“When bad things keep happening to good people, you start to question what is right and what is wrong.” – Jimmy Darling (Evan Peters)
After scaring fans for eight long seasons with central themes of a house concealing a deadly secret, a haunted asylum, a coven of witches, a bizarre freak show, an infamous hotel and farmhouse, a cult as well as an apocalypse, season 9 titled American Horror Story:1984 is grisly and bloody, inspired by classic Hollywood slasher flicks, namely Friday the 13th and Halloween. Featuring a deranged serial killer named Mr Jingles on the loose, the counsellors at Camp Redwood must try and survive; the season ends on a somewhat satisfying note where the final girls Brooke and Donna survive to recount the bizarre incidents that occurred at Camp Redwood.
With the end of season 9, creator Ryan Murphy revealed interesting information about the following season(s), teasing fans with Instagram posts comprising easter eggs. While Murphy’s limited series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has been signed for $300 million, which includes Richard Jenkins. However, AHS has had a complicated relationship with the streaming platform; worry not, we are here to decode that for you. Before the 10th season of this popular show comes back to delight us AHS aficionados, let us take a closer look at what can be expected of the next instalment.
American Horror Story Season 10 release date:
According to the June 22 reports by The Hollywood Reporter, AHS will not be premiering before 2021. According to Ryan Murphy’s Instagram post which contained a “clue”(a pair of fanged teeth), he announced, “Looks like American Horror Story Season 10 is go for an October 9fitting) production launch”. However, the pandemic has deferred the production by an unprecedented time and the new date is yet to be announced. However, it can be speculated that the new season will be airing in between early to mid-2021.
There is some exciting news for AHS fans as well. The show has been renewed for at least three more seasons which implies that Murphy will get the chance to shock and horrify us three more times with this spooky anthology series. Let’s be honest, we are digging that, right?
American Horror Story filming date:
Although the production was supposed to take place originally in March 2020, the lockdown enforced by government officials due to the ongoing pandemic delayed it by six months. On their Twitter account, it has been announced that they were “currently in the process” of building sets “on the Fox lot” in Century City.
Finn Wittrock cannot wait to go back to work after months of inactivity. He has been quoted saying, “I’m just ready to work again, to be honest with you. It’s been a lot of months. … We were supposed to start shooting it back in March, and so all this time it’s been, ‘When are we gonna start?’ Now, it looks like we’re gonna be starting at some point relatively soon”. Wittrock’s palpable frustration stems from the amount of time and energy he has devoted to studying his new character, without getting the chance to portray his prowess on-screen. “I’m honestly trying to forget it because I’ll get too obsessed, sitting in my garage doing nothing. I try to forget it exists until I know for sure when we’re starting and what’s going on,” he said.
American Horror Story Season 10 cast:
AHS boasts of a stellar cast; a lot of the actors appear on each of the seasons quite recurrently. Murphy took to Instagram once again to announce his cast. Those who missed Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters will get to see them once again in this season. Other cast members, whose names flashed before our eyes in Murphy’s eerie video featuring Orville Peck’s “Dead of Night”, include Kathy Bates, Leslie Grossman, Billie Lourd, Finn Wittrock, Adina Porter, Lily Rabe and Angelica Ross. Emma Roberts and Cody Fern’s names seem to be missing; fans are already counting on seeing them in season 11.
While it is not known if the dazzling Lady Gaga will make another appearance in the show in the near future, Macaulay Culkin, who had an appearance in Dollface, 2019, will be acting in the season. Sarah Paulson and Finn Wittrock could not help but gush over their new colleague.
Paulson, in an interview with Collider, stated, “It’s so brilliant of Ryan to do something like that. It’s that thing where he basically says, “Oh, you think you know this actor and you know what they’re capable of? I’m gonna show you something else.” A great big swath of the people that love Macaulay Culkin loves him from a particular era when he was a child. To watch him do some of the very grown-up things he’s gonna be doing—because I’ve read the first two episodes—and turning all of your expectations on its head will be thrilling for the audience and good fun. I do get to work with him, so I feel really excited about that. I can tell you that. No one knows that. You know that now.”
Wittrock, too, admitted to being “really curious to work with him” as Culkin is seeming “an interesting choice and a cool person to welcome into the fold of this crazy family, in general”.
Murphy has been a relentless tease, claiming to try “reuniting fan-favourite actors to come back”. He has, apparently, been “quietly reaching out to various people” who have replied with an affirmative to his offer.
In one of his tweets, Murphy posted the audition tape of contortionist Spencer Novich, where the latter twists and contorts his body in an eerie manner, before closing in on the camera to say, “I’m gonna kill you!” Enough to send chills down our spines.
Murphy has said, “the people who helped build this show into what it is, who believed in it from the beginning, have been contacted and are interested. So if you look at the iconography of the first three seasons, you can figure out who I’ve gone to and who might be coming back.”
Can you tell us already? We are dying of curiosity!
Decoding Murphy’s “Clue”
Murphy has been hinting at the theme as well. Apparently, there are lots of different themes on his mind now and he is trying to make sense of what would be the best for fans. He told Deadline, “Every season by Halloween, I come up with what the [theme] winner is, and I already came up with an idea for season 10. There’s always the runner-ups, and I’m like ‘Hmm, could this be something?’”
While he has posted a lot of “clues” on his Instagram feed, in one of his more recent posts he posted a photo that contains a person’s parted lipstick-stained lips and fanged teeth. In a turquoise gloved hand, they are holding a tool of some sort which has tattooed “AHS 10 FX” on the tongue that lies between the fanged teeth. The geotag reads Provincetown, Massachusetts. The image of crashing waves in his cats-reveal video as well as this image has led to numerous speculations, including vampires, mermaids, sirens etc. It looked quite Ratched-y, I must say. And remember, if there are a remote resemblance and connection, we said it first!
Is American Horror Story returning to Netflix?
FX and Netflix are sworn, enemies. The visionary head of FX, Mr John Landgraf has repeatedly emphasised the adverse effects of streaming platforms like Netflix have in the industry. AHS being an FX show has, therefore, shared a rocky relationship with the streaming platform, often being suspected to leave. It left for a while before remerging on Netflix once again. Season 9 arrived late and one cannot be completely sure if the tenth season will stream on Netflix. FX has made a suitable arrangement with Hulu and the latter receives new episodes every week.
Internationally, AHS is not streaming on any Netflix platform. It will most likely be featured in Disney+Star. AHS is now being produced exclusively for Hulu. Although Murphy has received various deals with Netflix for various other shows, his masterpiece will most likely not feature here. Still, one can keep hoping, right?
