it’s all there. Maybe I will get the characters’ straight at some point, but there was always something distracting me from keeping track of them.