It may not be spooky szn yet, but American Horror Storyseason 10 news is beginning to surface. Ryan Murphy—who must be insanely busy with his Netflix deal—has just delivered the first glimpse at his latest horror story…and let me tell you, it’s promising.
Here’s everything we know so far:
It’s happening! But you already knew that. After season nine—an ode to ’80s slasher films—aired, the FX anthology series was greenlit through season 13. At the Television Critics Association winter press tour, FX Networks chairman John Landgraf announced the news and called AHS creators Murphy and Brad Falchuk “the undisputed masters of horror TV, having created the anthological limited series with American Horror Story and sustaining its success for nearly a decade as FX’s highest-rated series.”
There will be 10 episodes. As usual.
The cast list has been posted. First things first: Sarah Paulson returns! Now that that’s out of the way, enjoy this Instagram post from Ryan Murphy announcing who’s back (and who’s new) for season 10.
Here’s the full list (so far?):
Kathy Bates
Macaulay Culkin
Leslie Grossman
Billie Lourd
Sarah Paulson
Evan Peters
Adina Porter
Lily Rabe
Angelica Ross
Finn Wittrock
Exciting returns include Bates, Paulson, and Peters, who were deeply missed in season nine. Notably missing are Emma Roberts and Jessica Lange, two major players in the franchise.
But it’s the addition of Culkin in that number-two slot which may prove to be the most interesting choice. While his brother, Kieran Culkin, is killing it on Succession, the Home Alone child star has slowly been making his way back into the public eye.
“I enjoy acting. I enjoy being on set,” Culkin said in a recent Esquirecover story. “I don’t enjoy a lot of the other things that come around it. What’s a good analogy? The Shawshank Redemption. The way he gets out of prison is to crawl through a tube of s—, you know? It feels like to get to that kind of freedom, I’d have to crawl through a tube of s—. And you know what? I’ve built a really nice prison for myself. It’s soft. It’s sweet. It smells nice. You know? It’s plush.”
We don’t know what it will be about…yet. Fan theories aside, all we really have to go on is Murphy’s beachy Instagram post to the tune of Orville Peck’s “Dead of Night.” So what could the ocean have to do with season 10? I’m going to go all-in right now and say mermaids. But you know, the creepy siren kind that lure sailors to their deaths. I would watch the hell out of that.
Keep checking back for more updates on American Horror Story season 10.
I’ll admit, I was hesitant going into this season of American Horror Story (official name AHS: 1984). For one, it’s the first installment without Sarah Paulson in a main role. Paulson has been a mainstay for the franchise for years and always able to carry each season through any weaker moments. Who could possibly fill those shoes? Besides that, this season’s theme—’80s-era summer camp—is one fans have been hoping to see for years, which means expectations were high. So I went into the premiere last night feeling skeptical.
The good news: This season is good. And scary—like, actually scary.
You see, this isn’t something AHS has been known for lately. Last year’s Apocalypse had only a few frights, and 2017’s Cult was more political commentary than anything. AHS: 1984 marks a creepy return to form for the franchise, packed with classic scares and familiar tropes, which is absolutely a positive thing. Nothing about AHS: 1984 is particularly original, and that’s the point. It’s an homage to iconic slasher films like Friday the 13th and Halloween, and spotting these references is part of the season’s appeal.
The story centers on a group of Los Angeles twenty-somethings (Emma Roberts, Billie Lourd, Cody Fern, and Gus Kenworthy) who escape the city for the summer to be counselors at the recently reopened Camp Redwood, the site of a 1970s massacre. The serial killer, Mr. Jingles, was arrested and sent to a mental institution. But, surprise surprise, he escapes right as the counselors arrive and has his sights set on them.
Billie Lourd in American Horror Story: 1984.
Copyright 2019, FX Networks. All rights reserved.
Mr. Jingles is a perfect mixture of Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers with elements of Freddy Kreuger. As for Camp Redwood, it’s ripped straight from the script of the first Friday the 13th movie. The pilot establishes the framework of a horror story you’ve seen many times before but never gets old. The key players are all there: a timid ingénue (Roberts), the oafish jock (Kenworthy), the oblivious wild child (Lourd). The pop-out scares are abundant, and the chase scenes play out like a choreographed dance. At one point, Roberts’ character, Brooke, is running from who she thinks is Mr. Jingles, and her movements feel almost musical—every trip, slip, and scream was molded by the horror greats of decades past. It’s brilliant.
Of course, creator Ryan Murphy’s touch is all over this. The actual story is tired and true, sure, but he subverts it in a way only he can. Tone-wise, the show is a delightful blend of Scream Queens and the fifth AHS season, Hotel. One minute, you’re unnerved; the next, Gus Kenworthy takes his shirt off and cheekily demands everyone to “check out his bod.” Creepy dialogue about Mr. Jingles is immediately followed by the arrival of Camp Redwood’s activities counselor, Trevor Kirchner (Matthew Morrison), who swigs beer and makes bad sex jokes. The transition between horror and humor on 1984 is frequent and abrupt, which is what we’ve come to love and expect from a Murphy production.
The infamous Fyre Festival scam was basically a horror show, but Netflix’s newest series is drawing inspiration from it and making it even more demented. On Tuesday, August 20, the streaming service premiered the trailer for The I-Land, which takes place in a glossy, Instagram-ready beach setting not unlike those misleading Fyre Festival promo ads. But much like the fake music festival that never was, things on “the I-Land” aren’t what they seem—and pretty soon the plot goes down a dark, warped path.
Based on the show’s official synopsis, it’s going to be creepy AF: “When 10 people wake up on a treacherous island with no memory of who they are or how they got there, they set off on a trek to try to get back home. They soon discover this world is not as it seems. Faced with the I-Land’s extreme psychological and physical challenges, they must rise to their better selves—or die as their worst ones.”
What that means is unclear. Do some of these “extreme psychological challenges” have to do with not getting enough likes on a post? Being passed over for a spon-con opportunity? Forgetting the password to your IG account? The possibilities are endless.
We kid, we kid. Watch the actual horrifying events of The I-Land in the trailer, below.
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Yikes. The show definitely has a terrifying doomsday vibe as it goes from sun-kissed sand coasts and hot people jumping off yachts to explosions, fires, and actual screaming. The limited series’ seven-episode arc will star Kate Bosworth, Natalie Martinez, and Alex Pettyfer, who play some of the characters struggling to get the hell off this nightmarish island. We’re essentially getting an eerie combination of Black Mirror, Lost, The Hunger Games, Scream, and an Instagram influencer’s feed, and we cannot wait. So mark your calendars: It’s going to drop on September 12.
Surprise, b–ch: A new season of American Horror Story is on the horizon. Yes, Ryan Murphy’s annual fright fest is coming back some time this fall and, as per usual, we don’t know much about what’s to come. Murphy is notoriously secretive about the AHS seasons; we often don’t know the theme or the full cast or anything until roughly a month before the show’s premiere.
That being said, there are some tidbits about the ninth installation that are trickling out. A few cast members have already confirmed their return, while others have announced they’re sitting this season out. Murphy, who isn’t that active on social media, has teased a few things on Instagram, as well. To be clear, we’re still pretty much in the dark when it comes to American Horror Story season nine, but there’s enough info out there to get fans excited.
So let’s dig in, shall we? Here’s everything we know about the latest season of AHS:
The premiere date. Unless Murphy decides to break form, expect season nine to premiere either in September or October of 2019.
The cast. The only confirmed cast members so far are Emma Roberts and Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy, who will play boyfriend and girlfriend, according to Murphy. Sarah Paulson and Billy Eichner appeared on Watch What Happens Live in January and revealed they knew details about season nine, which suggests they’re both returning. Unfortunately, though, Evan Peters—who’s been a staple on AHS since its inception—is not appearing on this season. He confirmed the news in April, telling Extra, “No, I’m gonna sit this season out.”
The theme. Nothing’s been announced yet, but the dominant theory is that season nine centers on aliens. There have been multiple references to extraterrestrials throughout AHS, most notably in Asylum. But even Apocalypse, the most recent season, had some alien themes: Venable, Paulson’s character, called the outpost servants “grays,” which is a popular nickname for aliens. Also, in one episode, Kathy Bates’ character performed the same song HAL does in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
There’s also a theory that suggests each AHS season represents one of the nine circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno. There are only two circles left: lust and violence. Apocalypse could easily represent violence (there was so much carnage last season), which means season nine might center on lust. Murphy himself co-signed this theory, posting it to his Instagram with a one-word caption: “Interesting.”
The characters. Apocalypse saw the return of the Coven witches—including the true Supreme, Madison Montgomery—but they won’t be hanging around for season nine. Fan-favorite characters have been known to make cameo appearances, but my prediction is we’re looking at a slate of new narratives this time around.
This isn’t the final season. AHS has been renewed for a 10th season, so we’ll at have at least one more round of scares after season nine ends.
Of course, we’ll update this post with more AHS information as it comes in.
Christopher Rosa is the entertainment staff writer at Glamour. Follow him on Twitter at @chrisrosa92.
Horror movies aren’t the best when it comes to diversity. The genre’s been slow to add women in fresh ways, and black people, typically, don’t fare well. Female characters are often reduced to stereotypes: scream queens in short skirts who screech and squirm their way through blood-soaked landscapes before meeting an untimely death.
But Jordan Peele’s new movie Us, in theaters now, presents a new kind of horror heroine—one who doesn’t scream, doesn’t squirm, and definitely doesn’t need a man to save her. Her name is Adelaide Wilson, and she’s played by Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o. The actor’s performance in Us is award-worthy, like everything she does, but it’s more than that: It’s a powerful portrait of a black woman who—spoiler alert—survives Peele’s terrifying, topsy-turvy world and teaches women how to fight back on their own.
Us breaks horror tropes left and right with intelligent characters who make good choices. Adelaide moves through the movie with her eyes and ears open. When her not-so-better half, Red, also played by N’yongo, wants to air her grievances, Adelaide listens intently and, as a result, learns important information to help her family survive. She’s a shining example of how staying calm and asking the right questions is the key to getting what you want. Screaming at monsters rarely works, even in movies.
Everett
Don’t be fooled by Adelaide’s listening, though: She’ll cut you as soon as she has the chance. Old-school scream queens usually waited to be saved, but newer horror heroines—think Michonne (Danai Gurira) on The Walking Dead—are sharp. When the moment comes to attack, Adelaide strikes without fear and without over-the-top aggression. Her daughter Zora, played by Shahadi Wright Joseph, also knows how to hold her own. With their eyes on the prize (i.e., survival), Adelaide and Zora fight when they need to but are smart enough to hold back when the cards are stacked against them. And get this: They do it all without screaming.
Resilience is another important theme in Us, and Adelaide has it in spades. Despite the fact her alter-ego, Red, is the physical embodiment of her fears, she never backs down. Time and time again in the movie, we watch Adelaide address her demons head-on—charging forward, even when she’s terrified. That’s so incredible to see from a female protagonist. Facing your fears is difficult, but it’s necessary for survival, both in horror movies and real life, where the fight is just as scary.
Everett
Scary movies often end with a fine line between the killer and the victim: In order to defeat the monster, characters become the monster. But Adelaide doesn’t do this in Us. She never forgets the people she’s fighting are just that: people. She recognizes they have wants and desires, and recognizes they bear their own burdens. Make no mistake: This doesn’t stop Adelaide from kicking some serious ass, but her empathetic approach with the villains is something we rarely see in horror movies. Maybe it’s time that changed.
In a world full of threats—especially for women—we need more onscreen heroes like Adelaide. When done properly, like in Us, horror movies are the perfect place for women to see how to be brave in the dark. Strength, patience, resilience, empathy: These are all traits Adelaide has in Us, and they’re what we need to fight the monsters in our own lives. Representation matters, and Peele’s writing and Nyong’o’s acting bring to life a woman who’s powerful, bold, and balanced: exactly the woman we need to see in 2019. Adelaide Wilson is spearheading a new path in horror, one that shows female characters conquering the shadows in their life once and for all.
Susan X Jane is a media, race, and pop-culture commentator. Follow her on Twitter at @susanjane19.
The new Halloween, a direct sequel to the 1978 film, touches and expands on many of the themes of the original. This time, though, the action is less about masked killer Michael Myers and more about the trifecta of Strode women living in Haddonfield: Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), the iconic final girl who survived Myers’ massacre forty years earlier; Laurie’s estranged daughter Karen (Judy Greer), who is as afraid of Laurie as Laurie is of Michael; and Karen’s teen daughter, Allyson (newcomer Andi Matichak).
Caution: Major spoilers about Halloween start here.
Allyson is a character trope horror fans will recognize: She’s a smart, kind, and pretty high schooler with a good head on her shoulders. Obviously, this means all of her more morally compromised friends are about to be murdered. Allyson wants a relationship with her estranged grandmother, Laurie, but Karen does everything she can to keep them apart. Why? Because Laurie never moved on from that tragic Halloween night. She essentially raised Karen in a kill-or-be-killed bootcamp so intense the state took her away at the age of twelve. Now, Laurie lives in a fortress-style compound, shooting at mannequins all day and self-medicating with alcohol. Karen says Laurie projected her own paranoia onto her. Laurie says she was willing to sacrifice being loved by Karen to prepare her for the horrors of the world. I say, inherited trauma much?
Halloween is the story of Allyson’s induction into the long lineage of women who face the cruelty of the world and make it out the other side tougher and wiser.
This is tricky for Allyson; her parents raised her to believe in a world full of love and light, so she doesn’t have a great bullshit detector. She’s constantly disappointed because she trusts the wrong people. Halloween is the story of her induction into the long lineage of women who face the cruelty of the world and make it out the other side tougher and wiser. Karen wants her daughter to believe that Laurie is a monster, because Laurie was a monster to her. But once October 31st comes around, Allison learns who the real bad guys are.
First, a betrayal: Allyson’s boyfriend kisses another girl at the high school dance, then gets defensive about it. Next, a threat: A male friend offers to walk her home from the dance, then tries to kiss her even after she protests. He apologizes, but still whines that he only did it because the hot girls at the dance made him horny and he’s too drunk to know what he’s doing. Sound familiar? As if that wasn’t warning enough to teach Allyson that something is rotten in Haddonfield, that guy is soon killed by Michael. When she stumbles upon the body, Michael sees her see the corpse. The message is clear, and one that women have to learn over and over again: If you get just a little too drunk, if you wander just a little too far, if you are anything less than completely cautious at night, it can all go bad so quickly. Stay sharp.
After this, Allyson is “rescued” by Michael’s doctor—the “new Loomis”—and a cop who’s been working the case. That too ends in chaos, and Allyson is yet again left alone with no protection.
Eventually, the action culminates with a final confrontation between the three women and Michael at Laurie’s compound. The centerpiece of Laurie’s house is a basement bunker, where some revelations are made. Karen finally understands why Laurie raised her the way she did, Allyson understands why Karen hated Laurie, and they all love each other. Oh, and they’re ready to kick some ass.
PHOTO: Universal / Alamy Stock Photo
While Allyson and Karen hide in the bunker, Laurie goes hunting for Michael; they tussle, and Laurie falls out the window. She’s seen lying on the ground, but when Michael looks again she’s disappeared. The moment is a recreation of a famous scene from the original, with Laurie in Michael’s place. The message: She may have become a bit monstrous herself because of Michael, but she also gained a bit of his power.
Michael finds the hidden entrance to the bunker and tries forcing it open. Beneath him, Karen tells Allyson to get back, then takes up the mantle she never wanted: a rifle. She aims it up the steps as Michael breaks through, but he won’t show his face. Karen starts to shake. “Mom! I can’t do it! I’m scared! I’m not strong enough,” she yells. At this, Michael steps into the light. Karen smiles. “Gotcha.” Bang.
The lesson: Daughters can inherit strength and power along with trauma. Michael Myers’ assumption of female fragility is his undoing.
Laurie appears out of the shadows, and the three women trap Michael in the bunker. They light the house on fire and glow like a modern-day Hecate. Woe to all men who cross them. Michael and the compound—the walls Laurie built out of her fear, pain, anger, and desperation—burn to the ground.
This movie takes place on Halloween, but I’d consider watching it on Mother’s Day.
I don’t want to push the metaphor too far and tell you that the house is “the patriarchy” or that the Strode ladies took back the night. Michael is not the personification of gendered violence; he is an indiscriminate killing machine. He was born bad. There is, as Laurie says, a boogieman, and he’s going to get you. Unless…you get your mom to help.
Everyone Allyson trusted disappointed her, betrayed her, or couldn’t save themselves, let alone save her. Except for Karen. All the dads and cops and neighbors and friends in the world couldn’t do what her mother did. The one person who could keep Allyson alive was Karen, and the one person who kept Karen alive was Laurie. That’s it. This is the thesis of Halloween: Not my daughter, you dick.
This movie takes place on Halloween, but I’d consider watching it on Mother’s Day. It’s a tribute to the many ironies of the mother-daughter relationship. Moms are so annoying! They give you all their issues; they’re often critical, smothering, guilt-tripping, and basically screw you up no matter what. But if you’ve got a good one, she won’t let anyone else mess with you at all. There are no answers when it comes to the why or the how of Michael, of evil, of pain. There’s only an answer to the question of what are we going to do about it. And that answer is: fight. And call your mom.
Elizabeth Logan has written for Reductress, McSweeney’s, and The Huffington Post. Follow her on Twitter @lizzzzzielogan.
