‘American Horror Story: Cult': Is Judgment House a Real Thing?
Christan-oriented haunted houses that focus on ”saving“ people from things like drug use and abortion really exist, but they’re theatrical, not murderous
(Note: This post contains spoilers for the Oct. 24 episode of “American Horror Story: Cult.”)
In the latest episode of “American Horror Story: Cult,” dubbed “Winter of Our Discontent,” Winter (Billie Lourd) tells a story that gets into the origins of her brother Kai (Evan Peters) and how he became the murderous leader of a clown cult.
Winter explains how she and Kai visited “Judgment House,” a place run by a man calling himself Pastor Charles that resembles a traditional haunted house, but with a fundamentalist twist: it features gruesome depictions of the wages of sin. One room shows a woman who’s dying because of a botched abortion. Another has a man dying from drug addiction. And still another showcases a man who’s going to be killed for being a “sodomite,” according to Pastor Charles.
At first, Kai and Winter think the victims in the house are actors. But they’re not — in fact, Charles is a serial killer using the house to torture and murder people he thinks are sinners.
But if the “Judgment House” concept sounds familiar, that’s because it shares a name with several real-life productions; but fortunately, unlike in “American Horror Story: Cult,” they’re not murder factories. Instead, they’re straightforward haunted houses, run by evangelical churches, and peopled with actors.
As the Washington Post reports, the idea is to use the haunted house to “save” people by getting them committed to Jesus. The scenes in the house show people dying, and depict whether they’ll go to heaven, because they believe in Jesus Christ, or to hell, because they don’t. There’s also a Judgment House website that has more information about how it works by depicting dramatic scenes meant to encourage people toward Christianity.
But there’s a more intense version of “Judgment House” that’s more thematically in line with what’s shown on “American Horror Story: Cult.” It’s called “Hell House,” and it uses a similar approach, but with a harder edge. “Hell House” is a Christian haunted house showing people going to hell because they get abortions or because they’re gay. They’re notorious for explicit, often visceral depictions of what they consider sins, and the afterlife horrors that await those who commit them. Like “Judgment House,” the intention is that that people will convert to evangelical Christianity thanks to what they see.
Still, while the fictional Judgment House in “American Horror Story: Cult” takes a little bit of inspiration from the real world, the one seen in the episode has more in common with the murderous traps of the “Saw” movies than anything that’s happened in reality.
Every 'American Horror Story: Cult' Character, Ranked by How Likely It Is That They're a Murderous Clown (Photos)
When "American Horror Story: Cult," kicked off on Sept. 5, fans immediately started speculating that some of the weirdness between the show's characters could be a clown cult conspiracy. After eight episodes most of their suspicions have been confirmed, but now members are turning against each other, and people who were in are trying to find way s to take the cult down. Warning: Spoilers!
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Oz Mayfair-Richards (Cooper Dodson)
Seeing as Oz is a kid, we can be pretty sure he’s not a member of the clown murder cult. But we now know he's an integral part of at least some of the cult's plans. Could little Oz be on the recruitment list? And how is he going to react when he starts to learn the truth? Maybe he'll gather a clown-fighting posse of local kids, a la the movie "It."
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Dr. Rudy Vincent (Cheyenne Jackson)
Poor Vincent. Despite being Kai and Winter's brother, it turns out he really didn't know anything about the clown cult -- until it was too late. Vincent really should have listened to Ally all this time, instead of disbelieving her while never realizing that the guy responsible for her torment was his brother all along.
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RJ (James Morosini)
Beverly Hope's cameraman was revealed to be a part of the cult when "American Horror Story: Cult" finally took all the masks off, but he's one member who hasn't been fully on board with all the murders. He might have wanted to keep his mouth shut, though, since Kai and Beverly made an example out of him to prove everyone else's loyalty. It seems likely that'll create some more dissension in the ranks, and soon fans will be guessing who's about to try to leave the cult, rather than who's joining up.
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Beverly Hope (Adina Porter)
After Kai got his spot on the city council, he immediately started sidelining the women in the group. Beverly isn't happy about it -- she previously was Kai's favorite cultist and his second-in-command, but now she's thinking about betrayal, and helped get rid of Harrison to start it. It seems she underestimated how much she could trust Winter, though, but Kai hasn't killed her yet. There might yet be time for Beverly to get free and start a cult of her own.
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Ivy Mayfair-Richards (Alison Pill)
Fans immediately started to believe Ivy might be in on the clown cult after the first episode, when clowns repeatedly tormented her wife, Ally, but Ivy saw nothing. Now we know Ivy was using the clowns to try to get out of her marriage and grab custody of her son. After Kai started cutting out the women, though, it seems that Ivy is rethinking her choices. It might be too little, too late though, since Ally is now part of the cult, much to Ivy's shock.
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Winter Anderson (Billie Lourd)
It turns out Kai's sister is among his biggest supporters, which isn't totally shocking. But now that he seems to have replaced her and the other women in the cult's power structure, Winter's loyalties seem to be fluctuating -- starting with taking out Harrison and Samuels. But she was still loyal enough to pick Kai over Vincent and Beverly.
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Ally Mayfair-Richards (Sarah Paulson)
Ally was the cult's target for the longest time, but as she said in Episode 8, Kai's torment might have actually cured her of all her phobias. She's definitely got a plan, and she's executing it -- by joining the cult. Ally turned on Vincent without much trouble, but is she really backing Kai, or does she mean to dismantle the whole thing from the inside?
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Detective Samuels (Colton Haynes)
There have been hints all along that Detective Samuels might be in on the cult. He showed up conveniently at key points in several investigations, and when it turned out he was dating Harrison, there seemed to be no way he wasn't helping the clowns out. We finally found out how Kai brought him aboard, only to watch him bite a bullet for being a sexist Neo-Nazi.
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Bebe Babbit (Frances Conroy)
Appearing out of nowhere to warn the women of Kai's cult against him, it turned out that Zodiac killer Bebe is actually working with Kai. She might not be a full murder member of the clown cult, but she's definitely helping the leader execute his master plans -- which seem to involve literally cutting some people out.
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Gary Longstreet (Chaz Bono)
When the clown masks came off, finding Gary underneath one was about pretty unsurprising. After all, this was the guy who cut off his own hand so he could make sure to vote. He also was clearly involved in one of the first clown cult appearances to torment Ally. Gary's a true believer, that much is obvious.
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Harrison Wilton (Billy Eichner)
Harrison became one of Kai's most committed acolytes. He clearly saw Kai as having saved, and salvaged, his failing life. Harrison was fully on board with all kinds of murder and mayhem, without hesitation. It wasn't enough to stop Beverly, Ivy and Winter from slicing him up, though.
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Meadow Wilton (Leslie Grossman)
The big twist in the sixth episode of "American Horror Story: Cult" revealed that there's nobody more fanatically dedicated to Kai than Meadow. She played double agent beautifully, and went all-in for Kai in a way that probably no one else in the cult would.
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Kai Anderson (Evan Peters)
Kai has a plan for world domination in the wake of Donald Trump’s election, and his clown murder cult is helping him do it. As things begin to pick up speed with Kai's faked assassination attempt, though, it's becoming clear there's more to his strategy than even his followers know. That, or he's completely lost it.
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Twisty the Clown (John Carroll Lynch)
There’s no denying that Twisty the Clown is literally a murderous clown. So far, though, he doesn’t seem to be a real murderous clown, but a fictional one. He’s only appeared in Oz’s comic books and dreams, so he might just be a tormenting, gross-faced monster showing up to confuse the other characters about what’s real and what’s in their heads.
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Alliances are fraying in the murder cult
When "American Horror Story: Cult," kicked off on Sept. 5, fans immediately started speculating that some of the weirdness between the show's characters could be a clown cult conspiracy. After eight episodes most of their suspicions have been confirmed, but now members are turning against each other, and people who were in are trying to find way s to take the cult down. Warning: Spoilers!
FX
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