“Murder House”
“Asylum”
“Coven”
“Freak Show”
“Hotel”

…and now….

The sixth season of FX’s “American Horror Story” started just seconds ago revealing… creator Ryan Murphy standing in front of a Mercedes Benz introducing the new season. I wish I were joking.

After the false start, the show proclaims the events real: “The following is a true story inspired by real events. The story may contain disturbing images. Viewer discretion advised.”

And then the title was revealed:

“MY ROANOKE NIGHTMARE”

TMZ originally discovered that the storyline may involve a 16th-century farm with “Croatoan” carved into a tree – pointing to the myth of Roanoke (a lost colony in 1590 when 117 settlers suddenly disappeared). It appears they were right on the money.

“My Roanoke Nightmare” opens with Lily Rabe as SHELBY, a woman recounting a time when she was pushed to the ground and lost her baby. Her and her husband, MATT, head out of the city and into the woods in Roanoke, North Carolina. They end up at a farm house that’s for sale – the new setting for the show.

It is now clear that “My Roanoke Nightmare”  is a reenactment of real events, with Rabe being the “real” person recounting her “true” story. Sarah Paulson is playing Rabe’s character, with Cuba Gooding Jr. as her husband.

Back from commercial break the duo are having sex in their new home when they hear something horrifying. Cuba is investigating. Something gets throw at him, and they believe it’s a racial attack by the locals. They refuse to be scared away.

There’s a hail storm – only it looks like human teeth. Shelby witnessed it, even though there’s no evidence that it actually happened.

There’s a lot of talking heads as Rabe keep explaining her character’s emotions and thoughts during this time in her life. It’s extraordinarily cheesy. I think the following tweet really sums up one of the major issues early on:

The stakes feel kind of low when the characters live to tell their story. #AHS6

— Amy Wilkinson (@amymwilk) September 15, 2016

Anyways, walking through her new home, Shelby catches a glimpse of two young girls crossing the hall. “Is anyone there?” Well, duh. She explores. “Hello?” After turning the lights on in a room, she discovers she’s alone. It doesn’t appear to phase her, so she goes to take a dip in her hot tub. There, she’s pulled under by someone, which leads to a commercial break. When the show returns, a police officer tells her husband that she claimed her attackers where wearing old costumes, and had pitchforks and torches.

At night, her husband hears something and opens the front door, where he finds a skinned pig. He hides it from Shelby, thinking it’s the locals, and sets up security cameras. He also calls his sister, LEE (Angela Bassett), to come and visit while he’s gone on business. We learn that the sister is a police officer who was shot and is now addicted to pain pills. She’s a badass who hates “assholes.” There’s a flashback in which she chases down a perp who commits suicide right in front of her. Then her husband leaves her and takes custody of her child.

Back to Shelby, you know, the Sarah Paulson Shelby, who is cutting some vegetables for dinner. She hears something down the same hall she saw the girls. When she returns to the cutting board, the knife is missing! It ends up in the roast she was searing on the stove. Again, she doesn’t appear to be phased by this. After, Lee wakes up and sees a bottle rolling in her room. She thinks Shelby is fucking with her, and vice versa. While they argue, the security cameras are triggered by a bunch of people in robes holding bloody machetes and torches. [commercial break]

Shelby and the Lee hear something in the basement. They head down together and can hear someone screaming in the distance. It’s just a television, with a home video showing. It sounds like pigs squealing. “I can smell it,” says someone offscreen. There’s a giant pig man squealing in the woods! The cameraman is now hiding on the ground when it goes to static, and then the basement’s power goes out.

They cut to Matt, who is watching (from his mobile device) the cult infiltrate their home, and then right back to Shelby and Lee, who are trapped in a basement. They’re freaking out as there’s loud noises everywhere. The basement door is finally unlocked. When Lee and Shelby resurface they’re shocked to find that their entire house is covered in Blair Witch-like totems! “Oh my god…” [commercial break]

Back from break, the trio of Shelby, Matt and Lee are sitting in the room that’s filled with Blair Witch stickmen going back over the events of the night. It’s a lot of talking about what we just saw, and a lot of talking heads talking about what we just saw. It’s really messy. This “documentary” theme is really, really stupid and not working. In fact, it makes it less scary as it breaks us from the action. Anyways, now the trio are fighting about what to do and letting the cops do their jobs, while Shelby pleas to leave. SHE DOES. ALONE. Matt calls her, and while she’s distracted she crashes into an old woman standing in the middle of the road! She’s alive and it’s revealed to be Kathy Bates. Shelby followers her into the woods, until she vanishes. Shelby stumbles through the woods, lost, until she runs into more Blair Witch stickmen hanging from a bunch of trees. She falls in terror, looks up and sees the trees moving; when she looks back down the ground it’s pulsating! She gets up, runs…right into Wes Bentley holding a torch. As she turns to run in the other direction, a man who’s been scalped falls to his knees thus leading us into the end credits…

I’m underwhelmed.

“American Horror Story: My Roanoke Nightmare” is easily the worst premiere of all six seasons. It’s basically a bunch of talking heads telling us about the spooky sounds they heard in the night and how they went to go and investigate (instead of running). The documentary style doesn’t work, at all, because at no point is the viewer ever going to believe that this show is real. And as mentioned above, the fact that the subjects are telling their own story only removes all the tension as we know for a fact that they’re going to survive.

I was a huge fan of the “Hotel” premiere and still didn’t watch another episode. Weirdly enough, I am intrigued enough to stick around for next week’s episode. I want to see Lady Gaga in this secret role (the Blair Witch? Ha.) I believe whatever was happening with the ground is probably the beginning of her character’s rebirth of sorts. Still, who are the people in the cult, what do they want and how does this tie into the 117 missing people back in 1570?

What did you guys think of the premiere? Let’s talk below.