"American Horror Story" Season 6 Review

The popular television series “American Horror Story” has recently developed a new season, with a brand new theme.The show that started in 2011 is one that has been a hit since its conception. The show’s past seasons have followed the stories of a haunted house, an insane asylum, a witch coven and a freak show, and now the newest season appears to follow the complicated past of a farmhouse in Roanoke, North Carolina.Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, the creators of the show, always create the perfect balance of terror and art when filming and writing. Past seasons have usually included more psychological horror than jump scares. However, they seem to be taking the show in a different direction this time. The first episode alone shows all the elements of horror usually involved in the typical hollywood horror movie.The plot follows a couple telling their story of their time in a haunted farmhouse, which is supposedly planted right on the grounds of the mysteriously disappeared colony of Roanoke from five hundred years ago.The cinematography of the new season alludes strongly to that of the classic horror movies, like The Shining. The opening shots follow the modern-day couple driving through vast forest, which expresses the extensive territory of isolation they are moving into.The cinematography alone creates suspense and fear of the unknown through darkness, shadows and sudden lighting changes. Shaky camerawork and flickering lights also imitate horror styles used in The Blair Witch Project.The new season is also framed in a completely new way. It is almost a parody of a ghost story-telling show, complete with a dramatic reenactment of traumatic events told by a group of “real-life” people, in this case actors.Overall, the new season of American Horror Story: Roanoke shows great promise to be the most terrifying season yet.