Specialist Contextual Investigation

american horror story + villains

Beetlejuice

Lydia Deetz was a troubled young woman, misunderstood by many, whose family moved to a haunted house.  She was instantly drawn to the creepy home and soon befriended the ghosts that haunted it. 

Lydia’s other interests: crazy hats; wearing baggy, mix-matched outfits; planning her own suicide; using her tough exterior to hide an emotional core.

“The Yellow Wallpaper”

S01E08 Rubber Man

Episode 8 of AHS was all about the literary references, with Moira filling in as your Feminist Literature 101 professor. She sums up the premise of Charlotte Perkins Gliman's short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” nicely in her talk with Vivien:

Haven’t you read “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilmore? Her husband–a doctor–locks her away in the upstairs bedroom to recuperate from a slight hysterical tendency. Staring at the yellow wallpaper day after day, she begins to hallucinate that there are women trapped in the pattern. Half mad she scrapes off the wallpaper to set the women free. When her husband finally unlocks the door, he finds her circling the room, touching the wallpaper, whispering “I finally got out of here.” Since the beginning of time, men find excuses to lock women away. They make up diseases, like hysteria. Do you know where that word comes from? The Greek word for “uterus.”

In addition, “The Yellow Wallpaper” opens with the narrator and her husband moving in to a new and strange house. She suspects something is wrong with the property, as it was obtained cheaply and left abandoned for some time. It is also of note that the narrator has recently had a child and is locked, alone, in an old nursery to recover. And she really, really hates the wallpaper.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” was written as an exaggerated account of author Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s experiences with depression and “melancholia.” After seeking medical help, Gilman was prescribed a “rest cure” by her physician, renown specialist Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell. She was only allowed two hours of “intellectual life” per day and was instructed to “never touch pen, brush, or pencil again.” Gilman followed the doctor’s directions for months before finding herself at “the borderline of utter mental ruin.” She eventually threw aside Dr. Mitchell’s advice, returned to working, and started to recover. She wrote “The Yellow Wallpaper” as a warning to doctors and patients alike, and in the process created a staple of feminist literature.

To read the short story in full (do it!), click here.

And click here to read Gilman’s “Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper.”

Rick Genest (Zombie Boy)

S01E01 Pilot

While Tate imagines himself walking down the hallways of Westerfield High, preparing for his “noble war,” he appears with a detailed skull painted across his face.

This look closely resembles the face and body tattoos of “Zombie Boy” Rick Genest. Genest is a male model best known for having over $7,000 worth of tattoos etched across most of his body, giving him the appearance of a living zombie. After working in a Canadian circus side show act, Genest gained fame walking the runway at Thierry Mugler’s Fall/Winter 2011 show and appearing in Lady Gaga’s Born This Way video.

Genest cites his love of horror movies and “the art of a rotting cadaver” as influences on his choice of ink. But what was the catalyst for his extreme appearance change?

“Before, I hated pretty much everything and everybody. I just wanted to pass out in the gutter and swear at cars as they went by, shit like that. I wasn’t a happy person at all. 

Resident Evil

S1E01 Pilot

A young Adelaide tells the Twins “You are going to die in there,” as they enter the Murder House.

In the Resident Evil film, The Red Queen (appearing as a hologram of a young girl) tells the team “You’re all going to die down here,” as they enter The Hive.