American Horror story has forced its way into households and become fairly popular, considering it’s not very good. With many references to pop culture and strong teen roles, the series has found its niche in viewers, predominantly young women. Now AHS does check off some important criteria when examining its popularity in the country. With Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and the Walking Dead being some of the most popular shows on TV right now, we can infer that America enjoys its risque, conniving gore. What’s different about American Horror Story is that each season brings a whole storyline in a different setting, while using some of the same actors to play different roles. I think this kind of cool, like a traveling theater group or a Wes Anderson film, you get familiar faces in different scenarios.
Now anything that my sister likes is a no-go for me, so I’ve done my best to avoid American Horror Story the last few years. But back when it was new, I started to watch the first season on Netflix but turned it off because I found the dialog to be unbearable. I’m usually what you would call a “loyal Netflixist”. Almost never do I stop a series mid-season and try my best to get into the show, but when watching Murder House, I had to turn it off when Kate Mara’s character began to look foolish. I have too much respect for her since she played my heartthrob journalist crush Zoe Barnes in House of Cards. (sigh)
Anyways, I needed a new show to distract me from my class projects and found myself ready to make another attempt at American Horror Story. Despite playing a stuck-up “witch bitch” in this series, I also fancy Emma Roberts, so I threw caution to the wind and started the third season Coven.
The centralized location in the series is an old New Orleans house where a group of witches (a coven) lives to learn about magic and its ancestral roots. From the first episode, it’s made appar
ent that this isn’t Hogwarts, as the teenage witch’s emotions aren’t downplayed and they all have something they are searching for. Also, you really can’t trust anyone and the house that they reside in is old with lots of spirits haunting it. With frequent flashbacks and many entities visiting from the afterlife, you never know who or what will show up!
OK,I know what you’re thinking, “teen witches? c’mon Eli next you’re going to tell us that you watched every Twilight movie.” Well I have, but that’s beside the point. Sure a lot of the dialog is bad and unrealistic, but where in the Netflix description did it say that an order of teenage witch’s battling forces of evil was going to be award-worthy? While watching Coven, I realized that this series was no different than the cheap horror movies I enjoy watching on Netflix. Sure, some of it looks like it was filmed on a GoPro and certain punchlines make you want to punch the actor through the screen, but all in all it doesn’t take itself too seriously.
For anyone curious, I’d say : Fairly gruesome, humorous at times and overall a creative storyline, make Coven not that bad.
