TV Review: ‘American Horror Story: Coven’

UPDATE: Above link not working? Try clicking here instead for the Variety review, which we would consider slightly spoiler-ish.

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Oh “torture porn” our ass, Brian Lowry. Sounds to us like American Horror Story Coven just hits the ground running. We’ll be able to judge for ourselves soon enough!

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‘American Horror Story’: Ryan Murphy on why ‘Coven’ is the best season

Like Ryan Murphy really needs to sell us on this, right? You had us at ‘American Horror Story Coven,’ dude!  Less than 48 hours left!

 

DO NOT Miss This New American Horror Story Coven Trailer! LaLaurie Horrors VS. Marie Leveau – IT’S ON!

We were wondering (and dreading) when the American Horror Story Coven teasers (besides ‘Pins and Needles’, one of the earliest) would show or even hint at the horrors Delphine La Laurie (Kathy Bates) was capable of. We also wanted to see more of Angela Basset as Marie Leveau. Here in this “Mythology” trailer, we get both…

It also looks like Lily Rabe‘s character might not make it past the pilot, witch which would explain why her name is not on any of the posters (color us seriously bummed).

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The spot starts off with these shots of Fiona Goode (Jessica Lange), in an especially beautiful and striking shot:

"There's a storm coming..."

“There’s a storm coming…”

Then LaLaurie  entering her personally-created chamber of horrors (and yes, that’s blood smeared on her face in the promo; slave’s blood as a beauty cream), holding a candle and looking full of rapture…

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Which is much more disturbing that an evil look, when you get glimpses of what sights have her so joyous…

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Pretty sure which LaLaurie victim this is by looking at the claw-like hand, but we’re not comfortable describing that particular event/torture

Pretty sure that's her doctor husband beside her, who helped out when it came to more technical things like breaking and re-forming the limbs of her victims into grotesque shapes, and you know what, that's enough speculation on that subject for now

Pretty sure that’s her doctor husband beside her, who helped out when it came to more technical things like breaking and re-forming the limbs of her victims into grotesque shapes, and you know what, that’s enough speculation on that subject for now

There’s some shots of ugly fundamentalist, hateful religious nuts that wouldn’t be out-of-place in the True Blood opening credit sequence. We also see Leveau looking ready to unleash her wrath, with Angela Basset looking beautiful and seething:

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Followed by an awesome closing shot (that just puts the icing on the fucking bad-ass cake*) of a swamp alligator snapping its jaws around what looks like the entire upper half of a man and dragging him speedily into the water.

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He probably deserved it.

BAM! TITLE CARDS! Hot Damn! Less than a week till the premiere, “Bitchcraft”, On October 9th! Who else gets a big adrenaline surge just thinking about that?  Oh YES!

KICK SOME ASS, MARIE!

KICK SOME ASS, MARIE!

Here’s the PR synopsis/pitch again for American Horror Story Coven from FX:

Coven tells the secret history of witches and witchcraft in America. Over 300 years have passed since the turbulent days of the Salem witch trials and those who managed to escape are now facing extinction. Mysterious attacks have been escalating against their kind and young girls are being sent away to a special school in New Orleans to learn how to protect themselves. Wrapped up in the turmoil is new arrival, Zoe (Farmiga), who is harboring a terrifying secret of her own. Alarmed by the recent aggression, Fiona (Lange), the long-absent Supreme, sweeps back into town, determined to protect the Coven and hell-bent on decimating anyone who gets in her way.

So, looks like it must be The Season of the Witch for American Horror Story this year, huh? (See what we did ther–Ow! Hey, who threw that?)

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*It took SERIOUS self-restraint to only use the word ‘fuck’ once in this piece. Oops, that’s twice, guess we bumped this to an R-rating now. Hell!