Poor Taissa Farmiga. Poor, sweet Taissa Farmiga.
Series creator Ryan Murphy has been known to pay tribute to horror films past in “American Horror Story,” but last night we saw a tribute (or a rip-off, if you prefer to call it that) that we certainly did not expect to see. The latter half of “American Horror Story: Roanoke” has taken on a full-on found footage style, and last night homaged the original found footage horror film.
Long before The Blair Witch Project came along and made the sub-genre popular, director Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust played around with the docu-filmmaking style that wouldn’t become a full-blown sub-genre until many years later. In fact, the film was presented so realistically that many people, at the time, believed Deodato had actually killed his entire cast!
On “AHS” last night, the film’s most shocking moment was recreated.
The ninth episode of “American Horror Story: Roanoke” introduced new characters in the form of your typical found footage victims, one of whom was played by series regular Taissa Farmiga, and two of the adventurous pals were killed by their curiosity when the Roanoke ghosts captured them. They were tossed to the ground and, well, giant skewers were shoved through their butts.
Yes, Farmiga’s character and the character’s friend were turned into human shish-kabobs by the vengeful ghosts, and then posed much the same way as that ill-fated woman in Cannibal Holocaust. They were then set on fire and burned alive, taking that moment from Deodato’s film to a whole new level of shocking and horrifying. If there’s one thing “AHS” loves, it’s shock value.
We screen-grabbed some shots for you below, in case you missed it.
As we’ve noted, this season of “AHS” has also paid tribute to The Blair Witch Project.
