Forget American Horror Story, Watch The Exorcist
The current season of American Horror Story took a big risk by altering its format. Previous seasons of the show have told straightforward stories of haunting, supernatural locations (houses, circuses, asylums, schools). This season, the story is currently unfolding in the format of a reality television show, with actors playing the characters as they experience the story while other actors are playing those same characters telling their story to a camera crew. It’s a bold choice and I wish I could say it works, but ultimately watching the characters explain their story only highlights how ridiculous their decisions they make throughout the story are. I’m now four episodes into this season and I couldn’t care less about any of these characters. If you are as frustrated as I am, let me offer you some advice: Forget AHS, watch NBC’s The Exorcist instead.
What young couple wouldn’t buy a deserted, antiquated house in the middle of the woods?
There are few shows as frustratingly inconsistent as American Horror Story. Usually, the good outweighs the bad. Sure, the characters do ridiculous things: they remain in haunted locations for incomprehensible reasons, they turn on each other way too quickly, and often they are simply written out suddenly. But the actors are always solid and the show is usually more fun than it is stupid. This season seems to be the exception to the rule; the characters this season seem to relish making poor decisions that constantly put their lives in danger. Worse, the actors talking to the camera crew then have to explain these actions with a straight face. I’ve lost count of the times the characters have had the opportunity to simply flee the house and explained away their ability to do so by saying they’d be bankrupted (who cares?) or wouldn’t let themselves be chased away (by killers? I’d let myself be chased away). If you watch carefully, you’ll see characters switch sides and reverse themselves within a single scene; they’ll spend an entire scene arguing for one action only to immediately change their minds moments later. These characters do not seem like people, they seem like robots masquerading as people….poorly.
They call her the Butcher because she often kills people. You’d think they’d just call her “The Killer.”
The Exorcist, meanwhile, is delivering a consistently good horror story every Friday night. The show, much like our beloved Outcast show, focused on a pair of priests, a possessed young girl, and her suffering family. The pair of priests are filled out here more than in the movie; younger priest Tomas Ortega is charismatic but seems unsatisfied with the priesthood (even flirting with a married parishioner) while older priest Ben Daniels has been exorcising demons since he was a child (apparently priests identify young boys to become exorcists early, like how they find Witchers). Geena Davis and Alan Ruck play the parents of the possessed girl (played by Hannah Kasulka, who delivers a terrifically evil perfomance each week). Like Outcast, The Exorcist has introduced the idea that additional demons are also nearby conspiring to bring about something important. It’s an interesting expansion of the original story and I’m interested in seeing where the writers plan to go.
Watch this show, dang it. The power of Christ compels you.
We live in an era of Peak TV in which we have a lot of options of good shows to watch each night. The Exorcist is not the best show ever, but it is a solid hour of entertainment and functions like a well crafted horror movie. As they introduce their community of demons, I find myself very interested in where this show may be going next. AHS, meanwhile, is like a child telling you a gruesome story in which ridiculously horrifying things happen but no one’s actions make any sense. I couldn’t care less about where AHS plans on going next (though I can predict it will be gross and nonsensical). With so many shows out there, don’t waste your time on AHS hoping it will get good. Switch of to The Exorcist, it’s already good.
