All Rise...

In some circles, Appellate Judge Daryl Loomis is known as the Amazing Cheese-Eating Boy.

Editor's Note

Our reviews of American Horror Story (Blu-ray) (published October 8th, 2012), American Horror Story: Asylum (Blu-ray) (published October 21st, 2013), and American Horror Story: Coven (Blu-ray) (published October 17th, 2014) are also available.

The Charge

The world hated me, but no more than I hated myself.

The Case

The gimmick that makes American Horror Story unique is both the show's best attribute and its greatest drawback. Show runner Ryan Murphy's (Nip/Tuck) idea to turn the cast into a sort of repertory theater company means that you get to see actors really branch out in unexpected ways. That's great. The downside to this is that, because it's an entirely new story every season, even though there are hints of connection, it's necessary to rebuild the plot from square one each time. That's not the worst thing in the world, but as we saw in the second season of True Detective, that can lead to inconsistent quality between seasons. This fourth season of American Horror Story is Freak Show, potentially the most interesting of all the seasons in terms of subject matter. With its slow start, it doesn't quite live up to all that potential, but it's still a solid season with lots going for it.

Bette and Dot (Sarah Paulson, Serenity) are two women in one body. Born as Siamese twins, they have lived a life of shame and scorn in seclusion. They're miserable until Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange, Big Fish) comes into their lives. She runs Fraülein Elsa's Cabinet of Curiosities, a freak show featuring a bevy of oddities she has collected the world over. They are a family and stick up for each other, especially in the face of the scammers, psychopaths, and bigots they suffer all the time, not to mention a killer clown named Twisty (John Carroll Lynch, Zodiac, who is coming for the lot of them.

Freak Show is the boldest conceptually of all the seasons of AHS and the most audacious. It's one thing in horror stories to have a murder house, an asylum, or a witches' coven, but it's a far finer line to zero in on a freak show, especially in today's climate of acceptance. Luckily, Ryan Murphy understood the issues of offensive that could be in play with this subject matter and subverts them entirely. He does this in a couple of ways. First, he makes the conscious effort to give real humanity to each people in the sideshow. Second, he casts real differently abled people alongside the regular actors to make an excellent mix of the two; it's not all "normal" people playing "freaks" and it's definitely not exploitation.

It makes for an excellent mix of actors and non-actors and gives a really good feeling to the whole group. In addition to Paulson, whose work in portraying two different women in one body is a testament to both the special effects work in the show and Paulson's incredible (and, I'm sure, incredibly difficult) performance, and Lange, who's great as always, we have returning players like Kathy Bates (Misery) as Ethel Darling, the bearded lady, Evan Peters (Kick Ass) as her son, Jimmy Darling the lobster boy, Emma Roberts (Scream Queens) as fake fortune teller and scam artist Esmerelda, Jamie Brewer (American Horror Story: Coven) in a tiny but pivotal role toward the end of the season, and Angela Bassett (Boyz in the Hood) as the three-breasted hermaphrodite. New entries begin with Michael Chiklis (The Shield) as Bassett's husband, the strongman Dell Toledo, Neil Patrick Harris (Starship Troopers) as a late-season magician/ventriloquist, and Finn Whitrock (Noah) in the series' biggest revelation as Dandy, the local billionaire psychopath.

Peppered throughout the film are the differently abled people, some of whom have been in front of the camera, some on the stage, and some have no experience at all with performance. The best of these people is Mat Fraser, Pat the Illustrated Seal in the show, who has thalidomide-induced Phocomelia and is incredibly charming in his major role. There's also Ma Petite, played by the world's smallest woman, the 24-inch Indian woman, Jyoti Amge, who give the season an incredible brightness, and Rose Siggins, a woman with Sacral Agenesis whose character of Legless Suzi isn't huge, but highly interesting when she's around.

Combined, this is a fantastic cast, both in general and as a sideshow, that goes along very well with a highly styled production. It's always been a good looking show, but this season might be the most cinematic yet. It starts with the phenomenal and entirely practical carnival set. It looks like a sideshow that has been forgotten, yet is still populated. It's a nice horror setting that might not be its own character exactly, but adds strong atmosphere to the entire thing. The different directors deliver various styles in their episodes, with scenes switching into sepia tone and black and white, while some of the angles used are ridiculous, giving a surreal feeling to many of those scenes. Freak Show is a really interesting looking season.

My only real issue, in the end, is how slowly it starts. Plenty of character development goes on and there's the one pure horror story of the season, the Twisty plot, but because it has to establish its world and its characters, it has to take small steps. It's not a deal-breaker for the season by any means, but it is indicative of the fact that this isn't a show I can watch week to week. I have to marathon it, or I start to forget that it's on. Lots of shows are like this for me, so it's not a big thing as that's how I tend to watch anyway, but it is definitely slower going at first than the previous two seasons (I don't care about the first; it's pretty poor). When the episode about the past and future of microcephalic Pepper (Naomi Grossman) arrives, though, the show hits hard. This episode is so sad and so infuriating, all augmented by amazing makeup and an even better performance from Grossman, that it gives the rest of the series some real momentum. Kudos to Grossman for her performance and, with this episode as the turning point, the show becomes much more interesting (even if the ending is a little underwhelming).

American Horror Story: Freak Show comes to Blu-ray from Fox is a good, if not great, release. The 1.78:1/1080p image is mostly very strong, with nice detail regardless of the style that's used in a particular episode. Colors are mostly strong and black levels are consistent and deep. There are some issues with digital artifacts here and there, but it's not terribly noticeable or bothersome. The audio is excellent throughout, with a nice DTS-HD Master Audio track that keeps the viewer immersed in the world. The music is consistently bright, dialog is always clear and crisp, and there's all sorts of stuff going on in the background channel.

Extra are a simple affair and definitely not robust enough for big fans of the series. They amount to about an hour of similarly structured interviews masking as features; they're pretty solid for what they are, though. Over the hour, various members of the cast and crew discuss the makeup, the characters, the performances, and the differently abled cast. It's a good group, though a little repetitive after a while.

American Horror Story: Freak Show doesn't match the excellence of season 2's Asylum, but I rank it higher than Coven and way higher than Murder House. For its flaws and occasional slowness, however, Freak Show is a solid season of television that I can easily recommend.

The Verdict

Not the best season.

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