Tag Archives: Briarcliff

Ten Things We Learned From American Horror Story Asylum, Episode 4 – “I Am Anne Frank, Part One”

9 November 2012

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Kit: You’re confusing me. You’re saying that if I’m crazy  I wouldn’t believe Dr. Thredson, but if I’m sane,  my crazy stories would be true?
[pause]  Grace: I have no idea what you just said.

Well, that got ugly. Last night (unless you count Demon Sister Mary Eunice’s all-too-brief appearance as she happily picked out a cane with what looked like spikes on it for beating Kit and Grace), all the horror –and there were heaping helpings– had all-too-human causes. Nothing supernatural happened, but almost every character was in their own personal hell, caused by a fellow human being/s. There was also a strong theme of identity, sense of self, and which self you present to the world. Some characters present a wildly exaggerated version of the truth, some are willing to try to erase their identity in a ‘the ends justify the means‘ type of motive, some are more honest than we’ve ever seen them, and some show they not only have a dark side, but that dark side is enough to make them a monster. We see patient’s flashbacks that could be truth, or a lie. We see Dr. Thredson rather coldly explain to Kit why and how he killed his wife, and it’s shown in flashback format (for the record, I don’t buy it. As I recall, they were talking about telling everyone they were married, he wanted to share their love to the world, she wanted to wait).  Lana had a little fantasy (that I notice didn’t include Wendy–if so, I missed it) about finally being recognized as a serious reporter that was the final push for her to ask Dr. Thredson how soon she could begin treatment. Things didn’t go as Lana planned. Secrets, stories, and lies. We got introduced to this really quickly by Kit and Grace’s conversation in the kitchen at the beginning of the first act:

Grace: …it doesn’t matter what I believe.
Kit: It does. Especially in this place. Your story is who you are.
Grace. I wish I could forget my story.
Kit: No, you have to say it out loud all the time just to keep it straight in your head. Tell me. Tell me your story, I won’t judge you.

Which leads us to…

1. We learn that Grace’s father and step-mother were murdered with an axe (in a disturbing, gruesome scene that I loved) but that Grace’s stepsister, Patsy,  accused her of the murders and that ‘no matter how many times I told my story, no-one would believe me.’. We later find out (Sister Mary Eunice is more than happy to plop Grace’s file in front of Kit to show him ‘she’s not as innocent as she claims to be’ when they have a minute alone in Sister Jude’s office) this is a pack of lies (though I doubt anyone started to dislike Grace as a character when we heard the truth –especially coming from Grace as told to Kit ) and that Grace’s father sexually abused her-and she was ‘so young’ when it started. When she finally got up the courage to tell her step-mother, she didn’t believe her (or more likely, didn’t want to believe her) and gave her candy to keep her quiet. Finally Grace had all she could take, snapped, and killed both of them with an axe. While wearing fuzzy bunny slippers.  What seemingly pushed her over the edge, she says, was that her father had sold all her horses… and she never lied about how much she loved to ride. Grace’s sister walked in and caught her red-handed (rather literally in this case) hacking up her father, and so Grace was arrested and sent to Briarcliff. We don’t find out whether it was true that (as in Grace’s first version of the truth) her father and her step-sister Patsy (I assume she was a stepsister, and not his biological daughter) were secretly lovers who wanted the farmhouse for themselves. We also learn that Grace loved riding horses and misses the feeling of pure freedom and flight that it gave her more than anything else.

2. We discover that the high-end out call escort back in the episode Treats and Tricks was so terrified by her Halloween date with Dr. Nazi that she actually went to the police. I realize she was a more professional ‘lady of the evening’, who didn’t drink, but can you imagine actually going to the cops and saying that she was turning a trick, found some horrifying photos while rifling through his things, and (we don’t see this during the original scene, but I bought it) found some Nazi memorabilia. Looked like a medal of achievement he’d wear proudly), got so scared she ended up biting him and kneeing him in his groin to incapacitate him long enough to just get the fuck out of there? I’m surprised that (in 1964) they didn’t blow her off, threaten to arrest her if she made false accusations again, call her a whore and boot her out. My theory is she was friendly with someone in the department, which is why they took her seriously and even investigated. One of the cops also asks Sister Jude if Kit looks like someone who could skin a woman with “surgical precision”.

…they found her two days later. Her skin had been removed. So had her head.    -Dr. Thredson

 

3. Sister Jude is onto Dr. Arden. I especially liked the way she heard he was being questioned by detectives and then pretended to ‘accidentally’ walk in on their meeting.  Hmm, when I say Dr. Arden, should I perhaps say…

4.  Herr Doktor Hans Gruper, of the Nazi SS. Anne Frank (whose story is feasible, and if I know this show, I bet we’ll never find out anything more regarding whether or not it was true– if she’s lying, I don’t think she knows it). I believed the whole story, especially when Anne Frank/Kassie described him flipping a coin back in Auschwitz because he couldn’t save every girl, seeing the flashback, then seeing that same coin as described was one of the two Nazi souvenirs that poor prostitute found in the stash Dr. Arden had hidden in his bedroom. Not to mention, his interest in identical twins…

5.  We found Dr. Thredson’s fixation on ‘helping’ Kit is not as benevolent as we first thought. Remember when he seemed like the ONE person employed by Briarcliff, or in any position of authority there, who was sane? He objected to the exorcism as ‘outdated’, as well as the ECT done on Lana to ‘cure’ her homosexuality. We now have the seed planted in our minds that Dr. Thredson could be using his knowledge just to fuck with Kit, and maybe brainwash him into thinking he really did kill his wife. He fed him a story. Very firmly. If he can get the authorities to believe Kit did it but isn’t sane enough to stand trial, he’ll be “allowed to live out the rest of his days” at Briarcliff (oh goodie–I guess it’s still an improvement on the electric chair, though). By the end of the episode, he’s a weeping mess; telling Sister Jude that he doesn’t know any more, he must have done it, he doesn’t remember, but nothing else makes sense. Dr. Thredson seems to have accomplished his mission. Speaking of Dr. Thredson…

Could this be Bloody Face?

6. Dr.. Thredson also seemed like he cared a little about Lana and even hinted he might have had to go through aversion therapy himself at some point. He seems fixated, especially during this episode, about ‘helping’ Lana and Kit, even if he has to bend (Hell, even break) some rules to do it. We ask ourselves, what’s the common thread (no pun intended) between Lana and Kit? Bloody Face. I don’t know about Kit, but for Lana, we can’t see a happy ending, even if her only ‘crime’ was sneaking around Briarcliff so she could write an exposé and stop having to write about domestic issues and bake-offs due to being female. Dr. Thredson getting her out of Briarcliff, one way or another? “I’m leaving here on Friday and I’m taking you with me. I don’t know how yet, but… I will not leave you in this place, Lana. That’s a promise.” It’s too good to be true… especially on American Horror Story. Speaking of things not ending well…

Kit Walker. Does he seem like the kinda guy with the surgical precision to remove a woman’s skin …and her head?
-Detective questioning Sister Jude

 

7. While watching Lana’s revolting ‘aversion therapy’, I actually wondered who I felt more sorry for– Lana or Shelley. The sexy photo of Wendy that Dr. T suddenly revealed in the slides seemed an especially low blow …and he just took it from their house after he went to allegedly check in on Wendy and give her the note. Uh… there’s something way the fuck wrong with this picture. His description/flashback to her of the incident during movie night sounded kind of shady. He just broke in–Lana didn’t give him a key–saw some blood on the floor, then thought hey, while he was there he should grab that erotic photo of Wendy, then went to the cops, who told him the case was closed? I call bullshit on that. During the cold open, Shelly could still form coherent sentences, but at the end of the episode, she was barely recognizable; covered in boils, legs gone, one of her eyes larger than the other, only able to beg “Anne” to kill her. A mid-episode scene w/Dr. A on the phone showed her strapped to the table, unable to do anything but gasp and wheeze for air. My theory is he’s been giving her injections of diseases (like TB and syphilis) and if she lives through all of them, Shelley will “probably live forever,” per Dr. Nazi. For some reason, during this episode especially, I kept thinking of this certain HORRIBLE urban legend (fortunately, I only heard it as an adult, though it still  messed me up) when it came to Shelley’s fate.  When I think of Shelley now, I daydream about a scenario on the season finale where someone (hopefully all the female cast members he treated like dogs who have survived the season) cuts off Dr. Arden’s hands and feet and tosses him to the Raspers …and who is that crawling out of the fog and trees towards him? Now that we see her more closely could that be …Shelley, horribly mutated and deformed at the evil shithead’s hands, who happens to be very hungry?  Why, yes, that is her, and since she’s so messed up, it’s going to take her hours to chew his face off!  Now THAT would be a great pay-off. Well, I can dream, can’t I?

Anne: I know who you are!
Dr. Arden: You don’t even know who you  are!

 

8. Monsignor Timothy turned out to be a rotten prick. He’s in on Dr. Arden/Gruber’s evil Nazi past, but maybe he’s being blackmailed. Still, he was so shitty to Sister Jude when she finally went out on a limb to discuss it with him. He knows her weaknesses, and how to hurt her. “This isn’t about me. I am trying to protect you, this institution, our dream!”  Sister Jude entreats him. “Maybe this job is too much for you,” he sneers cruelly to her. “This job means everything to me,” she tells him,” we believe her, and he knows it. Then he has the nerve to bring up Movie Night, and gets downright shitty, telling her she was, “a drunken fool, almost slobbering.” Tough Sister Jude wiped away tears. Hey, you don’t say that to a woman, Father Jerkoff, even if she is a Nun; she wants to keep her dignity. After telling her to “pray on it” (grrrr) he immediately returned to his office, got on the phone w/Dr. Nazi, tersely telling him, “They’re onto you, Arthur. If you have any housekeeping to take care of, I suggest you do it now.” Monsignor Timothy replaces the phone headset back on the receiver, and takes a long drag off his cigarette. So they’re on first name terms?

“You killed the thing you loved most” – Dr. Thredson, to a weeping Kit

9. Sister Jude does have a heart. Oh, she’s scary as hell, ordered Grace and Kit to be ‘sterilized’ when she accuses them of ‘trying to make a murder baby! ‘and insanely strict, but I think she did feel some motherly concern for “Anne Frank” after seeing the concentration camp numbers tattooed on her inner arm. She has a talk with the Mother Superior, who is surprisingly cool and supportive of her. Later, when Kit says he wants to confess to her (not about banging Grace in the kitchen, as she first assumes) “about his crimes”. He asks her even if did something bad but couldn’t remember doing it, “he knows, right?” Sister Jude flashes back to the hit-and-run (which she still can’t forget, so far I think she was hammered, but not in a total blackout) and softly answers him, “God sees all.”  She also is visibly moved when he tells her,  stammering, “I need to be forgiven,” and she responds with surprisingly genuine compassion. “God forgives all.” She even puts her hand on his shoulder to comfort him, but the scene abruptly cuts away to the physical confrontation between Dr. Nazi and “Anne”. Was I the only one yelling, “Shoot him! JUST SHOOT HIM!” at the screen? I think not. I cheered when she called him a ‘Nazi piece of shit!’ and shot him in the knee. I hope it hurt like hell.

But there are eyes everywhere. The eyes of madness and disease. These people here are resigned to die here. We were never resigned. We always held on to a shred of hope. —“Anne Frank” in a letter to “Kitty”

 

10. Finally, no-one seems especially concerned about the complete and total disappearance of Shelley, Pepper the Pinhead, or “The Mexican.” In fact, it only came up in a flashback when Dr. Thredson was telling Lana that he saw her, Kit, and Grace leave and then return together, all three soaking wet from the rain and shaking with fear.

Stray Thoughts:

  • I had a bad feeling when Dr. Thredson brought up Skinner’s ‘behavior modification’ rather than ECT treatments to treat homosexuality, since we know that’s horrible bullshit too and definitely know in 2012 that being gay is not a choice, not something that can be cured, and certainly that aversion therapy continues to this day and the data shows that if anything, it does more harm than good. On the bright side, gay marriage has now become legal in my state as of election night, so society has finally made progress, at least in more liberal areas of the US. Looking forward to going to lots of weddings! I know it won’t undo all the damage done in the past, but it’s a good start.
  • From the previews, it looks like someone’s getting a lobotomy (icepick-style, through the corner of the eye, AAAAGH) on “I Am Anne Frank, Part Two.”  There was a shot (see featured image) of Kit being dragged down a hall by guards, but I think it’s a fake out and that the eye they showed looked (sadly) like Grace’s. Could Sister Mary Eunice be behind this, while Sister Jude is pre-occupied with investigating Dr. Nazi.

  • Is it just me, or is it somehow much more revolting when sexual terms are described with their clinical names? The four-letter words might be filthy, but they sound much less creepy. Bleh.  It seemed like Dr. Thredson was trying to use euphemisms, but no wonder his comment, “We’re all rooting for you,” finally made her grab the bucket and really puke harder than even the chemicals had.
  • Wondering how they got the flashback version of Dr. Gruper/Arden to look exactly like he would decades ago?  The actor was James Cromwell’s son! You can read more about it here in this Huffington Post article.
  • Which reminds me–I’ve heard and seen that “Miller 64” commercial (the one that consists of the manly men singing what sounds like an Irish sea shanty) 300 too many times, to the point where I’M  going to need a bucket like Lana’s if I have to sit through it again. They play it on Sons of Anarchy every commercial break, too. UGH! Where’s the bucket?
  • Dr. Thredson is looking very good for either Bloody Face, or being involved. I hear Lana’s “re-union” with Wendy will be the stuff of nightmares.
Anne Frank Chestnut Tree. Edited for brightnes...

Anne Frank Chestnut Tree.. Derived from Image (Photo credit: Wikipedia).

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American Horror Story Asylum – Who Is Bloody Face? Horror Boom Wants Your Opinion – Quick Poll

8 November 2012

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So after “I Am Anne Frank, Part One” I know you’ve got theories and opinions on who Bloody Face is.  Most people are pretty sure it’s a man, which I currently agree with. If Bloody Face was a woman, it’d have to be two people, like Sister Jude riding piggyback on Sister Mary Eunice’s shoulders*  then draping an elaborately made costume over them.  Not to mention, they’d have to wear special gloves that gave them man-hands.  Since last night shoved Dr. Thredson and Monsignor Timothy into the running, there’s quite a few more  feasible candidates now. The poll I made below lets you vote for two different people (if you can call Dr. Nazi a person), and according to Ryan Murphy, Bloody Face will be unmasked NEXT WEEK (with his/her/its “origin revealed” in the following episode, appropriately titled “The Origins of Monstrosity”). It’ll let you write in the answer, too. If you follow this blog regularly and want to put your own theory in the comment section (hit Reply) AND you’re right, I’ll send you a $5 Amazon Gift Card (all you need to give is your email address, Amazon takes care of the rest). So guess away! My regular “Ten Things We Learned…” piece/recap following every episode will be up later tonight.

*Hey, get your mind out of the gutter! It’s getting way too crowded down here!

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American Horror Story Asylum – News and SPOILER Round-Up For Upcoming Episodes (Part 2 of 2) – Plus Pinhead Pepper Plots REVENGE!

8 November 2012

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Above/featured image: Could this be from Grace’s insane crime flashback? Or just a crime flashback? Is that Pepper the Pinhead in there? I’m curious why Pepper feels protective (or even friendly) towards Shelley, by the way. Perhaps Pepper was an average, attractive woman at one point (kind of like the pretty Naomi Grossman who plays her–damn, she REALLY cleans up well;  I’m a babe, but it takes me at least two hours of prep time for me to look that pretty), but I have no idea how you would surgically make someone’s head half its normal size and pointy? I’m still trying to figure out how they made the actress look so ugly –other than prosthetic appliances for her face, and some really bad fake teeth. Perhaps Shelley was just kind towards Pepper once. Does it look like Pepper has a lot of friends?

OK, where was I when Part One of this piece left off? Oh yeah  —lots  more spoiler ground to cover.

Alright, so if you saw those last few tweet replies from Ryan Murphy, we now know:

The things in the woods/Raspers are “mutants” who are not necessarily cannibals (just really hungry).  I guess we’ll find out if Shelley’s legs end up as their next meal.  Well technically, I suppose that wouldn’t prove anything. We don’t see a lot of wildlife–or any at all– in the area …so I don’t think they HAVE to have human flesh. It just makes things all that more fun… did I just write that? I didn’t mean it to sound so twisted. Oh well.

So, soon we’ll find out why Grace ended up in Briarcliff. I caught some very fast shots like the one above, but I wasn’t fast enough to get a screen cap of a shot showing someone’s lower body, dressed in either a fuzzy robe/pajamas or both, wearing fluffy bunny slippers, and dragging an axe beside them along the floor. Whatever explanation turns out to fit that clip, I bet it’s going to be awesome!

Here’s another spoiler tidbit that I found on TVLine‘s Ask Ausiello:

Question: Anything on American Horror Story: Asylum? I’m officially obsessed! —Anna

Ausiello: Wednesday’s episode boasts one of the young season’s most unsettling non-horror scenes — one of the doctors aims to “cure” Lana of her lesbianism through a graphic session of aversion therapy. Also: A new character by the name of Anne Frank (yes, the one with the diary), played by Franka Potente, has some provocative intel on one of Briarcliff’s denizens that explains so, so, so much.

At this point, I feel it’s a toss-up who’s going to get the more horrible , wretched fate: Lana Winters or Shelley. We also got that fan tweet answer from Ryan Murphy that sounds like Episode Five is going to be the shiznit! Lana’s re-union with, or at least finding out/getting closure on her lover. Possibly Pepper’s Revenge, possibly the end for poor Shelley. Chloë Sevigny said in an interview that Lana ends up outside Briarcliff, but in a terrible place. Do I see a reunion in woods? Or will it be something even more brutal (though I have trouble trying to figure out what that might possibly be)?

OK, here’s one really interesting item, pretty much open to interpretation. Recently EW.com was asked for some spoilers on upcoming episodes (which I think will only occur before Episode 5 is over, but it could be Ep. 6). Here’s how it went down (source: EW.com)

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM: LET’S PLAY A GAME (I’m in!)…

Luckily, there’s a little less gross-out in the next two episodes and a lot of developments. (Mind you, there are still some gross-out moments.) For a taste of what’s to come: Who’s up for a game?

  • This week, [character A] will [spoiler A] with [character B] in the kitchen.
  • 
Did we know that [character C] knows about [character D’]s evil deeds? I don’t think we did…
  • Two patients will be outside Briarcliff’s walls sooner than we think. But there’s a twist…
  • As EW told you first, this week, you’ll be introduced to a character named Anne Frank (Franka Potente).  Along with making crazy accusations about [character E], she’ll have [character F] questioning [his or her] sanity.
  • [Character G] is going to try to [spoiler B] [character H]!! [Her or she] might succeed…

Franka Potente starts her guest run in Episode 4, “I Am Anne Frank, Part 1.”

So, here’s my speculations for this game… filling in the blanks. I’m actually glad that was all the info they got out. I have some good guesses, but also a couple stupid ones, so thanks for bearing with me.

Character A – Grace,  Spoiler A- Have sex with Kit in the kitchen
Character  C – my guess is Monseigneur, Character D- is Dr. Arden.

As for who ends up outside Briarcliff sooner than we think, but there’s a twist…  I’m thinking it’s Lana and Shelley, either as Raspers or victims of the Raspers. What a drag.

Character E is Dr. Arden, Character F is Sister Jude.

Character G, Spoiler B, Character H- This one gets hard. “Spoiler B” is either have sex with, kill, or lobotomize*. That leaves a BIG amount of choices. Uh, Dr. Arden is going to try to lobotomize Dr, Thredson? I give up.

Episiode 4, “I Am Anne Frank” has already started on the East Coast, so I’ll Rasp this up. I have PLENTY more coming soon!

*Reminds of a what would be a really fucked-up new version of the game “Bang, Marry, Kill” where someone gives you three names (all of them horrible, or all of them people you think are really hot, keeps it interesting that way), and asks you to pick which one you want to.. yeah, you get the idea. When we played it in the 80s, our version was “Marry, Have a dirty weekend with, or Push off a cliff”.   Now “Have Sex With, Kill, Lobotomize” …I don’t think I want to play that version!

 

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American Horror Story Asylum – News and SPOILER Round-Up For Upcoming Episodes (Part 1 of 2) – Plus Pinhead Pepper Plots REVENGE!

7 November 2012

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Wow, that was a really fun headline to write: Revenge of Pepper the Pinhead! I know who she takes revenge on–and for– too. Read on for more –much more!

Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us, gabba gabba we accept you we accept you ONE of US!

OK, first up: I’ll be posting a much less spoiler-y version of this soon, and you’ll need to highlight certain portions with your mouse to be able to read them (for the less spoiler-y version; you can read this one just fine). The below  post, however, is going to contain spoilers– yet nothing REALLY major, like the identity of Bloody Face, what really is going on with Kit, a character’s death or someone murdering someone else, who gets eaten by Raspers, that kind of thing. I don’t have any idea what the answer to any of those are, though I could give predictions.  I will also be clear when I am speculating on something and when it has been stated. Cool?

How about we start out with the FX preview (in HD) that they showed right after the episode that aired on Halloween…

OK, first, I have some official episode descriptions, air dates, and titles, from IMDB (and a couple other official sites), and it looks like we’re going to have some serious bombshells about character’s back-stories dropped on us in this week’s episode,  I Am Anne Frank: Part 1 and on the November 14th episode, I Am Anne Frank: Part 2. As anyone who saw the preview for this week’s episode knows, Franka Potente (playing a character named Kassie, I predict she’ll be going after Dr. Arden because he tortured/killed a family member or someone she loved) will start her guest-starring arc this week on the November 7th episode. FX hasn’t been especially subtle about her making accusations that Dr. Arden is a war criminal. No one’s said the word Nazi yet, but that’s what all the evidence points to …so far. So far, Potente is only listed as a guest star for the two-parter, but who knows? Here’s the episode description for tomorrow’s show, after the jump!

Official still Released from FX for “I Am Anne Frank, Part One”

A new patient claiming to be Anne Frank exposes Arden’s past. Kit learns why Grace was admitted to Briarcliff. (OoooOOOO!)

S2, Ep5/ Air Date: Nov. 14, 2012: I Am Anne Frank: Part 2

Sister Jude employs a renowned Nazi Hunter to gather evidence against Arden. Kit makes a surprising confession. Rubber Man Bloody Face is unmasked.
S2, Ep6/ Air Date:Nov. 21, 2012 – The Origins of Monstrosity
A mysterious little girl is abandoned at Briarcliff. The Monsignor makes a Faustian pact with Dr. Arden. The origin of Bloody Face is revealed.
S2, Ep7 / Air Date: Nov. 28, 2012 – Dark Cousin   (I don’t have any episode description, just a title)
I don’t have any more episode titles after “Dark Cousin”, but I do have air dates, and good news! Looks like they will NOT be taking a mid-season break. The season finale (S2, Ep13) will be airing in early January. Hell yeah!
  • S2, Ep8/ Air Date:Dec. 5, 2012
  • S2, Ep9/ Air Date: Dec. 12, 2012
  • S2, Ep10/ Air Date: Dec. 19, 2012
  • S2, Ep11/ Air Date:Dec. 26, 2012
  • S2, Ep12/ Air Date: Jan. 2, 2013
  • S2, Ep13 (Season Finale) Air Date: Jan. 9, 2013
OK, so we’ll know who (and why) Bloody Face is after the November 21st episode (or so they say). Well, last season they were pretty straightforward about the Rubber Man reveal happening (on the episode they said it would). Somehow I don’t think there’ll be a simple explanation, though. I also don’t think Shelley is going to make it past Episode 7 (tops), sadly, if she makes it that long. Chloë Sevigny gave several interviews after “Nor’Easter” aired, and had some interesting things to say about the character (and about filming her scenes). You can read one of the best ones here on Television Without Pity. However, she spills the most info in this interview on Shock Till You Drop.com, which you can read by using this link.  However, here are some of the most juiciest highlights of that interview (Source: Shocktillyoudrop.com):

Question:  I know you’ve talked about working with all these great female actresses in some of the reviews, but I haven’t you talk about what it’s like to work with James Cromwell who is…I don’t know what he’s doing to you, but it’s really scary.  

Sevigny:  Oh, it gets much scarier.  He was good.  I mean I was a huge fan of his.  I actually saw him in a café right before we started shooting and I went up to him introduced myself and he just like, “I’m so looking forward to chopping off your legs.”  Yes, he was great.  I mean you know he was really into rehearsing the scenes before and really exploring it to its fullest, so that was kind of nice.  Sometimes people just go in and just hit their marks and he really wanted to work everything out before.  He was really … in that regard.

Question:  I’m curious what the heck is “Shelley’s” attitude going to be now in the wake of losing both of her legs at the operating table there.  What’s your disposition going to be; she’s going to be pretty pissed off I’d have to imagine.

Sevigny:  I think she’s pretty pissed off.  I think she feels pretty helpless and I think in the beginning you kind of like not so much rooting for her.  You think she’s this bad girl and then see her helping Evan’s character and … character trying to escape and you realize that she’s pretty selfless in that regard.  I think after she gets in the clutches of the evil doctor, I think you’re then kind of more rooting for her and hoping that she can escape or find a way out.  So I think the character goes through a lot.  The audience goes through a lot with the character.

No way this can end well for Kit… or Grace, probably.

Question:  Is that kind of what’s next ahead for her, trying to find a way out of this predicament, given the new disadvantage she has?

Sevigny:  Oh, yes, and her disadvantage has only increased.  She becomes more and more helpless.  It’s very tragic, actually.

If it’s getting worse– which is not a huge shocker– I’m still sticking with my theory that she’s going to end up a Rasper at the evil, shitty hands or Dr. Arden.  If Dr. Arden does  get busted for his crimes, I think it’ll be too late for Shelley …and I agree, that is very tragic. I think we now know the meaning behind the below teaser, which I don’t recall seeing aired, just released on the FX site and FX social media. Gee, I wonder why they had trouble getting it aired? I cannot watch this without wincing – especially with the foley art.
Guess whose legs are coming to dinner?

The news and spoilers don’t stop there, though! Next, Ryan Murphy did a Q&A on Twitter, and while he was coy about some things,  he dropped some JUICY tidbits… and guess what? I have screencaps to present most of his answers! One of them involves the aforementioned Pepper’s revenge, who, and why! We want to know NOW!
Yeah, yeah, Yeah… let’s get to the really fun stuff, here…
On that one, I’m ruling out Kit, because (unless they’re getting really sneaky) Evan Peters played what RM called, “the biggest monster, and our official villain” of Season One, Tate Langdon. Tate was responsible for many deaths before and after he was alive, not to mention setting someone on fire, yet I think Constance was a monster too.  Personally, I’d love to have a conversation with someone as into the show as I am about my opinion that Tate and Constance were both evil, but I digress.Two seasons in a row for him to be revealed as a killer is pushing it, and both Ryan Murphy and Evan Peters said in interviews that this season, Kit plays a victim, not a victimizer.
And for a certain high-profile moron who “writes about the show”, OF COURSE they’re not zombies, you cretin! He (that reporter) called them zombies right off the bat and referred to them that way from then on. Really? Seriously? Do all monsters either have to be zombies or vampires? OK, they’re messed-up and scary-looking, they eat meat, and chase people that get too close. That does not  mean they’re zombies, pinhead genius! Instead,  as many of us called it already…
HOAH! There is no way this could have a happy ending. From what Chloë Sevigny let slip in an interview (like one of the ones listed above) she says Lana ends up somewhere worse than the asylum. I have no clue how Wendy is involved– other than her finding out she’s dead, even though don’t have concrete proof of her death, just her being missing. I’m guessing both Shelley–or maybe Shelley and Wendy– end up in the scariest woods in the world outside the asylum …and one of them is a Rasper. I can all but guarantee either Wendy, Lana, or Shelley ends up as Rasper chow.
Now if that’s not enough to drive you nuts blow your mind (no pun intended),  check out a bombshell almost as good as that last one!  There’s a reason I saved it for last…
Holy Shit! Now you’re talking!
OK,  taking a break to celebrate here 😀

More Coming – Part 2 of 2 for News/Spoiler/Speculation Round-up before I hit the sack to sleep like a log!

UPDATE: That did not in fact happen. Oh, the part about sleeping like a log definitely happened, but I fell asleep after writing maybe 70% of Part 2 of 2 –with the laptop still on my lap. I woke up around 4AM, put the laptop away, brushed my teeth, then slept for almost twelve hours. When I got up to finish in time for tonight’s episode, I had technical difficulties that are just now clearing up. I‘m going to try to get as much of it out as I can before 10:00 PM Eastern. Thanks for being patient! Gabba Gabba HEY!
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Ten Things We Learned From American Horror Story Asylum, Episode 3 – ‘Nor’easter’ (SPOILERS!)

1 November 2012

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Warning about Spoiler Warnings for this weekly feature: I’m now just going to start putting a spoiler warning in the title of the post.  I think that’ll keep me from getting me yelled at. Besides, I know regular readers of Horror Boom 1. are intelligent and 2. have my back.  OK, on with the mostly horrifying things we learned – even I let out a shocked “HOAH!” loud enough to wake my husband at that last brutal reveal. Now THAT was I call a goddamned episode of American Horror Story last night!  Let’s do this!

Kit:  Run, RUN! RUN! Don’t look back, just RUN! Go GO GO! Into the tunnel! GO!

1. The last act of Episode Three, ‘Nor’Easter’ reminded us what genre of show we’re watching, that’s for sure. HORROR, and proud of it. We now know what The Raspers in the woods look like and the show runners were smart to keep behind-the-scenes pics/footage out of the media, since they’re even more horrifying than we pictured. How horrifying are the Raspers? Enough to send three patients more desperate to escape than anything in the world sprinting back full-tilt into what is probably the most wretched, shitty, frightening asylum in the TV universe, one that includes a chief administrator with deep-seated issues who will beat the shit out of you for even a slight infraction if she feels like it, and a head doctor who is a sadistic, soul-less monster who makes the aforementioned chief administrator look like Mother Teresa.


2. Speaking of the above doctor, and things we’ve learned, WE GET IT, RYAN MURPHY AND CO., DR. ARDEN HAS A MADONNA-WHORE COMPLEX!  We pretty much figured that out by the end of episode two; having a call girl dress up like a nun and take her make-up off, then turn back into a misogynistic pervert (among other hints). However, shortly after obtaining a tube of lipstick (“Ravish-Me Red”)  he really started to unravel, and smeared it onto the cheeks and lips of a pristine, white angelic statue of the Virgin Mary, then grew furious and shoved it off the pedestal it rested on so hard that it smashed to smithereens before he practically screamed “WHORE!”.  If any viewers have not been clued in to his issues by that little vignette (I doubt it), they’re not smart enough to watch the show. Please return to exploring the other, really monstrous facets of his character, such as…

3.  A man who is very likely a war criminal. I’m guessing of Nazi origin, whose birth name was probably something along the lines of Klaus Von Ardenshvitz, with a sick nickname like “The Mad Butcher of (insert name of concentration camp here)”. When he was jabbing Kit’s neck with some of the longest needles I’ve even seen (how much torture can that poor kid take?) we learned that Dr. Arden assumed the bizarre metal chip that scuttles around like a rectangular robotic beetle–Dr. A even stored it in a jar like a live specimen– was some sort of tracking device. He has apparently decided Kit is some sort of spy; he questioned him about who he was with and who sent him–Russians? East Germans? The CIA? The Jews?  

Sister Jude finally starts calling bullshit on Dr. Arden …but is it too late?

4. We also learned a lesson that poor Shelley learned far too late:  if Dr. Arden wants to have sex with you, just humor him, no matter how revolting, vile, and unfuckable he is, it’s still better than the alternative. And whatever you do, no matter how tempting it is,and how much he deserves to be made to feel like a pathetic excuse for a man, don’t laugh at or make fun of his penis size (or lack thereof). I was positive she was not going to live to see the end of the episode after that, but instead, he reminded her (and us) that you don’t have to die to go to hell.

Now we know why having Chloë Sevigny pose this way was foreshadowing… look at the legs. EEEEEEEK!

5.  The Raspers are apparently named that because of the sounds they make. We probably suspected this before, but after I watched the episode, I re-watched with closed captions, and they read [RASPY BREATHING] when we saw one of them lurking in the woods when Sister Mary Eunice fed them. Their dinner was that poor Hispanic woman who not only got stabbed to death with scissors, but was also only referred to as “That Mexican” by the staff. Speaking of that meal…

6. The demon in Sister Mary Eunice (that kind of has a cool ring to it, doesn’t it? Could be a great 60s-70s movie title: The Demon In Sister Mary Eunice) even seemed to make a choice to keep her/its distance from The Raspers.  She didn’t have her usual devilish smile,  plus she looked to be keeping an eye out –and I doubt it was because she cared if Sister Jude or another hospital staff member saw her.  After she unceremoniously dumped their fresh dinner out of her wheelbarrow and onto the ground for them, we noticed she didn’t turn her back on them – she took several steps backwards before a cutaway.

7. Sister Jude and alcohol do not mix well. Here’s my transcript of the entirety of her amazing monologue which had its hilarious moments but also showed she has a heart, and is a woman capable of feeling sadness and guilt. It started when she walked unsteadily into the makeshift movie theater completely hammered and blowing her whistle, which already sounded a tad off…

Sister Jude:  Take your seats. Take your seats! No more dilly-dally.  SIT DOWN.  SIDDOWN!  (brief exchange with guard about ‘missing Mexican’)
Welcome, one and all to Briarcliff Manor’s inaugural movie night! Heh. Whether this evening marks the start of a beloved tra—tradition, or just another bitter disappointment,  is entirely up to you! (Pulls out notes). Now! Settle in, relax, and return with me now to Ancient Rome as we  present the 1932 Cecile B. DeMille classic, “The Signs of the Cross”, starring Miss Claudette Colbert as the empress Pop-pia or…Pohpia, and as the Emperor Nero, the incomparable Mr. Charles Laughton, who I understand is an enormous whoopsie. (Thunder scares inmates)   No no, no! None of that! None of that. Chin up! Chin up high. Hey! (giggles, actually looks happy).  Don’t be afraid of the dark. At the end …of the storm… is a golden sky and a bright silver song of a lark… walk on though the wind  …walk on through the rain (clasp’s Pepper’s face and beams at her) …though your dreams may be tossed and blown, walk on! Walk on, with hope… in your heart… (voice breaks) and you’ll never walk alone… you’ll never …walk… (Lana and Dr. Thredson exchange concerned looks) ...but she was alone.  A tiny little fragile thing out, out in the world …in the gloaming… (continuing to unravel and losing her battle to fight back tears)  …and the storm that came was not rain and not wind, it was something… altogether else… (Even louder thunder-clap.  Sister Jude gasps and manages to pull herself back together)  LIGHTS!  I’m off to find the Mexican. (strides out)

Dr. Thredson: What the hell was that?
Lana: She’s bats, or haven’t you noticed?

That was a flawless, well-written monologue, and unsurprisingly, Jessica Lange absolutely nailed it. I needed to watch it half a dozen times to get it all down and transcribe it, and I loved watching it every time.

8. Sister Jude took her vows shortly after the hit-and-run,  and the date on the newspaper with the girl’s photo and the headline that indicated she had been “Missing Six Days” was June 28, 1949. So now we know the hit-and-run happened on or about June 26th …and that Sister Jude has been a nun for fifteen years.

Sister Jude: Movie night is at an end!
Patient: But the movie ain’t over yet.
Sister Jude: Yeah, everybody dies. Satisfied?

 

9. When we got a look at the giant thing in the hall that made Sister Jude scream and then pass out, it was obvious that unlike The Raspers, it was never human and that it might be an alien; we catch a glimpse of some long insect-like limb unfolding when we got a brief partial view. I try to write these before I read recaps, reviews, and EW.com’s post-show interviews with Ryan Murphy, but I had to check on this, and Murphy has confirmed yes, that was the alien that Sister Jude ran into. When Demon-Sister Mary wakes her, she says, “Oh my God, they’ve seen it too.”


10. And finally, we learned something most horror fans already knew: Don’t ever try to liven up your honeymoon by having sex in an abandoned mental institution that you know is supposed to be haunted and  housed a notorious serial killer. You will end up being killed. Bad idea. Actually, they were screwed when they went in there in the first place, but they were really pushing it. Jesus, what went wrong with your life where the biggest turn-on is having sex on an electroshock table in a “death chute” where you just read 42,000 people have died? There’s kinky, and then there’s just idiotic (not to mention bad karma).  Three of the Bloody Faces were guys wearing masks, Bloody Face #1  was knocked over by Leo (still trying to protect his new wife, even with one arm), then stabbed a dozen times by his bride, with that icepick-like, sharp tool used to give trans-orbital lobotomies, no less.
Just when it looked like they might make it out alive, two other “Bloody Faces” named Cooper and Devon showed up, and Devon shot both the honeymooners dead. Cooper was upset at “taking things too far”, but Devon, who appeared to be hopped up on speed, loved it and tried to justify it to Cooper by saying that was what they got “for stabbing Joey”. Then they noticed Leo’s arm had been ripped off. Uh-oh.  Now who the hell could have… practically before the sentence is out of Cooper’s mouth, the real Bloody Face (or not, he didn’t attack them yet, but the two guys looked pretty scared) shows up. We don’t know yet if the guys were out of their minds, out of their minds on meth, part of a cult, pulling a really ill-advised prank, if it was some it was some kind of freaky initiation, or some combination of all of the above. Anyway, it probably could have been avoided if the two had just taken a photo or two and left. Or never gone inside at all. Bad idea even if you’re NOT in a horror movie/series.

Sister Mary Eunice: I can’t imagine what you’re so afraid of! Get on your knees and we’ll pray it all away…

Stray Thoughts:

  • I’d buy a lipstick in a shade called “Ravish-Me Red.” Some cosmetics company should do a tie-in. They did it with True Blood  last season( though all the colors were goth and overpriced, so I didn’t pick any up).
  • I think if I had to have a choice between Dr. Arden and the Demon, I’d pick the Demon. The Demon is scary as hell, and murderous, but at least the demon has a sense of humor and you’ll probably get a quick death. Also, it hasn’t tried to rape anybody yet.
  • I love Sister Jude’s phone greeting: “Briarcliff Manor!”
  • My current theory on Dr. Arden and The Raspers  (that could be a band name. Hey, Dr. Arden and The Raspers are doing a show at The Crocodile next month. Yeah, the cover charge is 15 bucks,  you think they could put us on the guest list? ) is: Dr. Arden was indeed a Nazi and is now a war criminal due to the ungodly experiments, unusually cruel and sick, that he performed on prisoners. He’s been conducting horrible, blood-curdling medical experiments on patients at Briarcliff, probably going back to when it was a tuberculosis hospital, maybe giving them diseases like syphilis or gangrene. I think his goal (“we just have to get them through the winter”, he told Demon-Sister Mary) is to construct some kind of super-human “master race,” impervious to illness, that is very hard to kill (they did look pretty tough and chased Kit, Grace, and Lana at a very high speed).  And Shelley is his next victim, she’ll end up one of the raspers, will be way past saving, and she’ll end up killing a main character and eating them, or a main character will kill her because 1. they don’t recognize her or 2. they do recognize her and give her a mercy killing.  I also wouldn’t be surprised if they “rasp” because they survived tuberculosis and/or had their tongues or vocal chords cut out. Jesus, how did my brain come up with all of that sick shit as my theory? Guess I’ve been watching too many horror movies…
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Ten Things We Learned from American Horror Story Asylum, Episode Two – “Tricks and Treats” (SPOILERS)

25 October 2012

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“I-I’m a schoolteacher. The children– they won’t understand!”   -Helen

Consider yourself spoiler-alerted!   If you haven’t seen S02/E02 yet and plan to, don’t read this until after watching!

1.  As revealed by the demon-possessed Jeb Potter during his exorcism, Sister Jude’s troubled past did indeed involve alcohol and sex.  Demon-Jeb starts by pointing out with accuracy that he knows it drives her crazy to be the smartest one in the room, yet knowing she’ll never have any power because she’s not a man (though he uses WAY less tactful words). He also knows she’s wearing red ‘knickers’ (funny how he uses the word knickers, which I think is a pretty wholesome way to refer to underwear, even in 1964, but everything else that came out of his mouth when he was talking to her was so raunchy I was shocked it made it past the FX censors)*  and calls her a whore, but we don’t know yet whether she literally turned tricks (I doubt it) or just, well, really got around because she was lonely and drank a lot. We see in flashback that she was a slightly down-scale lounge singer who spent plenty of time drowning her sorrows and according to Demon-Jeb, blew 53 men  (not all at the same time).  After a rough night, she was so drunk driving home that she plowed into some poor little girl on a bicycle, killing her, but didn’t even get out of the car, just drove home …and I assume that was when Sister Jude decided to make some big lifestyle changes.

2. Dr. Arden is a vile, misogynistic, evil perverted ratfuck who calls all women who don’t wear nun’s habits sluts and dirty whores, sometimes to their face.  I’m also pretty sure those brains in jars he keeps in his office weren’t obtained through the traditional channels by medical science. He has an extremely creepy (even for  American Horror Story ), not-so-subtle sexual obsession with Sister Eunice.


3. (continued here to avoid #2 turning into a novella-length essay). He might as well have spit on Shelley (more on her later) when she was trying to trade sexual favors for even five minutes of fresh air and sunlight.  When he hired a high-class call girl for ninety minutes, he scared the hell out of her even before he told her to take off her makeup and dress in a nun’s habit. For some crazy reason, she didn’t lock the door before opening up a box on his dresser (maybe she was hoping to find some weed or pills in there, which I sure as hell wouldn’t blame her for in order to prepare for having sex with him; NO amount of money is worth being alone in a bedroom with this bullying prick). Inside was a dirty booklet called Fetters that had a more hardcore version of Bettie Page-type bondage photos. Much creepier, she found actual black-and-white photographs of women tied up …on what appeared to be hospital beds. The last few personal photos she saw showed the women’s (or men’s, they were pretty messed-up)  mutilated faces and body parts. Actually, they could have been corpses.

“Men like sex, and no-one calls them whores.”  -Shelley

5. Sister Jude doesn’t know about the ‘raspers’ in the woods (who also seem to have a ominously increasing appetite);  the only nun who takes the food out to them is Sister Eunice (Dr. Arden makes a point of instructing her not to say a word about it to Sister Jude).

6. Unless something really  weird is going on (I can’t think of any rational explanation so far), we now know Kit cannot be Bloody Face… at least the version that killed Lana’s lover/partner, Barb.  He was locked up (REALLY locked up) in Briarcliff when Barb, who made a really bad judgment call when it came to home security, was attacked and almost certainly murdered by Bloody Face the night before Halloween. Lana is still convinced Kit is the killer, seemingly based on no evidence at all other than hearsay at this point.

“It’s a madhouse, doctor. What did you expect?”  -Sister Jude

7.  Speaking of Bloody Face, we find out (as far as we know) that he only kills women. He also decapitates them in addition to skinning them …hopefully in that order.

8. Shelley’s back story (according to her, and I believe her) is that she’s loved sex ever since she was five years old when she, uh, started playing doctor with herself (she says that after that, her mother made her wear mittens to bed). She later ran away from home and met some jazz musicians (“free thinkers”) and fell in love with the bass player –mistake. As soon as he put a ring on her finger, Shelley was his property (“he could screw every Betty in town and I had to stay home and scrub his dirty drawers”).  So when the fleet was in for the week, he came home and found her in bed with two Navy guys. When she got caught red-handed, she told him that “it’s not for self, but for country”. Then he ‘decked’ her flat-out, threw her in his car and had her locked up in Briarcliff. Shelley says her crime is liking sex, and the sickest thing is that he was allowed to have her tossed in the asylum for it.  We fucking agree.

Lana: I don’t need those, Sister, I have an excellent memory!
Sister Jude: Yeah? We’ll just see about that.

9. Dr  Thredson has something dark in his past. When Demon-Jeb suddenly speaks to him in an old woman’s voice saying, “Oliver, when I look at what you’ve become, I’m glad I gave you up,” he pulls back quickly and is visibly shaken.

10. When the demon left Jeb’s body, sister Eunice fainted and the next we saw her, it was pretty clear the possession was transferred into her. She was not in the least bit shy or modest with Dr. Arden and when he left, flustered, she tossed off her blanket again and a crucifix on the wall rattled on its nail for a moment. Also, when he woke her up and she acted startled, the sound that came out of her sounded more like a hiss than the gasp that the closed captioning indicated.

Stray Thoughts:

  • When Ryan Murphy started giving details in the press about this season, he said there would be no supernatural horror. I was willing to put aliens in a gray area, but demonic possession, not so much. Knowing the darkest secrets of church members and medical professionals? Check. Throwing people across the room with telekinetic powers? Check. Other people’s voices coming out of his mouth? Check. Levitating? Check. It’s dawning on me as I write this that he meant the FOCUS would be on psychological horror.
  • The same writer/s that wrote for Constance Langdon must be having a blast writing for Sister Jude this year. I love her entertaining nicknames like “Lana Banana,” her steely threats that are backed up by following through on them, and in this episode, chastising Pepper (the murderous pinhead) for keeping food in her cell. “Now if you could just get that through that pointy little head of yours…”
  • Jessica Lange looks fantastic and glamorous in bright red.  That’s a hard color to pull off without either looking tacky, or like a politician’s wife (though our current First Lady also really makes it pop).
  • I got curious about the actress portraying a certain Briarcliff inmate. Check out the attractive actress in the below photos:

Naomi Grossman as…

Gabba Gabba HEY!

That is one brave woman. I saw her demo reel on IMDB,  and there’s a couple freaky clips in there, but nothing like THIS I have no idea how they got her to look like that (besides a great job with prosthetics). CGI? Bald cap? Did they just shave her head because she turned out to have a pointy-shaped skull?  I don’t know, but that’s an impressive job on the part of everyone involved.

* Oh, you can talk about fifty-three cocks in her mouth, but calling knickers panties? That’s where we draw the line!

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