'American Horror Story' Season 7 Teases Terror on the High Seas
A haunted cruise ship, maybe?
American Horror Story made a big fuss out of keeping the plot of season 6 a secret until the very last minute, but showrunner Ryan Murphy says the show won’t try the same trick with season 7. So, a little more than a day after Roanoke aired its muddled finale, the show teased what could be the first hint at a nautical-themed season 7.
The vague, short teaser popped up just after midnight, in the early hours of Friday morning, on American Horror Story’s official Twitter account. “The monsters are all gone,” the tweet reads, along with a video of choppy, blue seas. On top of the footage, the phrase “sweet dreams,” written in AHS’s signature font, appears. After a couple seconds, the ocean view glitches out, and is replaced, for a moment, by a shot of Roanoke’s creepy stick dolls hanging from trees and some terrible, blood-curdling screams. It’s a bit jarring.
The teaser, of course, could just be a tease, but American Horror Story hasn’t used the ocean as a setting before, and the ocean is inherently terrifying. It would be a change of pace from previous landlocked seasons.
We already know, based on Murphy’s past comments, that season 7 is going to be closely connected to Freak Show, and will explore the lives of some of that season’s characters. Given that Freak Show was set in 1952, it’s likely that this upcoming season is going to be set in the past too. Perhaps some of the characters are engaged in a spooky naval battle in World War II? Or maybe they’re on a fancy cruise? It’s unlikely, but possible, that the season could be set even longer ago, and season 7 could riff on Titanic-era ocean horrors.
The other hint in the teaser is that phrase “sweet dreams.” Murphy said the idea for the season came to him while he was sitting in bed late one night. Perhaps there won’t be a literal ocean, but a watery dreamscape? Or maybe this is more of a “sleepin’ with the fishes” kind of thing, and we’re looking at a watery grave.
There’s not a ton to go on yet, but the teaser shows that we’ll probably be getting a steady trickle of information leading up to season 7’s likely premiere in fall 2017.
