American Horror Story: Season 8 (DVD) – Series Review
Follow Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Episodes: 10
Duration: 40 minutes (per episode)

American Horror Story: Season 8 (DVD) – Series Review

Site Score
8.8
Good: Story, Acting performances, Atmosphere
Bad: Does stray away a bit from the normal formula
User Score
7.5
(4 votes)
Click to vote
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 7.5/10 (4 votes cast)

American Horror Story seemingly came to an end after the eighth season, especially with the storylines that seemed to intertwine with events that occurred in the previous seasons. Fans can rest easy, as it seems the series has been prolonged until the credits of the tenth season start rolling. Nonetheless, AHS: Apocalypse aired from September 2018 to November 2018 and has now released the physical edition for this season. We were lucky enough to revisit the series, to watch our world burn down to usher in the end of days.

The story of the eighth season starts off fairly simple. We’ll keep this section as spoiler-free as possible, but to give at least a small indication of what the season will bring, we’ll have to resort to some minor spoilers. The season begins with an impending nuclear strike, that will destroy our world as we know it. To survive, only a select group of chosen people will be allowed access to underground shelters created by the Cooperative, a secret group of highly ranked people who pull the strings of whatever is going on. Nonetheless, the survival of the humankind now rests in the hands of those with perfect genes, and the rich who were able to buy themselves a safe spot.

This brings us to a small group of survivors who are placed in outpost three. The group is an unlikely match, as you’ll have a washed-up senior actress, a talk show host, a young student, a hairdresser, an assistant, and so on, in one place. All these people fall under the leadership of Miss Venable (Sarah Paulson), who rules the outpost with an iron fist. Sexual content is not allowed, and there are mandatory events that have to be respected. At least, the outpost seems to be running ‘smoothly’, until the appearance of Michael Langdon (Cody Fern), a member of the Cooperative who arrives at outpost 3, to select those worthy of surviving the end of times. The season may start with the survival in the outposts, it eventually warps back to the witches of the Coven storyline, and even to the Murder House arc.

The flow of this season is somewhat different than all the previous ones. There’s a lot of time-hopping going on, where we switch back and forth between different events which led to the destruction of humankind. There are also a lot of tie-ins with the previous seasons, involving the witches from the Coven and the spirits of the Murder House. This creates an interesting circle with the previous seasons and makes this a very strong entry in the series. You’ll get more than enough information to work with as you’ll get proper closure on many fronts, and the season becomes a lot more than a simple ‘end of days’ story. We were intrigued by episode one, but we dared not blink our eyes at the end of this season, to make sure we didn’t miss a thing. The buildup was perfect for this season, and perhaps this should have been the finale of the series after all.

It has always been rather interesting to see the cast of AHS take on a different role throughout the many seasons of the show. The cast has always succeeded in their performance, and it also showed the diversity of the different actresses and actors. This season does take the cake when it comes to the performances, as many cast members will have to play multiple characters throughout this season alone. Some revisit their roles of earlier seasons, while others simply play multiple characters and this is simply formidably handled.

Sadly, the physical edition of the eighth season doesn’t come with any special features at all. There’s nothing extra included, not even trailers, interviews or deleted scenes. The DVD release is barren and that’s honestly a shame. It could have been interesting to see how the cast felt to perform different characters in a single season, or why they went with a tie-in this season, and so on.

Conclusion

American Horror Story: Season 8 might just be the best entry in the series for some viewers. While arguably, this season does not have a completely separate story, as it ties in elements from the previous seasons, it could have served as a great final season. With the series being prolonged, some might argue this story should have been kept as the finale, we hope that the future of the series perhaps revisits the end of this season, in order to continue the story. Speculations and hopes aside, we can wholeheartedly recommend the eighth season, we only find it sad that the physical edition comes without any extra content.

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 7.5/10 (4 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)
American Horror Story: Season 8 (DVD) - Series Review, 7.5 out of 10 based on 4 ratings
Ibuki


Aspiring ninja.

No Comments

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.