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Processional

Artist: Bernard Hall (English, 1859-1935)

Date: c. 1921

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

As a long-time watcher of American Horror Story I was very glad to find this video at random (around the time it was released) because it allowed me to notice something I had been blind to - the visual decay of the show. I guess it was because, the show's entire essence being about offering new visual genres and techniques, I was not bothered at first by the sudden shift - I, like everybody else, was too focused on the rest of the problems that rose up... But compiling together, side by side, the later seasons, does reveal that an entire cinematography was lost, and this just worsened the feeling of "cheapening".

Because AHS' strongest point, biggest virtue, what allowed it to win when it was released, was its visuals. Gorgeous visuals, stunning designs, grandiose set-works that allowed to save even the most flawed seasons. When seasons had such writing problems you can't possibly call them "good" (like Freak Show, or Hotel), they still had their merit and held up somehow by the miracle of their visuals. The angle-work, the lighting, the staging, the color palette all worked on giving these season strong, unique identities, and powerful ambiances that engraved themselves in your brain.

This is because AHS started out as a literal cinematographic show. It was designed to be an homage to the great classics of horror cinema - not just through writing points or subverting conventions or reusing types, but also visually. From recreating specific, iconic shots of cinema to simply embracing the feeling you were watching a movie rather than a TV show.

This tribute is one of my favorite tributes to the first season of AHS, "American Horror Story" proper, later nicknamed by fans "Murder House", and it works wonderfully when it comes to showing the design work, the aesthetic choices and the ocular delights. This video specifically selected the shots that, on their own, feel like a painting and is a proof that, even without words, by mere visuals (and appropriate background music) an entire story is told and an entire world is created.

AHS had an aesthetic, in the strongest sense of the word. It was a visual experiment with each season purposefully playing on different color palettes, different shapes, different types of movements, different lightings, and thus making an enormous designing and staging effort that was why it received so much praise and reward.

Unfortunately the show simplified itself for easier production, cut down the costs, dumbed itself down into a caricature of itself and this is gone... It seems they at least kept the money on the special effects side of things (which has always been the other great strength of the show, the visual effects of AHS are a whole other world to talk about) but one of the original purposes of the project is gone (at least so far, maybe the next season will be better?)

From what felt like a crafted show, we went to something that feels more mass-produced.