6.1 Roanoke So, from the first appearance of the graphic for My Roanoke Nightmare showed up, I had a huge, dumb grin on my face that didn’t go away. Whenever it started to fade, American Horror Story would throw in something to appease me, like a warning that the show is based off of true events or an advisory about graphic content. Just like a real ghost reenactment show, every time we cut to commercial, there was an awesome music stinger and a cool animated graphic to announce the return/departure of My Roanoke Nightmare. One of the brilliant things about the first chapter in the Roanoke saga is that it’s obvious that screenwriters and show creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have watched a whole lot of the same crap I have, because they nail the format perfectly. We open with a talking head of Shelby and Matt, a loving couple who leave Los Angeles after a violent incident for the pine forests of North Carolina. It’s practically fate; the couple stumble across a beautiful old farm house with ten acres of forest around it, buy it for cheap at an auction after besting local redneck roustabouts the Polk family, and immediately start their new life in beautiful isolation. Beautiful, possibly haunted isolation. Murphy and Falchuk’s script does a good job of handling both the reenactments and the talking head segments, and in the hands of Bradley Buecker, it looks the part as well. The talking heads are boring backdrop shots—with some great work from Lily Rabe in some emotional scenes—and the reenactments look and feel like reenactments, albeit with a higher budget than the average made-for-cable time-filler. The faux graphic is spot-on, right down to it being slightly goofy and yet ominous at the same time, and the subtle use of music to heighten the reenactments is the perfect sort of cheesy that you would expect from this kind of programme in the real world. One thing that is a little different about this season is that it feels slower. Rather than throwing us straight into craziness, akin to last season’s dildo rape, this season starts slower and has put much more emphasis on atmosphere than craziness. Sure, there’s still a horrifying Ring-style video and a skinned pig corpse left on the doorstep, as well as a surprise Kathy Bates, but given the traditional standards of an American Horror Story season debut, it’s comparatively tame, but there’s just something about watching Sarah Paulson wander around a big deserted house, or the image on Will’s phone of torch-bearing hillbillies stalking up the driveway, or the Blair Witch-style wooden figures suspended on twine from the central staircase that just raises goosebumps. It’s subtle, by Ryan Murphy standards, and it really works given the framing device. For the moment, the mystery is tantalizing. Much like the show kept the world in the dark about the show’s theme with some wonderfully disturbing trailers, for the moment we don’t know just what’s going on quite yet with the old mansion in the woods. Sometimes not knowing is better. Or sometimes, what we don’t know can kill us. Read Ron’s review of the season five finale, Be Our Guest, here. US Correspondent Ron Hogan was caught by surprise by the return of American Horror Story. Turns out, the show’s mysterious trailers weren’t the most effective thing at reminding him when the show actually aired. Find more by Ron daily at Shaktronics and PopFi.
