Academy Award winning actresses Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates headline this excellent seasonal horror anthology show (where the actors play different parts each season) that never fails to delivers shrills, trills, and gore. Season 3 focuses on a coven of witches that run a witch school (or "coven") in New Orleans. The school is supposed to train new teenybopper witches to discover and use their powers properly. Jessica Lange (lookin' mighty fine in here 60's, I must say!) is the head mistress of the school and desperate to keep her title. Although she is aging and losing power, she can't bear to give the throne to any of the potential young replacements, including her own daughter. Lange wages war on her own kind as a local voodoo priestess and an organized group of witch hunters do the same concurrently. It's total chaos, including out of control teen anger, a Frankenstein monster on the loose, bringing many folks back from the dead (including Kathy Bates as a racist plantation owner who gets beheaded Re-Animator style but is forced to watch ROOTS in this state!)... Honestly, AMERICAN HORROR STORY is based on so many cliches yet it turns those cliches upside down and makes them feel fresh and original. Jessica Lange is sultry in her performance, ever the scream queen at age 65, embarking in love scenes and wearing sexy lingerie, not to mention teaming up with an ax murderer ghost to lay down the law! Wait'll you see her wield that ax! Oh momma mercy! Characters die and are brought back to life by the witches, you truly never know what to expect next with this show, and that's the joy of it. Gory, engrossing, powerful, dramatic, and downright entertaining only begin to describe this splendid treasure of a season. Reminds me of an updated DARK SHADOWS (the original soap opera) on supersized steroids!
Academy Award winning actresses Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates headline this excellent seasonal horror anthology show (where the actors play different parts each season) that never fails to delivers shrills, trills, and gore. Season 3 focuses on a coven of witches that run a witch school (or "coven") in New Orleans. The school is supposed to train new teenybopper witches to discover and use their powers properly. Jessica Lange (lookin' mighty fine in here 60's, I must say!) is the head mistress of the school and desperate to keep her title. Although she is aging and losing power, she can't bear to give the throne to any of the potential young replacements, including her own daughter. Lange wages war on her own kind as a local voodoo priestess and an organized group of witch hunters do the same concurrently. It's total chaos, including out of control teen anger, a Frankenstein monster on the loose, bringing many folks back from the dead (including Kathy Bates as a racist plantation owner who gets beheaded Re-Animator style but is forced to watch ROOTS in this state!)... Honestly, AMERICAN HORROR STORY is based on so many cliches yet it turns those cliches upside down and makes them feel fresh and original. Jessica Lange is sultry in her performance, ever the scream queen at age 65, embarking in love scenes and wearing sexy lingerie, not to mention teaming up with an ax murderer ghost to lay down the law! Wait'll you see her wield that ax! Oh momma mercy! Characters die and are brought back to life by the witches, you truly never know what to expect next with this show, and that's the joy of it. Gory, engrossing, powerful, dramatic, and downright entertaining only begin to describe this splendid treasure of a season. Reminds me of an updated DARK SHADOWS (the original soap opera) on supersized steroids!
