The Waste of Your Time is the Biggest Horror

(111424) For the first four or five seasons, American Horror Story was one of the best horror shows on television. The most recent season, subtitled "Delicate", is by far the weakest, least frightening and least compelling season by far. Perhaps it suffers from the writing. Unlike previous seasons Season Twelve was hampered by the writers strike. The show’s season consists of nine episodes broken into two parts. There was a long hiatus between the first and second season because of the writer’s strike and the second half of the season is a little better than the first. Also unlike previous seasons, Delicate is not based on an original screenplay, but rather is adapted from the novel: Delicate Condition by Danielle Rollins.

The story plays off of and is heavily influenced by Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968). This season has a plotline parallel to the main one in which they depict the making of the Polanski film with actors playing Mia Farrow, (Gaby Slape), Frank Sinatra (tom O Keefe), Roman Polanski (Seamus Mulcahey) and Sharon Tate (Clair DeJean). The season depicts Farrow making her own dark deals to achieve fame and it portrays Sinatra as a bullying husband who tries to get her to quit acting so she can be a full-time mom. He even says, “How can you be a good mother when this is what you’re chasing.” De Jean’s Sharon Tate is forgettable compared to Margot Robbie’s which was delightful and most of these real characters were used much more imaginatively in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Or perhaps this season suffers because some of the best actresses in the previous seasons such as Sara Paulsen, Lily Rabe. Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, and Angela Bassett are nowhere to be seen. The show features frequent American Horror star Emma Roberts as Anna Victoria Alcott, a performer who is desperate to be both a success as an actor and as a mother. But little does she suspect who may have to choose between one and another. After she gets an embryo implant, she slowly figures out there are sinister forces around her that have dark designs on both her and her future baby. Unfortunately, the return of regular Emma Roberts cannot compensate for their absences and the new cast members can’t match the old ones who were uniformly excellent (even Lady Gaga and Stevie Nicks were perfect in their roles).

Surprisingly, Emma Roberts (from It’s Kind of a Funny Story and Madame Web), who is usually among the most impressive parts of the series, is bland and generic here in the lead. She is Anna Victoria Wilcott, a long-suffering soon to be mom with a burning desire to rise in the acting industry. Shortly after the advent of her pregnancy, she has many weird and inexplicable experiences. She has spooky violent dreams and ends up meeting some of the people that appeared in her dreams in real life. Also, one of her friends gives her a drink to help with the pregnancy but the drink is clearly some kind of blood. Her manager is extremely helpful but she has ulterior motives and secrets. Anna is also tailed by a mysterious. hooded figure who is more than adequately played by the English model/actress Cara Delvinge who played the Enchantress in Suicide Squad (2016).

Anna’s husband, Dex (Matt Czuchry) is not much help. He appears to either be oblivious as to what is going on or he is uncaring or he’s in on the whole conspiracy. Dex also cheats on his wife and in a Hereditary like twist he has a disturbing connection to Anna’s manager, Siobham, John Cassavetes played a similar but much better role in Rosemary’s Baby.

Believe it or not the most interesting performance comes from the reality TV star and former wife of Kanye West, Kim Kardashian. She plays Anna who is extremely helpful to her client, but she also has ulterior motives and secrets. She is also caustically witty and delivers some hilarious one liners mocking Hollywood’s elite including Hillary Swank. She seems to be the only one having fun in the film and her over-the-top delivery and vulgar outbursts are simply delightful. Also, her shallow post valley girl accent makes her perfect playing the materialistic, opportunistic and ultra-Hollywood agent of the troubled Anna, whenever she was off screen my interest in the show diminished.

Either she is the only one that does not know she is in a glossy, big budget piece of cinematic excrement or she is just determined to have an enjoyable time in her role anyway. But I strongly suspect the rest of the viewers will have a less enjoyable time watching the show. Not even her sly, winning, and amusing performance is enough to carry this dull, dreary project. If viewers want to see a decent stylish film inspired by Rosemary’s Baby, they should check out Rob Zombie’s The Lords of Salem.

Individual episodes were directed by Jennifer Lynch, the daughter of David Lynch who made the Golden Raspberry winning Boxing Helena as well as Jessica Yu who made the award-winning Fosse/Vernon. Despite the mixed reviews and low quality of the show it received high ratings, and it won a Saturn Award for best Horror Series as well as Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Contemporary Costumes in a Limited or Anthology series. I have to admit the costumes in the show are great, especially the weird, creepy outfits that the female cult members are wearing.

But worst of all is the terrine ending. It is rushed, anti-climactic and it fails to tie up many loose ends. The ending is just as muddled and ill-conceived as the conclusion of Marvel’s Secret Wars. If future seasons are as disappointing as this, they should just pull the plug on the show.