Returning to television this fall with much anticipation is the anthology horror series “American Horror Story.”
With the fifth season’s poor ratings, creators Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy have chosen to take the sixth season and advertising methods using a new approach.
Normally, Murphy and cast members of the series will give hints and clues as to what the upcoming season will involve including the theme and character descriptions.
However, this summer was filled with misdirects, very small clues and fans researching and conspiring over what the sixth season will be about.
Followers of the “American Horror Story” Facebook page watched as the moderators of the site took down their profile photo and replaced it with a black box, which left fans in the dark, hoping that an announcement would arrive soon on the theme of the next season.
Soon pictures starting appearing of a cryptic “6” with a symbol of a question mark inside the number. Followers of the Facebook page and other social media sites waited anxiously for “AHS” to release a promo or cast photo of their sixth season.
The very first promo for the show was released on the series’ Facebook page, and included a video of a house on a farm, with smoke billowing from a chimney, in the shape of the same symbol that was being teased a few days prior. This led many fans to believe they had the theme for the new season. However, shortly after releasing the promo, many other promotional videos were posted. Within the span of three days, viewers had six very different promotional videos, causing confusion among the series’ audience as to how they’re all connected.
In an interview with “The Hollywood Reporter,” FX CEO John Landgraf revealed that only one of the teasers this year reveals the true theme to the mysterious sixth season.
“Every year, we lay out the themes and the new genre Ryan is going to be approaching; we thought it’d be fun [this year] to keep it a mystery — so we are,” Landgraf said in the interview.
Throughout this summer, a total of 26 different promotional videos were released via “American Horror Story’s” Facebook page. Murphy also put together a sweepstakes including six of the promos revealing that one of the videos was the real teaser. This helped fans by narrowing the choices of what this upcoming season could possibly be about.
The sixth season premiered on Sept. 14, and audiences were confused and intrigued by the season premiere. Filmed in a different and unique format, this season seems to be told in an interview/documentary style.
With the premiere, viewers were also given an answer as to which promotional video was the actual teaser for the season. It was the promotional video labelled “Wind Chimes,” the video of a nurse cutting a wind chime full of human teeth. As the show progressed, viewers were still curious as to how the plot would play out, given the theme.
After the premiere, the “AHS” Facebook page, changed its profile picture to “AHS: Roanoke,” finally answering what the sixth season will be called.
Although the episode has received mixed comments on the Facebook page so far, this was only the first episode. Viewers are eager to see whether this new season will get back to the basics from season one.
