Oh, look. The 80s called and they want their deposit back.
If Stranger Things is a love letter to the 80s, then Season 9 of American Horror Story is a dirty limerick. All the clichés of the 80s are on display in the first episode: movies, TV shows, clothing, hairstyles, aerobics, 80s music, the LA Summer Olympics, weed, booze, and, of course, 80s horror movies.
And that's the biggest problem with season 9: it looks like a ten-episode recreation of a Friday the 13th movie. Except... those movies ran roughly 90 minutes each, give or take. So ten episode means we're getting about six Friday the 13th movies. Do we really need six F13 movies? Hopefully Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk will throw some surprises into the mix. Although being set in 1984 tends to limit their options. Assuming "1984" is part of the whole AHS universe, it's not like they can have an apocalypse cap off the season or something. We know we don't get an apocalypse until 2020 or so.
Another problem is so far, "1984" is content to do clichés. In "Camp Redwood" there's the black stoner dude (DeRon Horton), the loud-spoken black nurse (Angelica Ross), the turned-to-Jesus camp owner (Leslie Grossman), the virginal Last Girl (Emma Roberts), the slutty and oversexed Other Girl (Billie Lourd), a vaguely gay wannabe actor dude (Cody Fern), and a jock (Gus Kenworthy). Not to mention a scuzzy gas station attendant (Don Swayze) who tells the teens they never should have opened the camp and a little while later meets a grisly demise.
I don't doubt Murphy and Falchuk have a surprise or two up their sleeves. Evan Peters will probably show up at some point. The Last Girl might get killed early on by the very 80s serial killer, Mr. Jingles (John Carroll Lynch). Or the enigmatic Night Stalker (Zach Villa), who has followed the Last Girl to the camp after robbing her home in LA. But it would have to be a pretty radical surprise to break the rut they already have settled into.
What rut is that? First we get three camp counselors making out in a cabin at Camp Redwood in 1970. The season's serial killer shows up and first kills them and then the seven other kids in the cabin.
After an opening montage of 80s video images covered in dripping blood, we get a Slimmercise class in 1984. Where our five "teens" are dancing. Montana is the Other Girl, and wants to become a competitive aerobic dancer. Dream big, honey. Brooke is the virginal Last Girl, and seems to be in the class for no reason other than It's In The Script (IITS). They soon meet up with Montana's friends Vaguely Gay Dude Xavier Plympton, Jock Chet Clancy, and Black Stoner Guy Ray Powell.
Xavier has a job at the reopening Camp Redwood. Everyone but Brooke agrees to go. That night, Brooke is at home seemingly alone, and the Night Stalker breaks into her home. Brooke hits him with a frying pan and he runs off but swears to find her. Brooke decides to go to Redwood to get out of LA, which is playing host to the Olympics so they all want to avoid the crowd.
Along the way the five teens meet the gas station attendant and hit a hiker on the road. They take him along with them and the owner Margaret greets them. The hiker ends up in the infirmary, and Margaret makes it clear she won't tolerate any hanky-panky (it's a highly technical word: look it up). She explains she was the only one to survive the '70 slaughter and believes Jesus lifted her up to the light and gave her the strength not to flinch when Jingles took her right ear. Because he takes a trophy from all of his victims, a trick he learned from his stint in Vietnam.
The hiker wakes up and warns Brooke they're all going to die. Trevor Kirchner (Matthew Morrison), an aerobics dancer who got cut out of Jane Fonda's workout video because his *ahem* loose underwear took attention away from Fonda, is the activities director. He and Montana go skinny-dipping in the lake and make out, but a car shines its headlights from the road and Montana quickly goes inside with Trevor. Presumably the car belongs to the Night Stalker, but it's never mentioned again.
It can't be Jingles, because in the next scene we get an "escape the insane asylum" scene like in a couple of the Halloween movies. Dr. Hopple (Orla Brady) arrives to find the patients wandering the grounds. Her assistant Art (a barely seen Mitch Pileggi) tells her Jingles faked his suicide-by-hanging, killed an orderly, threw the master switch to release the prisoners as a distraction, and made good his escape.
Back at Redwood, Chet gets mad at Ray and throws a can at him. This cuts Ray's hand, and he goes to the infirmary. Brooke goes after him, and they share a brief moment. Then Brooke goes to get medical supplies and finds the dead hiker pinned to a door. Jingles chases her through the storm, but when Brooke gets to the counselors' cabin, no one believes her. Jingles has disappeared, taking the hiker's body (and every trace of his blood) with him.
No one believes Brooke's story, so we get another of the 80s slasher horror-movie tropes. At the end she answers a ringing payphone even though the phone lines are down, and hears jingling at the other end. And in the shadows, the Night Stalker watches.
"1984" is so 1980s horror movies it's physically painful. There's pot use, drinking, sex, a silent killer with a cutsie nickname, another near-silent killer, a camp owner who is probably hiding something, and a doctor who (judging from the previews) will track her patient/killer to the camp. The fact most of the characters are teens means so far, we don't get any of the AHS "regulars" like Peters or Sarah Paulson. It wouldn't surprise me if Murphy & Falchuk found a way to bring them in eventually. It's hard to imagine, but anything is possible.
But... so what? I saw 80s horror movies during the 80s. I have no great desire to see them again 30 years later. And at least in "Camp Redwood", the creative team doesn't do anything with what it's chosen to "borrow". There's a certain sly nudge-and-a-wink to the whole thing. The Vaguely Gay Dude is just a bit over the top, and most of the other characters are as well. But when you rewatch those 80s movies, you realize half the cast was playing their roles over-the-top. So "1984" comes across as a homage to a homage.
While Stranger Things feels like the creative team likes the 80s, "1984" feels like Murphy and Falchuk hate it. Part of it is the cast: ST's cast makes their characters interesting and likable, or at least the writing does. The "1984" cast so far? Not so much.
It's hard to judge a series by a season premiere. Particularly with American Horror Story, when each season is (nearly) its own standalone story. But "Camp Redwood" is what we've got, and I'm judging it on its own. And it's a very tedious and oft-told story. It doesn't do anything new or innovative with 80s slasher-horror. There's a mild tone of mockery to it, but mocking the 80s is pretty old-hat by now. "1984" doesn't come across as affection toward its source material the way Stranger Things is. It has an atmosphere of "Look, here's the 80s: aren't they pathetic funny?" without doing much effort to either mock the 80s or say anything beyond "The 80s were pathetic and funny!" That could change in the episodes to come, but "Camp Redwood" is a dud.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?
Written by Gislef on Sep 19, 2019
It helps when the episode has a lot of variety, from particular episodes. That's why I'm not sure I can do nine more episodes of AHS. Reviewing the equivalent of six F13 movies... ugh. And how much variation can they do? Each week someone dies, the serial killer almost kills the others but not quite. Pending a major game-changer, I'm not sure there'll be much to write.
It's also why I lumped episodes of Young Justice together. One episode by itself wasn't enough to review. Two Minute Horror Story, on the other hand, has enough variety in both quality and story to write something different every week. Ditto for Preacher and Titans.
Some shows like The Flash and Arrow are a bit too similar for me to find something different to write about each week. Black Lightning got dangerously close last year: we'll see how it goes this year.
Basically pick a show where the episodes are varied enough that you can write a lot about a single episode, and not have it sound like the previous review of the same show. And the episode before that, and the episode before that. Or do what I do with something like Maverick: just review the best and worst. I watch Maverick every week, but I don't review every episode. There's been a lot of mediocre ones and a few great and/or different ones. But no bad ones yet. Ditto for another show I review occasionally, the original Outer Limits.
I’ve yet to watch but can’t wait. Coincidentally I’m waiting for an article about Ryan Murphy that I’ve written to be published. I don’t know how you write so much about a single episode.