This is not your typical season ofAmerican Horror Story. By this point, the fans usually know what the subtitle for the next run will be and are analyzing a series of promos and teaser images to figure out what might befall the characters next in theRyan Murphyanthology. Instead, FX has been keeping things a mystery, a move that’s becoming increasingly frustrating with each new teaser.
The latest, released today, is a play on the classic horror filmCreature From the Black Lagoonand Murphy’s other horror series,Scream Queens: an amphibian monster is shown pulling a woman shouting about her sorority into the water before cliche harp music plays to emphasis the love forming between monster and victim. It’s a tone we don’t normally see fromAmerican Horror Story.Scream Queens? Yes, but not from something that has been routinely creepy and borderline sadistic.
It’s so out of character that one would assume it’s a phony. In fact,John Landgraf, CEO of FX,told reportersduring TCA that many of these teasers are misdirects, a method employed to keep the season 6 theme a mystery. Amongthe ones already releasedare scenes of a demonic baby, aStranger Things-esque monster, a house befittingTexas Chainsaw Massacre, a spider-eyed lady, a crippling alien abduction, and a wind chime of teeth.
Langraf explained Murphy and his team “went out and made many more trailers than you’ve actually seen for hypothetical seasons ofAmerican Horror Story. Different genres, different places. I think they’re really fun and funny and beautifully, artfully made…and a lot of them are accurate. The others are all misdirects.”
Part of the fun ofAmerican Horror Storyhas been the act of solving the theme for each season, and the teasers were big parts of that. Some (including myself) would argue that they’ve been more enjoyable than the seasons themselves, especially when it comes toAsylumandCoven. From a marketing standpoint, I understand why FX wanted to change things up. From a fan standpoint, I’m losing interest — fast.
