While American Horror Story: Delicate will see the horror anthology return to a familiar setting, this is not necessarily a good thing for the show. American Horror Story has historically thrived on novelty. Although each season of the anthology horror show does contain some callbacks to earlier outings, broadly speaking, the campy series operates on a “more is more” policy. When American Horror Story season 1 Murder House shocked viewers with a story involving ghosts, murder, infidelity, and school shootings, season 2 Asylum outdid its predecessor with a lurid tale that incorporated demons, killer nuns, zombies, alien abductions, and a trio of serial killers.
As such, it is surprising to see that American Horror Story: Delicate is playing things comparatively safe. American Horror Story season 12 is a pregnancy horror story adapted from author Danielle Valentine’s novel Delicate Condition. A contemporary spin on Ira Levin’s classic bestseller Rosemary’s Baby, Delicate Condition tells the story of a woman who becomes convinced that a shadowy conspiracy is working to prevent her pregnancy. When Delicate Condition’s heroine finally falls pregnant, she finds herself increasingly isolated. However, as intriguing as the premise is, the show’s decision to revisit a previous location and setting may cause the story some problems.
3 American Horror Story Season 12 Repeats Season 11’s Location
The dispiriting news that American Horror Story: Delicate is shooting in Brooklyn and Manhattan may not bode well for the anthology outing. American Horror Story: NYC relied on the location quite a bit, so season 12 could feel tired and played out after that already-divisive outing. Not only that, but American Horror Story season 12 is already risking a lot by introducing a new showrunner to the series and casting Kim Kardashian in a lead role. The news that Delicate will return to NYC’s location doesn’t bode well for the creative potential of the season, since it inevitably feels somewhat repetitive and uninspired.
Most of American Horror Story’s best outings have diverged wildly from their predecessors. After the relative disappointment of Roanoke’s backwoods horror, the underrated American Horror Story: Cult dropped that outing’s rural setting and supernatural elements in favor of grounded social satire with an urban backdrop. Similarly, when Apocalypse’s attempts to revisit Coven’s story proved underwhelming, American Horror Story: 1984 took a radically different approach by bringing the show back into the slasher heyday of the titular era. The success of these shifts makes American Horror Story: Delicate following NYC with another story set in New York City feel worryingly derivative.
2 American Horror Story: Delicate’s Location Doesn’t Follow Its Source Material
Delicate Condition, the novel that Delicate adapts from, is set in “a remote snowbound town” according to its synopsis. This is the perfect setting for the story since the novel that American Horror Story: Delicate adapts garnered Rosemary’s Baby comparisons since its original announcement. Rosemary’s Baby was a novel that relied heavily on its urban setting, so a small-town setting could help Delicate Condition feel like a fresh, innovative take on the themes of Levin’s perennially relevant classic. However, avoiding this isolated setting means that Delicate is already majorly altering even the basic building blocks of its source material. This could mean the show’s plot will fall apart.
1 American Horror Story Season 12’s Location Risks Replicating A Famous Horror Movie Too Closely
Speaking of Rosemary’s Baby, Delicate Condition already sounds very similar to Levin’s novel as is. However, Valentine’s book has two vital changes that make its story feel different. One is the fact that its heroine wants to get pregnant and struggles to do so, which isn’t the case for Rosemary, and the other is the novel’s rural setting. Thus, American Horror Story: Delicate runs the risk of feeling like a clone of Rosemary’s Baby and its iconic 1967 movie adaptation if season 12 fails to change the story’s location. While American Horror Story won’t end for good with season 12, its viewership has been steadily declining for years now.
As such, American Horror Story: Delicate needs to give the series a boost in critical and commercial terms. This is still possible provided American Horror Story season 12 offers an authentically original, scary, and appropriately campy take on the pregnancy horror sub-genre complete with the show’s trademark dark humor. However, the setting of American Horror Story: Delicate is cause for concern. Moving the action of Delicate Condition from its remote setting to NYC could make the outing feel over-familiar, displays a lack of fidelity to the source material, and may result in American Horror Story: Delicate feeling more like a pastiche of Rosemary’s Baby than an original, interesting story.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
