A review of American Horror Story, Roanoke

I feel like I should do something peppy after talking about the Vietnam war last week. Instead, though, I’m going to review the first few weeks of American Horror Story, My Roanoke Nightmare. It is October after all. There’s no better time for a horror story.

Spoiler Warning! Do not proceed if you don’t want me to ruin something for you From Episode 1 and 2.

Full disclosure, I haven’t seen a single other season of this show. I honestly don’t know why. This seems like the kind of thing I would be on like a deep fried bacon sandwich. But somehow, I never sat down at watched them. I don’t even know why I decided to watch this season. No, that’s a lie. I was marathoning The Simpsons on FXX and there was a commercial for it every five seconds. I’m not complaining, though. I couldn’t be happier that I started watching it when I did.

I was overjoyed about this year’s story. For those of you who don’t know, it’s ‘My Roanoke Nightmare’. The story is about a couple, Shelby and Matt , who moves away from the city after they are attacked during a gang initiation. They move into a huge, stunning house old farm house. But they run into some trouble almost at once, when a redneck family warns them not to buy the house. The couple assumes that it’s just because they’re a bi-racial couple. As Matt says at one point, it is the south.

Nearly every day, the couple finds themselves harassed by a crazy cult living in the woods. Shelby nearly hits one of them with her car, she’s almost drowned in their hot tub. Someone breaks into the house and hands hundreds of little twig symbols. (Personal guess, I think they’re trying to protect Shelby and Matt. But that’s just a guess from me.)

Since Matt is a traveling salesman (pharmaceutical sales. I’m a huge Psych fan, and I was highly amused by this,) they ask his sister Lee to come stay with them. This is great timing for Lee, since she’s going through a messy divorce after a pill addiction.

In the second episode we’re introduced to Lee’s daughter, Flora. She is the cutest little girl ever, and of course everyone instantly falls in love with her. Needless to say, terrible things are going to happen to that child. The end of the second episode was the sight of her jacket hanging from the top of a tree, so I’ll be highly surprised if the kid makes it out of this alive.

We also find out the horrific back story of the house, with the two evil nurses killing people for no reason other than the first letters of their first names. It’s so skin crawling to think that they’re just the first layer of what’s going on in this house.

I love this ‘dramatic reenactment’ theme they’re going for. They’ve got relatively unknown actors (at least I’ve never heard of them) playing Shelby, Matt and Lee in sort of an interview setting. Then, they’ve got the better known actors, Sarah Paulson, Cuba Gooding Jr and Angela Bassett playing the characters as they go through the story. I have to say, Cuba is doing an amazing job. I’ve only seen him in comedic rolls so far, so this is a dramatic and pleasant surprise.

Finally, I just have to gush about the artwork on this house a little. It is so freaking pretty! I think I’d actually live there, even with the evil spirits.

If you get a chance, it’s on Wednesday nights at 10:00 on FX.

I’d love to hear what you think about AHS! Did I miss the best season? What do you think of My Roanoke Nightmare? Let us know in the comments below.