CliqueClackAmerican Horror Story: Asylum is about … aliens?
The second season of FX’s ‘American Horror Story’ delves into another area of horror, one outside of scary houses, ghosts and the earthly supernatural.
After the success of the first season of American Horror Story — and the then announcement of FX’s pickup of the show for a second season — we learned that not only was the new season going to be an entirely new locale, time period and story altogether, but a good number of the cast would transition over as well. If that wasn’t confusing enough, the cast would be playing entirely different roles than they had in the first season. In a previous post, I brought up the possibility that this unusual change would confuse and anger fans, since a good many of those viewers aren’t keeping up with fine blogs such as this one, to learn of these complete story changes; that theory remains to be seen, now that the season’s kicked off. It could just be that everyone who cares about this show is keeping up with TV websites, guides and watching promos — who knows?
I compared this series to The Twilight Zone, but instead of each episode being self-contained, it’s each season. And like Twilight Zone, there were some actors who’d played different roles in subsequent episodes. This season takes things another step in that direction by not merely continuing the theme of hauntings and ghosts, and instead brings a bit of sci-fi into the mix. There’s blood, gore, murders and mayhem and all-around creepiness, but now there’s a new twist: aliens.
Let’s assume that the visions Kit Walker witnessed were real and not vivid hallucinations. Anyone who’s somewhat familiar with alien abduction stories and movies knows the telltale signs seen there; that spells out UFOs and aliens. Generally one might not necessarily consider an alien-themed show or movie to be of the horror genre; I’d be more apt to consider it science fiction first and foremost, in fact. Come to think of it, though, there aren’t very many alien movies that aren’t “horror” at their foundations, unless they’re right-out comedies or children’s flicks. I applaud the writers of this series for not merely continuing on with the same flavor of what some consider horror, and bringing us something that is going to be something much, much different. Again, this all assumes Kit wasn’t going simply going nuts. It’s possible the answer could be that Kit dreamed up the bright lights, noise, floating and probing from reading old sci-fi rags of the day, but I don’t want to believe that.
So far it appears Briarcliff may be somehow behind the things Kit witnessed, and might be keeping these aliens at bay with regular body part feedings in the woods. Now the promo posters of all-in-white nuns with big, all-black eyes makes sense: they look like freakin’ aliens! Will we find out that a majority of the Briarcliff residents are there because they, too, saw bright lights and floated to the ceiling?
Regardless of whether or not this new season will confuse or upset fans of last season, it’s off to an interesting start. It’ll actually be interesting to see if people who didn’t watch last season decide to hop into this one, since there’s nothing at all to catch up on. Which group do you fall into?
One Comment on “American Horror Story: Asylum is about … aliens?”
I watched American Horror Story last season, and came out the back with a sense of mediocrity. I carried lukewarm anticipation for the second season. After watching the first episode of season 2, I’m glad I didn’t get my hopes up. I spent the episode trying to put together this backstory to season 1 with no success. After it aired, I scoured the blogs and forums for some clarity on what I just witnessed. Now that I’m in on the joke, I’m still not laughing. The show is lame, Jessica Lang was sexy 30 years ago, but not now…icky. The tired premise of the haunted insane asylum will have to go on without me. Thanks