Ryan Murphy offers new details on American Horror Stories, his new episodic spin-off
FX has a proud history of giving Ryan Murphy whatever he wants, despite the fact that Netflix also dropped a giant ball of money on his house, and in May that took the form of a series pick-up for American Horror Stories—an annoyingly named spin-off of American Horror Story that will tell spooky episodic tales instead of trying to sustain a single narrative for an entire season. Now, Murphy has shared some more details, with Deadline saying he revealed in an Instagram post that American Horror Stories (or… AHSies for short?) will consist of “16 one-hour stand alone episodes delving into horror myths, legends, and lore.” He also teased that “many” episodes will feature American Horror Story stars “you know and love.”
So that’s a “probably” on Evan Peters and Kathy Bates and Emma Roberts at least, but one familiar face who might only be showing up behind the camera is Murphy mainstay Sarah Paulson. Deadline says that, when asked about AHSies recently, Paulson simply teased that she’ll “be directing something.” She made her directorial debut a few years ago with the long-awaited AHS crossover that brought back Murder House, so it would make sense for her second directing gig to stay within the AHS family.
That’s about all we know at this point, but it’ll be interesting to see how the whole AHS vibe works with 16 mini stories instead of one big story. The mainline show has a tendency to lose its way after a while, since every season has tons of plot threads to juggle, so maybe this will actually end up being the platonic ideal of what American Horror Story could or should be. Or maybe it will completely lose its way halfway through every single episode and give in to raw Ryan Murphyisms all the time? And maybe that’s the platonic ideal of what American Horror Story could or should be? We’ll see… at some point in the future.