'American Horror Story 12', or when motherhood becomes a nightmare

In the new season of American Horror Story, the long-running and always experimental and narratively brilliant and twisted horror anthology series that Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk co-created in 2011, two things happen that have never happened before. The first is that Murphy and Falchuk hand over the reins, as creative leaders, to Halley Feiffer, award-winning playwright and cult actress (she has mostly worked on Broadway but also appears in several films by Noah Baumbach, and in author series such as Bored to Death and Flight of the Conchords). The second is that, for the first time, the story being told is based on a novel. And it is one that gives a twist to the Ira Levin classic that Roman Polanski brought to the cinema in 1969: The seed of the devil.

Written by Danielle Valentine, the novel is titled Delicate Condition and no, the protagonist is not someone in the shadow of her successful actor husband—as was the case in Levin's damned fiction, which was inevitably related to the brutal murder of a very pregnant Sharon Tate, Polanski's then wife, by Polanski. the Manson Family—but someone who is about to win an Oscar. An actress, Anna Victoria Alcott (an Emma Roberts with just the right touch of naivety, desire and ambition), whose career takeoff coincides with the very harsh fertility treatment she is undergoing to have a child with her husband. successful husband, artist Dex Harding (none other than the gilmore boy Matt Czuchry).

Since its inception, in 2011, as a franchise determined to inventory horror made in AmericaMurphy and Falchuk's series—the second they co-created after that Rare avis which was held as his first hit and that he was already exploring the limits of what mainstream and the bizarre: Nip/Tuck— has innovated in such a number of elements that it has practically created a genre within the genre, a pioneer in diversity —not only racial, and neurodiverse, and of course, queerbut of age: they were the first to return the spotlight to women over 60, starting with Jessica Lange, in unexpected roles, unique to date—and in the use of a powerfully plastic aesthetic that sublimates every last cliché. here reinvented.

Of course, the fact that the continuity of the anthology was provided, from the beginning, by actors who were always the same (Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Lily Rabe, Frances Conroy, Lange herself, among others) and who crossed paths in a series of the most juicy variations also marked a before and after in the main role that was given, for once, to them, and consequently, to the characters, true driving forces of each of the seasons. To which must be added the reworking of these characters: ghosts, witches, serial killers, freakssurvivors of the end of the world, everything imaginable had been filled with nuances, without forgetting the victims, who would never exactly be victims again.

The way Feiffer picks up such an illustrious and elusive gauntlet as a guest host this season is, in that sense, impeccable. He even respects the style of shots—the minimalism that is not afraid to go around the world and film, at times, upside down—but also, of course, the unbeatable rarity of the characters—also, aesthetically: here the pair of women from black with feathers that do more than chase the protagonist take the cake—to the point that the sensation, if one does not know that a change has occurred at the head of the series, is not even noticed. Unless you think carefully: there is hardly any night, and there is a lot of light, in Feiffer's bet, which has in the direction, in more than one chapter, the oppressive Jennifer Lynch.

The story is, one would say, simpler: there is just a woman at the center, wanting something she cannot have and being controlled and used by those around her. Feiffer uses the body as a trigger for the nightmare—and yes, there is something from the cinema of Julia Docournau (titan) in the way he does it, with no veiled winks: pay attention to the hair scene infinite—, and makes, for the first time, the Murphy and Falchuk classic, something painfully intimate. The inevitable loss of control in the face of a reality that becomes unstable because no one but you is watching—the horror of induced paranoia—does the rest, in a world in which those who have become pieces of a system that would be nothing without them.

macabre fable

The criticism of Hollywood and its heartless cannibalism—its need to devour stars to propel itself, to feed the factory of dreams—takes on shades of macabre fable. Kim Kardashian, in the role of agent and at the same time best friend of the character played by Roberts, is the wolf in sheep's clothing – or the witch or stepmother of a not at all classic fairy tale – who lures the protagonist into the trap who must choose between the Oscar or life. Yes, Alcott (Roberts) is nominated for an Oscar and must now begin the promotional career that can ensure it. But that means forgetting everything else. Including a motherhood that could suddenly become possible, amid memory gaps and nail-pierced wrists.

There is a certain domestication of the Murphy/Falchuk formula in Feiffer's proposal that, however, is formally effective, given that it is a season in which control is the powerful villain. A control that, wisely, extends from Roberts' nightmare to the contemporary world at the moment in which the very famous actress communicates with him—or all of them, because they are the ones who watch her, and who remotely direct her—through the agenda. —hacked— from her own mobile phone. No, it is not social networks that control us because they are nothing more than mirages. It is ourselves, and our accepted condition of slaves to a system of systems—almost individualized—who do it.

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