After months of churning out misdirects and mismatched horror images in “teasers” that were more like “lies,” FX finally unveiled American Horror Story season six last night with the premiere, which marked a pretty significant departure from AHS form. American Horror Story: My Roanoke Nightmare takes the shape of a true-crime documentary, complete with talking heads and dramatic re-enactments.
André Holland and Lily Rabe play Matt and Shelby Miller, a married couple who think it odd when the big, creepy house they buy in the middle of the woods turns out to be haunted as fuck. And then Sarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr. play them in the re-enactment, which is the strangest possible American Crime Story alternate universe. Perhaps it was the success of American Crime Story that convinced Ryan Murphy to change things up for season six. People love true crime, so give them fake-true crime!
Now, FX has released a full trailer outlining more of what’s to come (and it’s not a misdirect this time) from My Roanoke Nightmare, in which Adina Porter and Angela Bassett also play the “real” and the re-enactment versions of the same character. “I didn’t think it could get any worse. Then it did,” Holland says in the trailer. Of course it did. You and your wife bought a run-down house in the woods! At least the mockumentary setup means they make it out alive. Prepare for haunted-house tropes and ghost stories as the rest of My Roanoke Nightmare unfolds; Kathy Bates, Denis O’Hare, Wes Bentley, Evan Peters, and Cheyenne Jackson also star this season.