Reviews
“AHS: Delicate” Review – The Satanic Endgame Begins to Take Shape in Episode 4
Anna’s lot in life takes an optimistic turn when it comes to fame and family as a sinister force asserts control and ‘AHS: Delicate’ teases its grander plans.
“Is it a boy, Mary?”
“It is a monster.”
Pregnancy horror stories can go down many different directions, whether they’re tales where disturbed individuals attempt to steal a healthy infant, evil offspring scenarios, or any variety of films where a dark pact is made with the Devil or some kind of malevolent magic. American Horror Story: Delicate has kept its audience guessing when it comes to its newborn neuroses, but “Vanishing Twin” pulls back the veil a little when it comes to the dark fate that’s befallen Anna. Answers are appreciated when it comes to any of this seasons’ broader mysteries, but AHS: Delicate’s fable-like explanation feels strangely out of place. It amounts to another installment that’s full of promise, but plagued with bland shortcomings. American Horror Story: Delicate rushes closer to its inevitable birth and “Vanishing Twin” telegraphs a precarious trajectory for the season’s second-half.
AHS: Delicate boldly begins in 1500s England during a fruitful flashback that painfully examines a generational pact across legacies that turns pregnancy into both a source of freedom and a prison. It’s a concept that Anna faces centuries later, albeit in more modern terms. “Vanishing Twin” treats this like a very fairy tale origin for this horror story. It may be effective in some respects, but there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done better through Murder House’s pregnancy dread or Roanoke and Coven’s cursed magical theatrics. A tone-setting vignette of this nature might have actually been a more effective way to start the season–or at least the second episode–rather than a piece of the puzzle that arrives at the half-way point that now feels extraneous. This would help the prologue play more naturally than the heavy-handed manner in which this pregnancy demon pact gets introduced in “Vanishing Twin.”
In not so subtle terms, AHS: Delicate connects the dots between its 16th century prologue and its 21st century clout-chasing. Hamish Moss (Dominic Burgess) seems to have engaged in the same witch curse to turn his movie, The Auteur, into a critical darling. This evil ultimatum is also likely the key to Anna’s recent success through Sibohan’s controversial tactics. None of this is terribly fresh ground, but American Horror Story at least shows its hand for the season. There’s also an easy joke to be made here regarding how Ryan Murphy himself likely entered some Satanic success pact, or at the least has been knocking back the black talent pills from American Horror Story: Red Tide.
“Vanishing Twin” operates like the inverse of past entries. Anna’s inner circle starts listening to her, but she also turns out to be pregnant after all due to a case of “vanishing twin syndrome.” However, the episode still gets lost in played out pregnancy horror set pieces that feel like watered down versions of Rosemary’s Baby and The Witch. Any of the domestic scenes in AHS: Delicate between Anna and Dex become weak links and it’s unfortunate that these two feel so stilted together. There’s such a lack of chemistry between Emma Roberts and Matt Czuchry that’s starting to drag down their scenes together. Maybe the tension between these two is part of this story’s point, but it makes for awkward television.
The Alcott/Harding family face further woes as Virginia (Debra Monk), Dex’s mom, gets in his head and becomes a wedge between him and Anna. Virginia shows zero sympathy for Anna despite the rough lot that she’s faced on all fronts. Her talk about society’s changing views towards pregnancy and motherhood makes for a refreshing reflection until her preaching reaches problematic territory. Nicolette (MJ Rodriguez) is an even more on-the-nose individual who briefly shows up to reinforce to Anna that there’s a sisterhood of women that come together during pregnancies. However, what Nicolette doesn’t talk about is the malevolent, codependent qualities that can also be born out of this cult-like state of mind.
It’s unfortunate that “Vanishing Twin” is such a muddy episode because there’s some material in it that really works. Anna gets a dark preview of the difficult future that may be ahead for her as the parent of a demon baby after she takes in a maybe-dead animal and feels the natural compulsion to nurse this creature back to health. Some of “Vanishing Twin’s” strongest sequences come out of Anna’s uncomfortable attempts to turn roadkill into a progeny…and then dinner. It’s extremely disturbing, both physically and psychologically, in a way that American Horror Story hasn’t been for seasons. It’s genuinely troubling and elegantly captured on the screen in a manner that dresses up this toxic, rancid act to look beautiful, just like Anna’s own confused actions.
For everything that works in “Vanishing Twin,” this episode also introduces Billie Lourd and Leslie Grossman’s characters, a pair of Ashleys that run a PR team together in what’s literally the “PubLIZity” sketch from Kroll Show. What are we doing here, American Horror Story? Is this what now qualifies for camp? This culminates in an absurd PR stunt that’s the most entertaining Roberts has been all season. Inexplicably, this braggadocious video resuscitates Anna’s career, which is the kind of thing that’s possible when Satan is running your press. These Satanic arrangements are treated like recent developments, but Anna’s been afflicted by supernatural phenomena all season. It seems like American Horror Story: Delicate is just playing it fast and loose with its creepy imagery while it coasts on vibes rather than narrative logic. “You don’t need to know…yet,” is given as cryptic, comforting advice in “Vanishing Twin,” but it also reads like the meandering season’s subtext.
“Vanishing Twin” takes some big steps forward, but at the end of the day it’s still just another version of a story where the struggles of fame, independence, and professional success are put in competition with those of parenthood. Next week’s “Part One” finale looks like it will head even further in the Oscar vs. Offspring debate, all of which feels a little defanged after arriving so soon after the comparable subject matter explored in the “Red Tide” section of American Horror Story: Double Feature. “Vanishing Twin” ends on a shocking, unsettling note and AHS: Delicate is likely to deliver even more of this in its mid-season finale. It just doesn’t feel impactful enough; and what could have been a promising opportunity to truly subvert a growing horror trope has instead resulted in a slow, predictable season that’s grown increasingly tired.
It may be too late for American Horror Story: Delicate to transform this shit sandwich into a Fabergé egg, but maybe something fancy with gaudy gems on it is still possible.
Movies
‘Recluse’ Review – Harrowing Haunted House Horror With Lots Of Skeletons In Its Closet [Tribeca 2026]
A haunted house story is tense, terrifying storytelling when it’s properly executed. There’s been a growing tendency in horror to blend together harrowing haunted house stories with traumatic homecomings. A family member’s illness or death triggers a return to something dark that was intentionally left behind. Recluse hits all the tropes that one expects to find in this type of horror film, yet it manages to push this story in a daring, disturbing new direction that uses sound as a superpower.
It’s a unique lens to experience a familiar story about family secrets, generational trauma, unresolved grief, and the importance of not just legacy, but preservation. It’s a hell of a directorial debut from Henry Chaisson that’s guaranteed to get under the audience’s skin as they’re dragged through this painful, toxic tale.
Recluse is a gothic haunted house story where an isolated audio engineer, Joan (Sasha Frolova), returns to her family’s estate to check in on her father after he suffers a terrible accident. Joan suddenly discovers something much more sinister that paints her family’s tragedies in a very different light. Chaisson’s debut functions as a fascinating companion piece to this year’s undertone, which does a lot of the same things.
These two films make for a fascinating case of parallel thinking that tackles comparable subject matter through a similar lens, albeit in a bigger, less claustrophobic story in Recluse’s case. In fact, it’s the perfect horror film for anyone who was let down by undertone and didn’t feel like it brought enough to the table. It’s a considerably more conventional horror film, but this isn’t meant to denigrate its high quality. Recluse may hit some familiar notes, but it’s a scary, well-crafted haunted house horror story that goes for the jugular.
A gripping mystery that involves the tragic, unresolved circumstances that surround Joan’s mother teases a chilling connection to the recent horrors that have afflicted her father. Joan desperately tries to put these pieces together and give her family some sense of grander peace before she’s pulled under and becomes another victim of this festering curse that’s systematically worked its way through the Wyatt family. By doing so, Recluse digs into some deeper commentary on collective trauma, a very literal look at the “sins of the father” adage, and how one selfish decision can ripple through generations and fracture off into different dilemmas. By the end, Recluse has brilliantly flipped the powerful concept of legacy on its head by illustrating the horrors and sense of entitlement that can be born out of this idea.
A legacy is just another name for a curse under the right context.
”Listen” is a simple but powerful command from Joan’s father that she briefly obsesses over. In a way, it becomes Recluse’s grander mission statement, whether it’s in response to Joan listening to the people in her life, the signals that her body and mind are telling her, or the world’s greater whims. It’s important to reconnect with these grounding pillars, especially when it feels like control is slipping away.
Recluse excels with how audio and soundscapes can create entire universes that are full of rich details that transport individuals to these environments. There’s also a level of objectivity when it comes to audio recordings and the evergreen permanence that they’re able to provide. Joan’s career as an audio engineer makes sense for someone who wants to cling to hard evidence and proof of existence. It provides great insight into Joan without ever getting lost in contrived exposition.
Joan’s entire life is built around audio engineering, and so it makes sense that Recluse features excellent sound design that really goes above and beyond with its production elements. All of the sound design is expertly handled and turns the film into something special. These auditory elements intuitively keep the audience on edge so that they’re more susceptible to the actual scares that eventually strike. The smallest sound effect gets turned into a crushing, cacophonous assault. It’s a really effective way to build terror. Writer/Director Chaisson also handles the film’s music, which achieves a sublime, unnerving dissonance that further heightens the free-floating anxiety.
The story at the center of Recluse is slightly generic in some respects, but the film’s visual language and tone make it feel distinctly memorable. It also doesn’t hurt that the home that Joan returns to is basically an eerie art studio that’s full of contorted paintings. Recluse never struggles to generate mounting dread and terror that pump through every scene. Powerful, thoughtful cinematography consistently reinforces the film’s themes. Joan is constantly reflected in different surfaces or viewed through mirrors. She’s also often confined to tight, constricting framing that all speaks to her refracted identity during this moment of loss and her attempts to regain agency and control by making sense of something that’s seemingly unexplainable.
Recluse is full of truly disturbing visuals that make it seem like Joan is lost in a dream that turns out to be an extended nightmare. It’s a surreal journey reminiscent of invasive psychological horror like Silent Hill, with a touch of Sinister and Hereditary thrown in for good measure. There are so many individual frames that could endlessly fuel urban legends and creepypastas.
It does a great job with how it presents Joan’s fragile state of mind, where chilling flashes of the past sneak up on her and unresolved trauma manifests into unsettling imagery. There are endless shots that are obscured in darkness, or shadow is creeping in from the corners of frames like a suffocating force of nature. It’s very rare that a scene is fully lit. It leads to a very lonely, isolating atmosphere that’s easy to get lost in.
Chaisson’s debut stands out from the many other high-minded haunted house horror films without succumbing to the same pretensions that often drag down these stories. It’s a grief-stricken character study that’s full of upsetting visuals that scratch at something visceral and raw. The horror elements connect, and the answers to its grander mystery provide an appropriate and believable sense of closure. Those who are looking for an atmospheric horror film that isn’t afraid to be different while still channeling something real will appreciate Recluse.
Recluse made its world premiere at Tribeca; release info TBD.
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