American Horror Story, also known as AHS, has been taking the world by storm since 2011 with their first season entitled “Murder House”. The show instantly became a hit and ratings hit the roof. The first season received a total of 53 award nominations and took home the trophies an astounding 17 times. Since the first season AHS has completed another whopping two seasons, which combined earned a total of 125 nominations and received 33 awards.
The first season, “Murder House”, focused on a seemingly average family who movies into a haunted house. Second Season, “Asylum”, was about a mental asylum that was under corrupted control of a power crazy priest, and a serial killer looming in the midst of a seemingly normal society. The third season, “Coven”, told the story of a dying race, witches. One of the only coven of witches left in the Eastern hemisphere is disguised as a girls boarding school and is fighting to protect themselves from a resurrected serial killer, witch hunters, and their lifelong enemy; the practitioners of voodoo.
Finally the fourth season of AHS has finally come to us all! American Horror Story, “Freak Show”, premiered on October 8th and blew up just about everyone’s twitter newsfeed. The show is set in the fictional town of Jupiter, Florida in 1952. A local milkman inspects a house and discovers the body of the lady of the house and her apparently hidden from the world daughters. Say hi to the main character(s) a pair of two headed twins named Bette and Dot. Both of them were admitted into the hospital for a wound on their body and were facing potential charges of murder of their mother.
Introducing Madame Elsa Mars! She’s a mysterious German immigrant who came to North American promptly after the war (WWII). She’s the ringleader of Jupiter’s very own freak show. Attracted to a news article of the discovery of Bette and Dot, she searches and finds them trying to persuade them to join her and her army of proud freaks. While this little meeting is going on an innocent enough couple is brutally murdered by Twisty the clown, a horrific and gory looking clown that beat them to death with bowling pins and stabbed the boyfriend with a pair of scissors repeatedly in the chest.
Afterwards you see why Madam Else Mars wants the twins to join her freak show so badly. She signed a year lease contract with a land owner who is planning on kicking them out unless they can pay quickly and in cash. After finally getting the girls on board she introduces them to their new family, the world’s smallest woman (who is portrayed by the actual world’s smallest woman), the bearded lady, her son the lobster boy, a geek, a few pinheads, and now Bette and Dot.
A reoccurring actor Evan Peters plays Jimmy Darling a playboy lobster boy who’s mother, the bearded lady, approves of his actions. After a disturbing scene with a girl who doesn’t know how she even got in the freak show, Bette and Dot are almost arrested for murdering their mother. Jimmy protecting his kind (the freaks) murders the detective without a second thought after he and his friends were called freaks. Afterward the show finally begins as a crowd of only a mother and son. The grand finale is Elsa Mars singing her rendition of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars”, even though the show takes place over a decade before the song was ever even written.
Both the mother and son are there to apparently buy the twins from Elsa; however Elsa would hear nothing of the sort. Bette and Dot tell the audience members that they’re staying at the freak show no matter what. After the small spat the freaks all gather round with Jimmy as their team captain and they stab the body of the murdered detective chanting , “ One of us,” as the screen fades out there’s a small frame where Twisty is seen lurking the shadows.
Overall the show is amazing and it never fails to disappoint with suspense. However, the show isn’t just a horror show, it’s a distorted imagination that allows people to see the world through the kaleidoscope of weird and twisted things. However a fair warning to all, the show have some mature content and should not be viewed by the faint of heart.
