Thursday, July 29, 2021

My Review of American Horror Stories: "The Naughty List"

 

Written by Manny Coto
Directed by Max Winkler

Zinn: "Guess we're not getting presents this year boys."
Santa: "You'll get what you deserve."

Christmas in July. I didn't ask for it, I certainly didn't need it but now as we're slap bang in the middle of this first season, it's time to see what happens when Influencers take things too far and piss off the wrong man at the worst time of year to do so.

Bro House is every negative stereotype of Influencer culture thrown in with some Logan Paul and Jackass for good measure. The bros in question containing bad boy Zinn (Nico Greetham), heartthrob Wyatt (Charles Melton), pretty boy James (Dyllon Burnside) and tech guy of the group, Barry (Kevin McHale), the latter spending more time behind the camera than in front of it.

These bros (Zinn and Wyatt especially) are openly unsympathetic from the very start, desperate to reach five million subscribers by any means necessary. This included filming an unfortunate man's suicide, which backfired on them big time and resulted in subscriber losses.

That didn't stop the vacuous pair however from playing the No Homo card (easily the cringiest scenes of the episode) and antagonising a mall Santa (Danny Trejo), who unsurprisingly turned out to be something of a dangerous serial killer.

Needless to say, Christmas Eve comes around and the Bro House lads find themselves being bumped off one by one and in as gruesome a manner as possible. Barry, the only member who seemed like a sort of decent human being lived long enough to see the house get five million subscribers.

As for the murderous Santa, well, he made it out of the episode alive to terrorise mall Santas for years to come and I wouldn't be too shocked if he turned up again. Whether in a sequel episode on this show or an appearance in the main series, who knows. Either way, I wouldn't rule out seeing him again.

- Despite his protests otherwise, it was largely implied that James was actually gay. Barry seemed accepting of that.
- I liked the use of the Wildman idea for this take on Santa Claus as well for this episode.
- I noticed the title music this week was the same as the 1984 season of the main series.
- Chronology: I'm going to assume Christmas 2021 here.

The Naughty List had its moments as an episode and was probably the most enjoyable episode yet. With protagonists difficult to sympathise with and a homicidal Santa on the loose, this one was a lot of fun to watch, in spite of it's cringey Influencer antics.

Rating: 7 out of 10

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