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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
102
Mixed:
60
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews
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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Sep 22, 2023
Season 12 Review:
It’s a rather tedious affair, but somehow Kardashian’s performance proves there’s room for something bolder, battier, and bloodier lurking within the body of this season. Perhaps the best way for Delicate to solve its nuance problem is to double down and do away with it altogether.
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Sep 21, 2023
Sep 21, 2023
Season 12 Review:
Frankly, keeping track of the various incarnations of this series has at times felt like its own kind of ordeal, requiring attention (from critics, anyway) because of its inexplicable popularity despite being as subtle as a blow to the head with a bag of hammers. “Delicate” might not fully alter that dynamic, but the eerie qualities of the premiere at least establish it as the kind of introduction that spurs curiosity, as Cohen might put it, to watch what happens next.
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Sep 21, 2023
Season 12 Review:
AHS: Delicate has the potential to be a good installment of American Horror Story, because of good performances from Roberts and Kim K. But there are also a lot of red flags that indicate that the season may get too weighed down in the pop culture aspect of Roberts’ character at the sacrifice of actual blood and horror.
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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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Sep 13, 2018
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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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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Sep 6, 2017
Season 7 Review:
Unsurprisingly, though, it is not Cult’s take on Trump voters that has any real frisson. Murphy doesn’t respect that point of view enough to make it sound like anything other than raving semi-philosophy. But the show is more scathing about liberals and Ally in particular.
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Sep 5, 2017
Season 7 Review:
American Horror Story: Cult clearly intends to be provocative, using the toxic partisan political divide -- beginning with the 2016 presidential election -- as its jumping-off point. But producer Ryan Murphy's anthology series is too blunt an instrument to effectively probe that terrain, using the equivalent of an axe where a scalpel is required.
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ColliderSep 5, 2017
Season 7 Review:
The metaphors may be a problematic mess (I’ll wait to see the whole series before making any judgment), but there’s a crackling energy to Cult as it explores the consequences of a society desperate to assign blame for consequences we don’t even fully understand yet. Cult mines satire out of a real-life farce, and finds terror there too.
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Sep 5, 2017
Season 7 Review:
Paulson and Peters are electric the few times they’re onscreen together, two political-extremist poles that magnetically attract. I suspect these first three episodes might constitute an extended prologue, frustratingly similar to how the first half of Roanoke was an overextended set-up for the perspective-shifting madness of the final episodes.
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Sep 5, 2017
Season 7 Review:
The fears fueling Cult are internal and externalized in an intensely gruesome fashion. It feels like just the ticket at some points, and at many others, seems too unsustainable to bear for an entire season. Its relative appeal, then, feels like a moment-to-moment determination.
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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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RogerEbert.comSep 5, 2017
Season 7 Review:
It’s about the instability that has unearthed itself from the ground since Donald J. Trump was elected, one that feeds our greatest fears, from either side of the aisle, and, while it sometimes displays Murphy's go-for-broke inconsistency of character and style, it also makes for very fascinating television.
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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 1, 2017
Season 7 Review:
This show is trying to do a lot. Some may find that approach excessive and the idea of Grand-Guignol–ing what’s happening in our country a little crass, especially since the show takes some pretty pointed jabs at progressives. Others, especially those well-versed in the series’ over-the-top sensibility and drily snarky humor, will dig into it all with complete relish ... The whole cast is terrific, but the series is (no surprise) a real showcase for Paulson, who’s a bundle of jangled nerves and teary-eyed fear.
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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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Aug 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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IndieWireAug 31, 2017
Season 7 Review:
Even if you buy into Ally as an ignorant figure from 2016, “AHS” feels dated, and it surely doesn’t make for compelling TV. For horror fans uncaring of political relevance or accurate representation, it should be noted that American Horror Story: Cult is also quite boring. ... The politics of fear may work, but the twisted logic in this futile exercise falls apart quickly.
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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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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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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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Sep 15, 2016Sep 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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Sep 15, 2016
Season 6 Review:
All of that is clever, but after watching last night’s episode, I’m still not sure whether this season can accomplish what earlier seasons of American Horror Story and this summer’s Stranger Things did: spin all those embedded references into something engrossingly new. One of the problems of the documentary-style approach is that it automatically sucks some of the tension out of what we’re watching.
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IndieWireSep 15, 2016
Season 6 Review:
Murphy and Falchuk didn’t exactly sell a whole new “Horror Story” in the first hour, but what’s here marks an effort to try something new in a franchise that both reinvents itself every season and remains frustratingly similar. ... "My Roanoke Nightmare” is a promising start with a central mystery as tantalizing as the ads teasing it.
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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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Oct 8, 2015
Season 5 Review:
Although the first episode runs for a bloated 90 minutes, it provides only scant hints of a main plot thread.... So once again, I'm confronted with an AHS season that appears to be more gross than engrossing. Alas, I may not be able to check out of the Hotel Cortez, but at least I can change the channel.
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IndieWireOct 7, 2015
Season 5 Review:
Aside from the always sterling production design--there is one audacious sign of hope in this otherwise trite Hotel.... I wouldn't go so far as to say Gaga's talent adds much to the proceedings, but her presence--and the manner in which its captured — certainly does.
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Oct 7, 2015
Season 5 Review:
I found the first episode (the only one sent out to critics; gosh, I wonder why) confusing, tedious, annoyingly precious, and often ostentatiously brutal, with even clunkier-than-usual dialogue (more so than previous seasons; consider yourself warned), but also darkly beautiful, deeply weird, and (sometimes) exhilarating.
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Oct 7, 2015
Season 5 Review:
Unlike some seasons of “AHS,” Hotel lacks dark humor, at least in tonight’s initial outing.... Visually, the premiere episode is a stunner, from the hotel set to the use of a fish-eye lens on the camera that squeezes so much into the frame.... Heavy on atmosphere in its early going and light on plot, a storyline starts to kick in around the premiere’s halfway point.
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Oct 7, 2015
Season 5 Review:
AHS: Hotel more obviously resembles the first two, better seasons of American Horror Story than it does the latter, lesser two.... John provides the note of contrast and relief so delicious in the early goings of a scary story: the skeptical person who does not yet know fear, and who, for just a little while, is safe to hang around with.
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Oct 7, 2015
Season 5 Review:
[Creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk] want to horrify and disgust their audience, pushing well into the realm of slasher porn as perversions, sexual and otherwise, bleed into pleasure killings. Disturbing us is the point, of course, but good horror stories go beyond grotesqueries and gore. American Horror Story: Hotel may do that.
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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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Oct 7, 2015
Season 5 Review:
As an actress, Lady Gaga wears clothes very well. That’s not the dis it seems. The extended 90-minute premiere doesn’t give her much chance to act, or speak, for that matter.... As Dr. Alex Lowe, John’s estranged wife, returning player Chloe Sevigny provides a welcome balance to the over-the-top bloodletting, but as good as she is, the bad soap opera dialogue just proves Murphy and Falchuk have no interest in writing “normal,” whatever that is. They’re here to deliver spectacle.
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Oct 6, 2015
Season 5 Review:
[Lady Gaga] purrs like no other American Horror Story cast member has, turning the arch dialogue into something spellbinding, maybe even sexy.... More interesting than its tepid attempts at horror, and its even lousier ones at humor, is that American Horror Story is examining history through subjective perspective, art, architecture, and so on.
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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 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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RogerEbert.comOct 6, 2015
Season 5 Review:
American Horror Story: Hotel is cluttered, unfocused, ridiculous, and silly, but it is very self-aware and stunningly confident at the same time. Murphy and Falchuk almost dare you not to join in the chaos, and it certainly feels more assured than the inconsistent “Freak Show.”
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Oct 6, 2015
Season 5 Review:
Like the previous four "AHS" editions, the fifth is a visual feast (which is probably the wrong word here, but you get the idea). Everything--everyone, and not just Gaga--is eroticized, too. Even the shadows are seductive. A shame that it all feels so grim and joyless.
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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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RogerEbert.comOct 8, 2014
Season 4 Review:
The overall narrative is a bit lacking, just as you don’t go to a circus show in the hope of seeing all the various acts tied together through storytelling. Yes, there’s a murder to hide, a few secrets for each of the major characters, and Murphy’s overall arc of the outcast who holds more humanity than the “normal people,” but I hope the actual storytelling of American Horror Story: Freak Show improves in subsequent episodes.
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Oct 8, 2014
Season 4 Review:
Based solely on the premiere, American Horror Story: Freak Show might rate a rave, or at least a "great if you like this sort of thing." But since the first season, I've learned that Murphy and Falchuk don't reliably follow the path they start down, often seeming to prefer to gross viewers out than tell a coherent story.
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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 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 6, 2014
Oct 24, 2013
Season 3 Review:
Despite its cheap shock effects, the show is indulgently ridiculous. [[28 Oct 2013, p.41]
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