American Horror Stories: Aura

August 31, 2022 6:36 PM - Season 2, Episode 2

An anxious woman buys a home security device that doesn't exactly set her mind at ease.
posted by kittens for breakfast (2 comments total)

I don't think this is as good as "Dollhouse," but it's still a giant improvement over most of the S1 stories ("Feral" really was pretty badass). Gabourey Sidibe is a delight to watch in anything, and her charm carries this iffy script a very long way.

The premise of "Aura" doesn't make total sense -- it's fine that a camera can pick up ghosts, but I'm not sure how it gives ghosts the power to turn a doorknob, to say nothing of the power to magically transfer the effects of a car accident to someone, and then turn them into dust -- but it's a little late in the AHS game for me to start complaining about slapdash plotting now, I guess.

Still, another draft before they started shooting might not have been unwarranted. AHS has a tendency to throw a lot of shit at the wall over the course of a season, but narrative blind alleys and red herrings are a little more noticeable in a 40-minute show. Jaz's childhood trauma doesn't pay off in any way, for instance, and it seems like a pretty big deal. I don't know. Good stuff, on the whole.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:51 PM on August 31, 2022

I liked this one. Wish AHS would do more ghost stories.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 5:29 PM on September 3, 2022 [1 favorite]