Murder House > Freak Show > Asylum > Coven
About a week ago I made a thread seeking opinions on AHS after having watched Freak Show and liking it
now, having watched the series, I feel Murder House is objectively the best - best characters, best story; Freak Show is second best - still great characters, and some great ideas. It's the most fun season IMO, but I probably have some bias since it's the first season I watched. I found Asylum very meh - the characters felt less developed, and the story was okay, but nothing that exciting. I just didn't really care about what was happening. I know Asylum is probably the most popular season, but I don't really get why. Coven was awful - it was actually hard to get through because I found myself cringing so much. I did love their portrayal of the Baron Samedi, though
What are your thoughts?
Screem Queans is better than all of these
>>62748112
Really? I honestly know almost nothing about it, but everything I do know makes it seem like it'd be awful
>>62748051
Asylum - 8/10
Murder House - 7/10
Freak Show - 4/10
Coven - 1/10
Hotel is fairly promising so far
Coven had potential to be the best but they really shit the bed. Everything involving Evan Peters was just pretty much silly. The only thing I really liked was Myrtle Snow for some reason.
>>62748205
I definitely wanna check out Hotel, I hear the cinematography is great
out of curiosity, though, why was Asylum your favorite?
>>62748516
asylum is commonly held as the best because it was the only time the show went as balls-to-the-wall insane as it should have gone every seasons.
And this is coming from someone who dropped it after about 4 episodes.
>>62748205
>Coven - 1/10
Papa Legba is worth 2 points on his own.
>>62748559
fair, and thanks, but I feel like I'm missing something
for me, I didn't really feel at all disturbed by it, and I actually felt more challenged by Freak Show, but maybe that has more to do with my own boundaries - I was always fascinated by mental health/insanity stuff, so maybe I'm just desensitized to the topic
>>62748051
Of the seasons I've really enjoyed Hotel this season, I thought asylum was very good but lacked focus, murder house was well done but so pessimistic and gloomy as to kind of turn me off from it from the tone. Freak show was a mess and had no narrative, I just plain got bored with it. Coven was a Tumblr tier feminist fantasy and utter shit.
I honestly just don't like Ryan Murphy much, I've only continued watching bc my girlfriend likes the show and it's something we can watch it together. But seriously Murphy, we get it, you love dick, you can stop making it a key plot point every season.
>>62748575
OP here - he's who I mean by Baron Samedi, and he was fantastic
I don't know much about voodoo, but does Legba normally look like that? Because seeing him, I really thought it was the Baron Samedi
>>62748680
I guess I should be more specific, I enjoyed asylum and Hotel because they had great atmosphere and decent characters. Hotel especially seems to me like an old Marilyn Manson music video. I'll be fucked if I know what's going on or what the hell he's trying to say but it looks damn cool.
But none of the seasons so far has tried to tell what I'd call a coherent storyline. There are characters, some stuff happens to the characters, many of them die (unless it's Coven bc witches can cast mass rez, lol)
>>62748698
No, Papa Legba is usually depicted differently, but he does have different depictions, so it's not like he needs to look a specific way
>>62748635
>I didn't really feel at all disturbed by it
If you're watching American Horror Story to be "disturbed" you should get the fuck back to Reddit.
>>62748698
Can't be baron samedi, how would those witches use muggle technology like Goldeneye for the N64. They don't even have the code
>>62748850
Oh come on, you know what he means, unsettling shit. Body horror, razors under fingernails, aborted chopped up fetuses.
But for a show that has horror in its title, it's oddly never tried to be scary. Not even cheap jump scare variety
>>62748915
>But for a show that has horror in its title, it's oddly never tried to be scary.
>horror movies have to try to be scary
13 year old boy detected.
>>62748915
>But for a show that has horror in its title, it's oddly never tried to be scary. Not even cheap jump scare variety
Except for Murder House.
>>62748635
>>62748915
Yea, nothing in the show is "disturbing," at all. Ever. Asylum is just crazy because the entire season is basically "weekly world news: the show." Of course it all falls apart in the end, just like every other season, because the people writing are legitimately retarded.
The only thing really scary about the show is how enough people watch each season for it to get renewed.
>>62748850
stop with the Reddit insults ion here already
I don't wanna derail by defending my 'cred or whatever, but I've never reaklkly been challenged by a horror film, except maybe parts of Martyrs and Takashi Miike's Imprint
what I'm saying is, none of it seemed that "insane" to me
>>62748680
>>62748750
good point about the atmosphere, and fair with the point about coherence That actually might be one thing that appealed to me about Freak Show - it was so hectic that the momentum never let up, even if that is a cheap reason for liking something
>>62748770
>>62748915
thanks!
>>62748858
kek
>>62748575
yeah, rest is -1
>>62748956
Yeah... You see there are movies, called HORROR movies, meant to induce fear, revulsion, and discomfort in its viewers, whose motivation is typically the adrenaline rush of experiencing the trauma and emotion of the movies characters vicariously.
If the writer and director were NOT trying to elicit this reaction it would be a dramatic fiction, you pedantic idiot
>>62749059
>what I'm saying is, none of it seemed that "insane" to me
The fun of AHS was when the writers were cramming as much horror movie tropes as possible into a season to try and form a really convoluted yet entertaining clusterfuck of a story (before they started appealing to teenage girls from Coven onwards). The "insanity" of Asylum was cramming aliens, serial killers, homicidal Santa Claus, zombie mutants, the devil, angel of death and Nazi experiments all into one story.
Also while the show is primarily being trashy and fun it has a few genuinely horrific moments like Shelley's amputation and the Bloody Face reveal. Did they disturb me? No, because like you I'm a big bad tough boy who watches ISIS executions and gore on /b/, cause that's what all the cool kids too. But as I am not autistic I can still admire this scenes on a technical / theatrical level, as those two scenes I mentioned are very well made.
>>62749110
>HORROR movies
I guess the only horror movies ever made are Ju-On, Noir and Fragile then, or at least in my head? Underage confirmed. A horror movie is a movie which uses horror tropes. Every person on the planet will only be actually scared by no more than 10 horror movies because fear is subjective and hard to induce. So at best horror movies (a movie that uses horror tropes) can aim to be entertaining. Fucking retard.
>>62749059
For me, I've never felt as deeply unsettled as watching the Japanese version of the grudge alone in my house late at night wearing headphones. So much of that movie is based on sound. Specifically that croaking groan. After awhile I had to take a break. Not being able to see or hear what was going on around me was giving me the Willies. And it wasn't hard to equate the characters stumbling through a dark house at night while something is crawling at them disturbingly fast down the stairs with myself alone in the dark
>>62749246
nice - I honestly still haven't seen that one, I need to check it out
>>62749180
Fear is subjective you're right on that, I've seen a lot of horror movies so Ive grown pretty numb to them. My friend though doesn't and she gets scared shitless by stuff that doesn't even register to me in a movie, let alone shit like at the end of REC. So the number of movies that scare her would be way way over 10.
And what the hell argument is that, it's circular logic, a horror movie is a movie that uses horror tropes, not one that was purposely made to frighten? Well then how did they become "tropes" in the first place? I mean was the very first movie to have "lone psycho murders people in rural areas with bladed instrument" not a horror movie because it want a "horror trope" before then?
>>62749180
on the appreciation of theatrics, that's actually a big part of why I like Murder House and Freak Show so much - there's a lot taken from Gothic Romanticism and Southern Gothic, both of which I really like
>>62749389
>And what the hell argument is that, it's circular logic, a horror movie is a movie that uses horror tropes, not one that was purposely made to frighten? Well then how did they become "tropes" in the first place? I mean was the very first movie to have "lone psycho murders people in rural areas with bladed instrument" not a horror movie because it want a "horror trope" before then?
Point is there exists horror movies that aren't trying to be scary, just entertaining / interesting, something Asylum was clearly going for. But like I said, you're underage and have no concept of shit like Evil Dead 2.
>>62749439
But Freak Show was not well made.
>>62749470
>But Freak Show was not well made
maybe not consistently, but there are many parts of it that I thought were fantastic. Murder House was an all around very well made season. Freak Show had some stinging weaknesses, but they did some things fantastically
again, this is the OP, and I gotta go to do some work, but if this thread is still alive in a few hours I'll be back
>Hotel
>Literally a double kek scene in the first episode
Dropped
>>62749470
I'm 31 and bored at work, but nice try. And the evil dead movies were cross genre movies or parodies depend on your POV, and the humor comes from the contrast of the gory and horrific against the ridiculous and over the top. A guy chops his hand off, it tries to strangle him, then he spends all night trying to hunt it down one handed with a shotgun.
They compliment each other. But evil dead 2 and 3 were not meant to frighten in the least. Army of Darkness was straight up slapstick comedy
I'm almost done with Freakshow and it's by far the worst. How can you rate it higher than Asylum and Coven? Jessica Lange plays the exact same character across 4 seasons, but this time with a god awful accent so that shit is just old. The bad accents across the board in Freakshow make it unbearable to watch.
I've put off the last two episodes because I dread sitting there for another two hours and the plot has gone nowhere.
>>62749647
Couldn't stand the obvious riotgrrl feminist shit in Coven, and nobody could permanently die except for the one genuinely innocent one, and when the only sympathetic character is a 200 year old cursed sadistic slave murderer your show has issues. Seriously though Cathy bates character screaming at the "lying magic box" about Obama being president was easily the best scene from that horrible season
>>62749735
I'd say Cathy Bates' character, the Axeman and the voodoo shit were the only good parts of Coven. For a season that tried its hardest to make a season about 'muh stronk female characters' it somehow created the most boring and unpleasant people who you just didn't care to watch.
Also that bullshit of someone dying, but oops nope they come back to life and whatever was going on with Sarah Paulson's character was just getting annoying.
>>62749735
I agree the feminist angles was just cringe as fuck at times, but it was still entertaining until it drops the ball towards the end, like Asylum.
The only american horror story that isnt boring and shit is season 2, the rest is trash
>>62750025
first one as pretty good
>>62749647
the last two episodes were pretty great though. imo it hit its stride near the end, everything after NPH's character was introduced is gold.
>>62750145
The last two episodes of Coven? They just pull some shit out of their ass to make the blind witch the leader. It was terrible.
>>62750088
Damn I forgot about that. Yeah I don't think I'd last 5 mins of that ass on offer
murder house romance is pretty shit, and there's not much horror at all
Murder House is great but drops off later in the season
Asylum was boring
Coven looked like it was picked off the selves of a high-school library post twilight craze but had the best opening
Freakshow was the best so far
Hotel is shaping up to be better than Murder house, but its not done yet
all of these statements are 100% correct
>>62748201
Nope, it's pretty much Coven that tries even less.
>>62750433
No, the last two episodes of Freak Show.
>>62748516
I would say Hotel's cinematography is pretty generic, nothing they haven't already done before. So far it feels like the show is mostly homolust with a Seven-lite killer as a backdrop that is more interesting than the vampires.
1>3>2>4
>>62750088
god she is so fucking sexy
