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American Horror Story is back, which means your Tuesday nights just got a whole lot creepier. When Ryan Murphy‘s horror anthology is good, it’s a thing of deeply disturbing beauty, switching from heartfelt portrayals of misfits to some of the most unnerving visuals on television at a moment’s notice. And this season already looks like one of the show’s best.
A lot of attention has been paid to the election angle of American Horror Story: Cult, but there’s something even more interesting at play than Evan Peters‘ Doritos-coated face. Ryan Murphy has reveled that this season Peters will be playing a variety of cult leaders all throughout history. In this way, Cult seems to be more of a long-winded reflection on America’s fascination and tolerance for cults. However, what that means for viewers is that one of your favorite AHS actors is about to embody just about every terrible man you can think of. Here’s your guide to all of the cult leaders Murphy has mentioned that Peters will be playing. Of course, there’s room for more cultive personalities, but this is a disturbing enough start.
Kai
Time of Major Cult: 2017
Kai is a cult leader of American Horror Story’s own creation. We don’t know much about him besides the fact he’s felt disenfranchised, angry, and left behind for a while now. He sees Trump’s presidency as a way to regain the power he believes that he’s lost. Also, he has some weird pinky powers and may or may not have some shady connections to murderous clowns. At the moment it’s unclear if Kai is the real leader of AHS: Cult’s insane clown posse, but it definitely seems plausible.
Marshall Applewhite
Time of Major Cult: 1997
The Heaven’s Gate cult was one of the most widely covered cults in American history. Founded and led by Applewhite, the organization believed that aliens would one day visit the members of Heaven’s Gate and give them new bodies. Bodies were believed to only be containers for people’s souls, and Applewhite preached that a spaceship would one day come to take the cult’s followers away. They came to believe that the arrival of the Comet Hale-Bopp was the vessel that would take the organization’s dedicated followers onto their next life. In 1997, Applewhite arranged the mass suicide of 39 of the cult’s members over the course of three days. Applewhite was one of the last members of Heaven’s Gate to die, and the entire event prompted a media circus.
David Koresh
Time of Major Cult: 1993
Koresh is known more for his cult’s history-making standoff than anything else. He was the U.S. head of the Branch Davidians religious sect, and Koresh believed himself to be the movement’s final prophet. A splinter group within the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Koresh and his followers maintained a base in Waco, Texas, and during his time as the cult’s leader, Koresh was accused of raping a 12-year-old girl. He later defended the crime by calling it a “spiritual marriage.” However, the Branch Davidians sect, its leaders, and, in some circles, Waco itself are best known for the standoff that happened next. A U.S. investigation into illegal firearms and explosives led to a violent raid in 1993, which left four AFT agents and six Davidians dead.
Later on April 19 there was another siege, this time designed to save the children who were allegedly being abused inside of the compound. Things quickly got out of hand, and multiple fires were started within the compound. Some claim the fires were started intentionally while others maintain it was an accident. Altogether, 79 Davidians either burned to death, were buried by rubble, suffocated on smoke, or were shot during the April 19 siege, including Koresh who was shot to death by his own top aid. There were only nine survivors of the cult.
Jim Jones
Time of Major Cult: 1978
According to Murphy, Jones is going to be a big focus during this new season, and it’s not difficult to see why. The founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, Jones was responsible for the mass suicide and mass murder than happened in Jonestown, Guyana. The cult believed that communism was the ultimate extension of God’s will, but the alleged mistreatment of children gained the cult negative attention.
In 1978, congressman Leo Ryan led a group of authorities to figure out what was happening within the commune. The group was murdered by Jones’ followers, but that tragedy doesn’t compare to the bloodshed that followed. Jones was later responsible for the deaths of 918 of his followers, many of which were children. Many were killed by poisoned flavor drinks, giving rise to the expression “drinking the Kool-aid.” The massacre was the greatest loss of American civilian lives prior to the September 11 attacks.
Andy Warhol
Time of Major Cult: 1960s
The iconic artist may seem like an odd choice for a season of American Horror Story, but he certainly fits into the theme of cultive personalities. Warhol was more than just another artist. He defined the artistic scene as well as pop culture as a whole in the 1960s. According to Murphy, Warhol’s storyline will focus less on the man as an artist and more on his attempted murder at the hands of Valerie Solanas. “Lena Dunham is playing Valerie Solanas, who attempted to shoot Andy Warhol because she felt denied into the cult of personality that was Warhol in the factory at the time,” he said.
The episode will explore this radical feminist writer’s ideology as well as The S.C.U.M. Manifesto, a tract that advocated for the elimination of men. Through Solanas’ anger, Murphy explained that this Episode Seven episode will explore the female characters of this season.
Charles Manson
Time of Major Cult: 1969
When you think of American cult leaders, this is likely the first one who comes to mind. Charles Manson was the head of the Manson Family, a pseudo-commune that gained notoriety in California in the 1960s. Altogether, Manson’s followers were responsible for the murders of nine people, most notably actress Sharon Tate. Manson believed that there was an impending apocalyptic race war, which he dubbed “Helter Skelter” after The Beatles song. Before he was arrested, Manson encouraged people to commit those murders in the hopes this war would arrive sooner.
Not only is Charles Manson one of the best known cult leaders of all time, but he’s also been the target of American Horror Story on several occasions. Ryan Murphy admitted that he almost did a Manson season for the show three times. “I had been working on it and researching it, but it never felt right to me because it felt like it was — first of all, it’s been done a million times, and I didn’t know how to make it fresh,” Murphy said during a recent press event for AHS. “But the thing that I just kept being drawn back to was the idea about cultive personalities. So, every year I would discard it, and I wanted to do it three years in a row. But I kept going back to that idea.”
