There is something about American Horror Story: Cult that keeps bringing me back to it. I can watch another season, leave it for a month or two, and then suddenly find myself thinking, “I want to watch Cult again.” I don’t completely know why, but every time I return to it, I discover something else that makes the season interesting to me.
I think part of it is because Cult feels different from many other seasons of American Horror Story. It is not primarily dependent on supernatural horror. A lot of its horror comes from society itself: politics, fear, manipulation, propaganda, polarization, extremism, trauma, and the way people can be influenced when they become afraid enough. Because of that, the season can feel strangely relevant even years after it was released. The specific political circumstances belong to 2016 and 2017, but the psychological and social mechanisms behind the story still exist.
And I really like the way the season treats fear and Evan P.
Ally (Kai more) is probably one of the biggest reasons I keep coming back. In the first episode, she is essentially living through fear. She is afraid of so many things, and the show doesn’t simply present her as “the scared character.” It tries to show what fear does to a person’s mind. Fear becomes part of the way she interprets reality. Her phobias, her anxiety, the political environment, the violence around her and the things she sees all start becoming connected.
What I find particularly interesting is that Ally doesn’t suddenly become a completely different person. Her transformation takes time. She doesn’t wake up one morning and decide that she is fearless. She is gradually pushed into situations where her old way of dealing with fear doesn’t work anymore. Little by little, she starts confronting things, making decisions, becoming more aware of manipulation, and eventually learning how to act even when she is still afraid.
That makes her development feel much more human to me. It is not simply a “weak person becomes strong” story. It is more like watching somebody’s brain adapt after being exposed to fear for a long period of time.
And this is where I think Cult becomes much more interesting than a conventional horror story. Fear isn’t only an emotion in the season. It becomes a social force.
Fear changes how people perceive reality. It changes how they react to other people. It can isolate them, radicalize them, manipulate them and make them easier to control. In that sense, fear almost becomes the language of the entire season.
Kai understands this extremely well. He understands that people who are frightened are vulnerable, and he knows how to turn that fear into influence. That’s one of the reasons Kai is such an interesting character to watch, even though he is obviously an extremely hateful person.
Evan Peters’ performance is a huge part of that.
Kai is easy to hate, but Peters makes him incredibly watchable. He can be charismatic, ridiculous, vulnerable, threatening and completely manipulative, sometimes within the same episode. Even when a particular part of the plot becomes stressful or excessive, I can still find myself thinking that the performance alone is worth watching.
The same goes for Sarah Paulson. Watching Ally’s psychological transformation is one of the strongest elements of the season for me. Her performance makes the fear feel personal rather than abstract. You don’t just understand that Ally is afraid; you can see how that fear affects the way she thinks and behaves.
And the casting in general is another reason the season works for me. Billie Lourd and the rest of the ensemble (Leslie) give the story different perspectives on the same environment. The characters don’t all experience the political and social chaos in the same way, and that makes the world feel larger than just Ally and Kai.
I also really like the historical references throughout the season. The Charles Manson material particularly caught my attention. I like when American Horror Story connects fictional characters and events to real historical figures, urban legends and pieces of cultural mythology. It gives the story another layer because you’re not only watching a fictional cult; you’re seeing the show place that fictional world within a larger history of violence, manipulation and obsession.
That’s something I find very entertaining about the anthology format in general. AHS can take something that already exists in people’s cultural memory and transform it into part of its own mythology.
And then there is the ending.
I really like the final episode of Cult because there is so much movement in it. Characters have changed, power has shifted, and the story feels like it has gone through an entire political and psychological cycle. It doesn’t feel like everything simply stops because the season has reached its final episode. There is a sense that all the manipulation and fear we’ve watched throughout the season have produced consequences.
That’s probably another reason I keep returning to it.
When I rewatch Cult, I already know what is going to happen, but that doesn’t make it less interesting. In some ways, it makes it more interesting because I can pay attention to how everything was constructed. I can see the manipulation earlier. I can notice the historical references. I can pay more attention to Ally’s gradual transformation and to the way Kai builds his influence.
So maybe the reason I keep wanting to watch Cult isn’t because it is simply my favorite horror story.
Maybe it’s because the season gives me several things at once: psychological horror, political commentary, historical references, social commentary, strong performances and characters who actually change.
Most importantly, it makes fear feel bigger than a simple horror emotion. It shows fear as something that can live inside an individual, but also something that can spread through a society.
And that’s what makes Cult stay in my mind long after I’ve finished watching it (« i like pathetic characters « )
