American Horror Story

Thoughts on Apocalypse

In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on an uninhabited planet.

• William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (1960)

Less a stand-alone narrative than a sequel to Murder House, Hotel, and especially Coven, American Horror Story: Apocalypse makes explicit what fans have implicitly known since Pepper (Naomi Grossman) was committed to Briarcliff towards the end of Freak Show - each season takes place in a shared universe (as well as being a sequel to the three aforementioned seasons, Apocalypse also features oblique references to Asylum, Freak Show, and Roanoke). In recent years, the show has unquestionably stumbled, first with the poorly constructed meta-narrative of Roanoke and then with the horrendous Cult, leaving a fanbase yearning for a return to the brilliance of Murder House and Asylum. Apocalypse is nowhere near as good as those glory days, but it's a damn sight better than the last two seasons.

When a nuclear conflagration wipes out most of mankind, a group of survivors find refuge in Outpost 3, one of multiple fallout shelters constructed by an organisation known as The Cooperative. The Outpost, tickets for which cost $100m per person, is run by disciplinarian Wilhemina Venable (Sarah Paulson), and her stern right-hand woman Miriam Mead (Kathy Bates). It's also home to obnoxious "Instagram influencer" Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt (Leslie Grossman), her put-upon assistant Mallory (Billie Lourd), her camp hairstylist Gallant (Evan Peters), his socialite grandmother Evie (Joan Collins), talk show host Dinah Stevens (Adina Porter), and Tim...

Thoughts on 1984

They Live was a primal scream against Reaganism of the '80s. And the '80s never went away. They're still with us. That's what makes They Live look so fresh – it's a document of greed and insanity. It's about life in the United States then and now. If anything, things have gotten worse.

• John Carpenter; "They Live: John Carpenter talks about his sci-fi classic" (Chris Nashawaty); Entertainment Weekly (November 5, 2012)

What you don't want is for violence and gore to become more important than character and structure. A lot of slasher movies from the e__ighties were only focused on violence and gore, which robs the human beings in the story of any empathetic reaction from the audience, and instead makes them cheer for the gore.

• Mike Flanagan; "Hush Director Mike Flanagan Talks Slasher Violence, Silence and…Sound" (Brad Miska); Bloody Disgusting (April 16, 2016)

Initially a pitch-perfect homage/parody of summer-camp slasher movies, AHS/1984 subsequently morphs into something of an amalgamation of a ghost story, a true-crime thriller, a study of serial killing, and a multi-character tale of redemption, giving us one of the coldest and most ferocious villains the show has ever seen. For me, it's the best season of American Horror Story since the exceptional second season, Asylum. However, there's no denying it's a divisive beast – the type of highly stylised story that'll have as many detractors as admirers. AHS purists probably won't be overly impressed. For one thing, it's a dark and very, very, very camp comedy before it's a thriller or a horror. For another, it leans so heavily into '80s clichés and slasher movie tropes that it's practically on its side. On the other hand, it's consistently hilarious, it's a brilliant parody of slasher movies, it doesn't take itself even remotely seriously (although it does have something to say about the media's commodification of serial killers), and despite the ridic...