AHS Double Feature: Red Tide review.

Double Feature is a season of AHS that isn’t often spoken of positively. I hadn’t been planning to watch it until I found out Sarah Paulson and Lily Rabe both featured in it. With the two of them in it, how bad could it be?

Red Tide was worlds better than I had been expecting, although I did see some reasons why it might not be someone’s favorite.

Without further ado, here are my thoughts on Double Feature’s Red Tide. Beware of spoilers ahead.

The first couple of episodes had some really rough acting. Paulson doesn’t usually struggle this much to pull out passion in a role, but in her earliest scenes as Tuberculosis Karen, there’s a clear disconnect between the actor and the character. There’s a lot of lines and body movements that feel forced amongst the whole cast. I’m not sure if we started out with some awkward directing, or maybe the actors were trying to bring out something unexpected from their parts- which I absolutely respect, even if it meant getting a couple episodes where things felt wonky- so I’ll do my best not to dwell on it further. It starts to even out around episode 3.

The props were incredibly unconvincing. The deer roadkill looks like a plastic lawn ornament with some gore slapped on, I don’t believe for a second that Lily Rabe is pregnant, and there’s a shot of Harry drinking what’s supposed to be pulverized beef where it straight-up looks like he’s just drinking cola.

In spite of those negatives, Red Tide has an extremely interesting premise. The thought of vampires that have a more natural, medical sci-fi explanation is very cool, and I think it was fairly well-done for the season. They went into the sci-fi deep enough that we know they thought about it and the lore remains consistent throughout without giving us enough information to dilute the horror.

I can also commend Red Tide for a very smart use of gore. I knew, going into it, that Red Tide would expand on AHS vampire lore, and since vampires were used for so much gratuitous bloodshed in Hotel, I expected another pointless gorefest. There’s certainly plenty of gore in it, but it’s treated as a piece of the scare rather than as the whole puzzle. The real fear comes from the thought of becoming something that could do that.

We also have satisfying, interesting villains. Two of my favorite kinds of villains- when well-written, of course- are unassuming grandparents and young children, and we get both here. The narrative does some intriguing stuff with both of them, and I especially liked how Alma was written. Maybe this is something you only think about when you were bullied by 9-year-old girls, but even a lot of horror media seems inclined to write children as innocent and vulnerable- plot devices to cause tension by needing to be rescued, protected, or found. Either that, or they’re portrayed as being creepy in an over-the-top, unbelievable way. It’s nice to see a work that presents a 9-year-old girl as fearsome for the reasons real-life 9-year-olds can be- their empathy and moral codes aren’t fully developed. Children are brutal and direct, and simultaneously very good at picking up society’s subtle beliefs- like “If you’re not the best (or at least profitable), there’s no point.” Alma starts out vaguely creepy in a believable way (counting the roadkill on the way to P-town) and develops exactly the way a 9-year-old might, under the circumstances. I liked that Harry had moral quandaries and a generally harder time adapting to vampire life while Alma quickly adjusted.

But, we also have some random plot elements that don’t lead anywhere. Why does the story go out of its way to tell us Doris is craving red meat? I watched the bulk of the show waiting to find out she had taken the pill before Harry was introduced to them- maybe Alma had actually gotten into Doris’s stash and we could find out if Eli was affected by her taking it during pregnancy- but I guess they put that in there as a red herring…? For what purpose?

The romances in Red Tide don’t have much impact on the plot. I didn’t even pick up that Karen and Mickey were in some kind of quasi-courtship until nearly the finale of their arc. Their last scenes together would have had more impact if their relationship had been developed more. However, I liked that Austin and Belle’s romance wasn’t a focal point of the show- I liked the inclusion of a romance that didn’t become a dominating force of the story.

Was this not well established, or am I just neurodivergent?

What I appreciate the most about Red Tide is that I get to look into a mirror that reveals uncomfortable truths about myself. As a hobby fiction writer, I completely understand how it feels to have that sense of greatness inside you that you somehow can’t seem to translate onto a page, the frustration with how long it takes to do something well, and the temptation of the little black pill. There is a part of me that would definitely take it- a part of me that agrees that if I really can’t hack it with whatever talent I have, then I may as well just become a mindless pale person and live the rest of my life barely sentient. A part of me is arrogant enough to think I deserve it- I would absolutely get addicted. The horror really set in when I realized I, too, was asking why on earth Harry would be so gung-ho on abstaining from the Muse permanently. It seemed like he had gotten “this far” with it and should be just fine to continue some annual indulgences. I agreed that cutting the household off after he was happy with what he’d accomplished was selfish. When you start thinking things like “I’m sure he wouldn’t have to kill that many people to keep doing this seasonally,” you realize there’s a monster inside you, too.

Would you take the pill?

I would at least consider it seriously.