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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
102
Mixed:
60
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews
Sep 15, 2016
Season 6 Review:
None of it innovated on horror tradition--echoes of The Blair Witch Project, The Hills Have Eyes, and The Amityville Horror abounded--but the creep-outs were executed with careful timing and visual flair. The documentary aspect and the limited cast size thus far has also offered convincing, grounded characterization of the leads--and more importantly, characterization of their relationships.
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Oct 8, 2015
Season 5 Review:
If this all sounds immensely convoluted and sadistic, well, welcome to American Horror Story. But there’s reason to hope that this will be among the better messes the show has served up.... Hotel’s premiere returned to the frightening essentials--death, desire, and property deeds.
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The Daily BeastOct 26, 2023
Season 12 Review:
It’s Kim Kardashian who makes this season truly worth watching. Her affected line readings and familiar face might make it hard to take the show completely seriously, but that’s exactly what AHS needs: a season that has given up on trying to be anything more than good, campy fun.
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The Daily BeastOct 20, 2022
Season 11 Review:
AHS: NYC has all the Murphy-esque signatures, and more: It's sexy, it's salacious, and it's subversive—not least because of the era and the community in which it's set. Like most seasons of this show, NYC starts strong, though it's difficult at this point to say exactly what's going on.
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The Daily BeastSep 13, 2018
Season 8 Review:
Vignettes of people reacting to the world’s end carried more emotional heft than Horror Story is known for, and the depravity that follows doomsday is, as depicted here, suitably chilling. Yet at the same time, we’re watching Leslie Grossman shriek hilariously entitled freakouts and Joan Collins purr sassy one-liners while a Ryan Murphy-approved troupe of impeccably bone-structured twinks preen in fabulous clothes (and occasionally without!). It’s fun!
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The Daily BeastSep 6, 2017
Season 7 Review:
The concept for Tuesday night’s premiere of American Horror Story: Cult is so on-the-nose it can only be called brilliant. ... A murder investigation (led by Colton Haynes), and also a dizzying array of new plot points that distract from what works the best about this standout first episode: the crippling battle between politics and paranoia.
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The Daily BeastOct 9, 2014
Season 4 Review:
It’s hardly [his crowning achievement], lacking the aggressive whimsy and emboldened storytelling that’s made him the pied piper to a nation of TV-watching weirdos, mocked and ignored. But there’s a seriousness with which he’s given this first Freak Show outing that actually piques more of a curiosity than trotting out the expected onslaught of spooks, one-liners, and cheekiness could’ve possibly be done at this point in the American Horror Story run.
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Sep 21, 2023Sep 13, 2018Aug 31, 2017
Season 7 Review:
So far, I'm properly disturbed by Murphy and company's much-too-close-to-home allegory, amused by some of the sharp social satire and endlessly impressed by Sarah Paulson. That should keep me with American Horror Story: Cult longer than I've stuck with several other seasons.
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Sep 15, 2016
Season 6 Review:
If you tuned in for the start of "My Roanoke Nightmare," chances are good that you'll continue with it because it was a lot of ground-laying, but almost none of the excess that the show is known for. ... Beyond the atmospheric set-up, the "My Roanoke Nightmare" was worth watching just for the initial casting fun, always an AHS staple.
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Oct 6, 2015
Season 5 Review:
Early on, Hotel hasn't hooked me with its storytelling, but it's always fun to see what the series does with its repertory acting company and with new additions. Throw in the normal grotesquerie and visual panache and that should keep me going for a while, even if all of the humor appears to have been funneled into Scream Queens.
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Oct 8, 2013
Season 3 Review:
Fish-eye lenses and rotating cameras don't feel at home here as in other installments, and things aren't creepy so much as grotesque. Still, there are a number of decent effects and a healthy dose of humor that keep things moving along in an entertaining way. Eventually, the many stories find their way together, which helps propel the premiere to its promising finish.
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Oct 6, 2015
Season 5 Review:
That set is easily the most interesting thing about the show so far.... In Ms. Lange’s absence, the role of malevolent den mother appears to have gone to Lady Gaga, and that’s a pretty steep drop-off. Other members of the Horror Story repertory company return and continue to do amusing work, however. The story they inhabit this time around barely comes into focus in the first episode, which plays like a series of vignettes with only the loosest of connections.
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Oct 7, 2014
Season 4 Review:
It still has plenty of clever touches in word and picture.... But it’s not particularly scary, and doesn’t even feel that creepy or freakish, despite the sideshow setting and the obvious attempt to emulate one of the eeriest of American movies, Tod Browning’s “Freaks,” from 1932.
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Oct 4, 2011
Season 1 Review:
American Horror Story has the potential to be a lot of fun, if that style and cleverness can be eventually coupled with characters we care about and a narrative that feels less like a haunted house sampler, stitched with threads of Stephen King, Hammer Films and Lars von Trier's TV series "The Kingdom."
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Sep 5, 2017
Season 7 Review:
Perhaps best of all, it really is a horror story. One that uses artful cinematography and remarkable performances (Grossman and Paulson are best in show) to remind sympathetic viewers of the foreboding dread that hasn't abided since last year and to gin up pit-of-the-gut outright terror.
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Sep 15, 2016
Season 6 Review:
A lot of this was great fun. ... The grace notes the show allowed itself--the witty depiction of Shelby as a bougie yoga lover who likes her evening glass of wine maybe a little too much, the unapologetic plot holes that garishly remind you that yes, this is a horror story--were actually allowed to resonate, rather than being muffled by too much too-muchness.
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Oct 9, 2013
Season 3 Review:
I’m less sure what the season will do with the potentially volatile racial themes the premiere hints at. But AHS seasons have always thrived on the philosophy of risk and excess. So far, the first episode of Coven is a stylish introduction (complete with black hats).
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Uncle BarkyAug 31, 2017
Season 7 Review:
Through it all, Peters again excels--performance-wise, at least--as a Trump acolyte whose fires burn white hot from election night on. His full investments in deranged characters remain a wonder to behold. But as Kai’s manipulations thicken, so do AHS: Cult’s overall misfires and excesses.
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Sep 13, 2018
Season 8 Review:
It’s early yet, but the moments of genuine pain gleaned from the first moments of the episode redeem the somewhat aimless, camping next 45 minutes. ... In the absence of a greater theme announcing itself, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, ringing in the end of days with weird hairdos and an unbelievable story of the devil himself, counts as something close to escapism.
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Oct 7, 2014
Season 4 Review:
Homicidal clown Twisty (John Carroll Lynch puts the horror back in Horror Story, and runs neck and neck (and neck) with Paulson’s Tattler twins as “Freak Show’s” most intriguing breakout character.... Elsa initially comes off as more cartoonish and less complex than Lange’s previous turns. That changes for the better once Lange lays bare the vulnerability beneath Elsa’s hardened exterior in a few poignant scene.
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Oct 7, 2013
Season 3 Review:
As with all three incarnations of AHS, there are some beautiful images (courtesy of director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and cinematographer Michael Goi), and Murphy and Falchuk’s script exhibits a knowing familiarity with the genre. Still, there’s always something unsavory about using the supernatural as a shield to indulge in sex-laced sadism, which has become a common and frankly rather tired aspect of the whole latex-clad-gimp streak running through the series.
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Sep 5, 2017
Season 7 Review:
You’ll have to sit through a few lackluster episodes before American Horror Story: Cult becomes truly enjoyable, but if you’re a fan of the show, it’ll be worth it. Seeming to have found itself with episode four, it’ll certainly be exciting to see if the season can continue its upward trend from here.
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Sep 15, 2016
Season 6 Review:
The whole thing is staged in a strange and somewhat discombobulating manner--with act breaks that carry a logo and the name “My Roanoake Nightmare,” the season feels like a reality show. ... This one, on the other hand, has the potential to excel as something American Horror Story has never been: a simple scary story, an old campfire tale delivered in a modern manner but still loyal to the more clear-eyed, heart-in-mouth horror of the unknown.
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Oct 7, 2015
Season 5 Review:
It’s both aware of its chaos and totally unconcerned with taming it--and whether or not you have an appetite for whatever fresh hell Murphy and Falchuk have cooked up this season will largely depend on your ability to just sit down and enjoy what American Horror Story has already become: a threadbare yarn, extravagantly told.
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Sep 15, 2016
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