Stephen King: ‘American Horror Story’ Season 6 To Be Based On One Of His Stories, Which One May Surprise You


It looks like Stephen King will be a big influence on the upcoming sixth season of the hit FX show American Horror Story, as it appears it may be based on his short story entitled “The Mist.”

iTech Post reports this news comes from leaks that recently appeared in TV Guide and on TV and movie review site Rotten Tomatoes. In the two sources’ schedules of upcoming shows, they listed American Horror Story Season 6 as American Horror Story: The Mist. Many TV buffs, Stephen King fans or not, were quick to draw the connection between the premature listing’s title and King’s tremendously popular story that was published as part of Dark Forces, a 1980 horror anthology to which Stephen King was a contributor.

TV Guide and Rotten Tomatoes are both extremely reliable sources, at least as far as TV-related news goes, and they are extremely unlikely to have made a mistake like this unless they were accidentally letting slip some confidential information. The “incorrect” American Horror Story Season 6 subheading has since been taken down from both sources, but it seems overwhelmingly likely that the proverbial cat has been let out of the proverbial bag in regards to a Stephen King-inspired AHS theme.

For those who have not been keeping up with the buildup to American Horror Story‘s highly-anticipated sixth season, know that a slew of officially commissioned trailers has been released for it. The trailers are all very short and cryptic enough to make Stephen King himself proud, but they all give the viewer an idea of the show they are teasing. The problem is that the majority of the trailers are simply misdirection, an idea confirmed by the president of FX himself. In other words, there are a ton of trailers, each of them hinting at a very different theme for the upcoming season, but only one of them is accurate. You can view the trailers over at the AHS World Youtube channel.

Now that American Horror Story‘s sixth season is confirmed (or strongly hinted) to be taglined “The Mist,” viewers speculate that the “real” trailer out of the bunch is probably the only one having to do with mist, one in which a gangly monster like one of those out of the Stephen King story crawls along some railroad tracks towards the camera before the name of the show and the network, as well as the Season 6 premiere date, flash on the screen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KNicleP0hw

Of course, the trailer nor the name of the season explicitly imply that the season has anything to do with Stephen King’s The Mist, but it seems like a bit too much of a coincidence that American Horror Story and a King tale would have exactly the same name and not be related thematically. This seems especially unlikely given that Stephen King’s The Mist has proven to lend itself very well to the screen, spawning a very well-received movie directed by Stephen King aficionado Frank Darabont in 2007 and a TV show set to be released on Spike in 2017.

Stephen King’s vast body of work has certainly inspired its share of film and TV show adaptations (The Inquisitr recently published a detailed list of what stories could be adapted next), but this is another step forward even for him.

Stephen King’s story focuses on a small town that is enveloped by a thick mist. Those of the town’s residents who manage to take shelter in a local supermarket soon realize that the mist is acting as a home to a plethora of deadly and unsavory creatures that are definitely not listed in Encyclopedia Britannica. Going outside means death or at least the risk of life and limb. Chaos ensues.

It sounds like it has a lot of potential as a theme for American Horror Story season six, and it would more than likely attract a lot of new viewers to the show — Stephen King fans who have not seen it. The question is, have the show’s creators really picked up on the idea and invested in King’s work? We’ll find out in a few days when season six premieres on September 14.

[Photo by iStock]

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