AHS To Revive Creepiness from '68 Horror Gem in Season 12
The plot of the upcoming season sounds all too familiar to horror lovers.
If there's anything more unpredictable than life itself, it's undoubtedly the plots of American Horror Story. Things like aliens, magic, and mass destruction can appear out of the blue in the middle (or even the finale) of any given season of the FX hit. Of course, these surprising twists and turns are part of the show's charm.
The upcoming Season 12 is the first chapter of AHS to be based on existing source material, Danielle Valentine's book Delicate Condition. However, the main plot of the new installment remains a mystery, as Valentine's novel is yet to be released on August 1 — the same day Season 12 is set to premiere, if it isn't delayed by the WGA strike.
Luckily, we do have the gist of what will happen to the beloved cast in the upcoming episodes, and… it sounds awfully like one of the classics of the horror genre: Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. The 1968 psychological thriller, based on Ira Levin's novel of the same name, tells the story of a young woman, Rosemary, who becomes pregnant with the Devil's child and gives birth to his baby with the help of a satanic cult.
Rosemary's Baby is the iconic movie that spawned numerous stories dealing with paranoia, sexism, women's liberation, and cults. And, judging by the description of Delicate Condition, Danielle Valentine has indeed been inspired by the classic story.
Delicate's protagonist, played by Emma Roberts, faces a similar problem to Rosemary's — she feels that some dark figures are interfering with her pregnancy, which goes horribly wrong, and no one believes her. Set in the 21st century, the story is of course more modern than Levin's, but the themes remain the same: physical and psychological isolation and the sense of unreality.
If the plot of Delicate sticks close to the story that inspired it, it could get dark very quickly, and every character played by Kim Kardashian, Matt Czuchry, Cara Delevingne, Billie Lourd, Zachary Quinto, Denis O'Hare and others could become the villain, just as everyone around Rosemary ended up being a cult member.
However, given the wild imaginations of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, there's no telling where the classic story could go or deviate from the source material — and that brings us back to the charming unpredictability of American Horror Story.