With American Horror Stories in the bag, and the tenth season of the flagship show American Horror Story, entitled Double Feature, just around the corner, it’s time for GAMbIT to do what the internet was made for: crap out a list ranking all previous seasons! Keep in mind, unlike other sites’ lists, ours is objectively correct and not open for argument. We’re on the right side of history here.
9. Freak Show (season 4)
The only season so boring I’ve never even finished it, even when doing a full-series rewatch. It’s kind of amazing how badly Ryan Murphy & Co. whiffed on this season, considering what a rich environment a 1950s sideshow is. It’s less a season of TV than a baffling series of poor decisions, from Kathy Bates’ ridiculous mid-Atlantic accent to the show clearly spinning its wheels with Finn Wittrock and, more egregiously, Sarah Paulson. It’s not all bad, though; some highlights include Jessica Lange’s anachronistic rendition of Bowie’s “Life on Mars?” along with Paulson’s performance as a two-headed woman, presented with seamless CGI. Twisty the Clown is a great visual effect, but he’s underused here. If nothing else, this introduced some new players into the AHS stable, and that’s really the most memorable thing about it.
8. Hotel (season 5)
Hotel isn’t purely fan service for Lady Gaga’s legion of little Monsters, but it’s not not that either. It helps that I watched this after seeing her mesmerizing performance in A Star is Born, and Gaga is far from the weakest link of this series. That dubious honor belongs to the storytelling, which never knows what to do beyond “vampires + creepy hotel.” It’s probably a mistake, from a visual standpoint, to cast Wes Bentley, Matt Bomer, Cheyenne Jackson, and Finn Wittrock and expect viewers to be able to keep track of who’s who. The easily-predicted twist doesn’t help matters either. Hotel is buoyed by a tender, humane performance from Denis O’Hare, and Evan Peters being genuinely chilling. Like Freak Show, this is for completists only.
7. Murder House (season 1)
This isn’t a bad season, per se, but it lacks the ambition and go-for-broke daring that would later define the series. It’s almost quaint, and something of an outlier, because the two main leads (Dylan McDermott and Connie Britton) have largely stayed away from the franchise, which is a rarity for an AHS ensemble. (I know McDermott pops up once or twice. Shut up.) Credit where it’d due: when this season was airing, no one knew that American Horror Story was going to be an anthology series, so it was genuinely shocking to see main characters killed off. And the titular house is a hell of a set.
6. 1984 (season 9)
This season is some of the most fun you’ll have watching AHS. Emma Roberts finally gets a chance to play someone who isn’t horrible to be around, and she aces it. Most of the regulars – Lange, Peters, Paulson – sat this one out, leaving room for a new crop of actors to make their mark. Some don’t work (Gus Kenworthy, Cody Fern) and some absolutely kill it (Matthew Morrison in a hilarious turn as a himbo; Naomi Grossman, delivering a performance you can’t look away from). There are some conceits here that don’t work – some mishegoss about the Night Stalker and a time loop – which makes you wish the writers had kept things more small-scale.
5. Apocalypse (season 8)
Say what you will about American Horror Story, but it doesn’t lack for ambition. Apocalypse centers around an event no less momentous than the end of the world and the appearance of the Antichrist, and if that weren’t enough, it also weaves together Murder House, Coven, and Hotel. All the series regulars are here, many playing multiple roles, but room is made for newer faces like Billie Lourd (lightyears better than she was in Scream Queens) and Naomi Grossman. There are some narrative misfires – a robot Kathy Bates, a couple of bowl-cut Satanists played by Evan Peters and Billy Eichner – but they aren’t enough to move the needle. This is damned impressive, no pun intended.
4. Coven (season 3)
One of the best AHS ensembles ever put together helped make Coven an instant classic. We get Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, and Lily Rabe at their most iconic and dynamic; Emma Roberts and Taissa Farmiga really keyed into their characters; and Evan Peters as some kind of a Frankenstein. Oh well, it doesn’t all work; just look at the exploitative casting of Jamie Brewer, or the flat-out wrong casting of Gabourey Sidibe, who Precious convinced us could act despite an entire body of work showing evidence to the contrary. That all notwithstanding, this at times feels like an ideal season of AHS, blending camp and horror seamlessly, evinced no better than in Lange’s femme fatale delivery of the iconic line “Who’s the baddest witch in town?”
3. Asylum (season 2)
This is one of the most deranged seasons of any show that was ever lucky enough to make it on air. Compared to Asylum, Murder House looks positively stately. This is a divisive season for some due to the sheer shotgun approach to horror storytelling. There’s an insane asylum, aliens, monsters, Nazi doctors, a serial killer, and Ian McShane as a murderous Santa Claus. And that’s not even mentioning the goddamn musical number! This would all be pointless if the season weren’t scary, which it absolutely is. What a wild few hours Asylum is.
2. Roanoke (season 6)
Coming off of a two-season slump (Freak Show and Hotel), AHS needed to stick the landing with this one. And goddamn, did the show do its job. Even though Sarah Paulson is underserved here, the rest of the ensemble is absolutely stellar (why hasn’t Andre Holland come back to the show, a sad world wonders), especially Evan Peters, having an excellent time playing a douchebag, and Kathy Bates in her most nuanced performance yet on AHS. To say nothing of a perfectly-utilized Lady Gaga as a nearly feral witch. This, more than any other, is the scariest season of American Horror Story.
1. Cult (season 7)
The best season of this show is also the one with zero supernatural goings-on. Cult preys upon our real fears, all too evident in the wake of the horrific 2016 election. Cult means to manipulate you, and makes no pretense otherwise – much like a cult leader. Here the show knows exactly when to satirize itself (the ominous music when Paulson’s character votes for Jill Stein) and when to show the real-world consequences of its characters’ actions. What really shines here, though, is Evan Peters’ monumental performance. He’s not only great as the antagonist, Kai Anderson, but he disappears into numerous other roles, playing cult leaders like Andy Warhol, Jim Jones, and Marshall Applewhite in dramatizations. It’s a phenomenally assured performance by one of the most overlooked actors of his generation, and that’s only one of the reasons that Cult is as good as it is.
What’s your favorite? Sound off in the comments!
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