American Horror Story, Ryan Murphy’s horror anthology series, has just premiered its sixth season on September 14. In the earlier seasons, the creators had included varyingly creepy stories whichwere set in equally formidable settings like a coven, an asylum, a hotel, and even a freak circus. However, the makers were deliberately tight-lipped about what American Horror Story Season 6 was going to focus on.But after months of speculation that all the seasons of the show were somehow connected, fans of the show finally got to see what Season 6 was going to be all about, and also fuelled speculations about what could be the running common thread between all the seasons.
First off, let’s get to what we could decipher about the theme of the story from the premiereepisode. The new instalment seems to be following a kind ofreality documentary style in which a couple’s horrific encounters in their new house somewhere in Roanoke Island, North Carolina, is being reenacted by actors, who are played bySarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr. The “real” Shelby and Matt intersperse the reenactments with their comments and inputs about their true experience.
So what happens next rolls out like a classic haunted house story, with the couple beginning to face an unknown hostility immediately after they move into their home, but with signature AHS style creepiness. The couple also finds videotapeclues filmed by a man who looks scared to death, a trope introduced with The Blair Witch Project which has now become a little stale. The episode ends with Shelby finding herself surrounded by rather unnatural circumstances inside the nearby forest after being led by AHS favourite Kathy Bates.
Now, we’ve seen recurring actors on the show, but what’s interesting about this season is that the name Roanoke has come up in the series before, specifically back in Season 1 of American Horror Story, where Billie Dean had narrated the story of colonists from centuries back-“the entire colony of Roanoke—all 117 men, women, and children—died inexplicably,” which resulted in the town becoming a haunted abandoned place. The tribes began to experience serious hauntings after which an elder banished them. The term he had uttered was‘Croatoan,’ which was seen carved onto a post in the colony. Funnily, the same term was seen carved out on a tree inphotos that surfaced last month, which led many to believe that the new season may focus on the mysterious city ofRoanoke.
What all this could mean is that perhaps the ghosts were not banished successfully on uttering the curse, or perhaps the curse has worn off and someone would be clued in on it in Season 6. Anything could happen in this series, and we can only wait to find out.
The next episode of American Horror Story Season 6 will beaired onSeptember21.
