‘Cult’ has horror for everyone
‘American Horror Story’ takes on modern phobias with satire
American Horror Story: Cult has a phobia for everyone.
The classics are represented in the seventh edition of the popular FX horror anthology (Tuesday, 10 ET/PT, eegE out of four). Clowns? Check. Bees? Check. The confining space of a coffin? Check.
But the latest effort from cocreators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk also trafficks in more modern-day fears, depending on where you sit on the political spectrum: President Obama was going to take away your guns; you might be called a racist even though you’re a card-carrying liberal; people will find out you voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein instead of Hillary Clinton.
Such primal and political fears are the blessing and the curse of Cult, a horror-political-comedy with its sights set on so many targets that its satire sometimes cuts into the scare factor.
Viewers see Trump and Clinton in news clips as the season opens on election night 2016 in small-town Michigan. A Clinton viewing party and a lone Trump supporter watch cable news channels announcing Trump’s victory.
Ally (Sarah Paulson) and Ivy (Alison Pill), a married couple raising a school-age son, represent the anti-Trump audience. Al- ly, the embodiment of a liberal “snowflake,” rejects the result until she can hear it from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and crumbles under her many phobias, including a disabling fear of clowns.
The Trump side doesn’t get off easy. Blue-haired Kai (Evan Peters) exults at Fox News’ declaration of Trump’s victory, tries to mount his TV and blends cheese puffs into an orange powder — get it? — that he applies to his face. He’s volatile, feeding off societal fears and plans his own run for office, complete with false immigrant statistics.
As Kai’s single-minded craziness is documented, so are his skills of persuasion. He’s a budding demagogue who already wields power over followers, including emotionally opaque Wednesday Addams doppelganger Winter (Billie Lourd). She connects these political opposites when she’s hired by Ally and Ivy after their immigrant nanny flees.
Did we mention clowns? They’re everywhere.
Twisty (John Carroll Lynch), the sadistic killer from AHS: Freak Show, makes a frightening return, as do a slew of newcomers with creatively bizarre visages and activities.
Ally sees them everywhere, including a supermarket where she fends off a murderous clown with a bottle of rosé. The tweak- ing of affluent progressives cuts deepest — perhaps because that side’s dirty laundry is more familiar to Hollywood — but Cult tries for equal opportunity, having fun with the now-familiar sight of an angry young white man raging against perceived humiliation.
The question of whether the clowns are real is smart social commentary. But it can dampen the scare factor, and Ally’s all-consuming fears become tiresome.
In contrast to last season’s AHS: Roanoke, which conveyed an otherworldly eeriness, Cult is set in the real world of presidential politics and fears regarding child care, online harassment and the environment.
That makes it harder to accept the show’s departures into heightened reality.
Give Cult credit for trying to connect with the current cultural mood. though it offers over-thetop stereotyping of both sides as well as spot-on insight.
And even if the constant door-banging (what, no doorbells?) stops giving you the intended jitters, such horror-trope winks might still provide a laugh.