Tonight American Horror Story Season 4 premieres, hot on the heels of the recent announcement of the O.J. Simpson themed spin-off, American Crime Story. Recently, AHS creator, Ryan Murphy spoke up about how Jessica Lange helped decides this seasons Freak Show theme.
The official plot synopsis for tonight’s Season 4 premiere, titled “Monsters Among Us," reads:
“Police make a grim discovery at a farmhouse in the Season 4 premiere.”
Recently, series co-creator, Ryan Murphy spoke with Entertainment Weekly about this year's new theme, and how Jessica Lange was involved in the process:
“It’s something that Jessica she had always talked about it. Jessica’s a photographer so she had always been interested in that carny world. If you look at her photography, she’s always interested in the lost and the forgotten and the beautiful survivor of it all. We talked about it like every couple of weeks. She sent me a book actually. I once I started investigating it I really loved the idea of it because I felt it was such a ripe world. The carny world, the freak show really ended for the most part when television began. So one freak show replaced another so that was always the idea.
“I always was very interested in Tod Browning’s Freaks. I loved that movie and Carnival of Lost Souls so there’s a lot of horror tropes to pull from and admire. It’s also our biggest year so I think it took a while and it took success for us to earn the money to do what we had to do. We had to build an entire city. We built an entire huge compound and then we had to build the interior of all those buildings on set. It’s all period. And it’s all based on [production designer] Mark Worthington’s immaculate research. Jessica went she first walked in said she was brought to tears. She kept saying, ‘It’s like a poem. It’s like a poem.’ It’s a very romantic, sad place.’
Be sure to check out the Season 4 premiere episode of American Horror Story tonight at 10:00 p.m. on FX.
