Ryan Murphy's Spiritual Successor To American Horror Story Was Made To Be Binged

While waiting for the return of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story on FX and Hulu, there’s another lesser-known series of 10 episodes from the genre specialist that’s just dying to be binged. The headscrambling psychological thrills and heavily stylized classic horror tropes of AHS are in full swing throughout this standalone miniseries with a separate yet equally gripping premise.

There was a time when Grotesquerie appeared to be a backdoor new season of American Horror Story, even though it was always billed as being outside the long-running anthology franchise. Either way, this detective story starring Niecy Nash-Betts is very much a Ryan Murphy TV show to its core, made in the spirit of his other horror releases.

We now know that Grotesquerie is definitively not American Horror Story season 13, which is coming to our screens later in 2026. But it’s still the perfect fix for fans of Murphy’s trademark graphic scares, bizarre character archetypes, and blindsiding meta twists.

In fact, the show is ideal for a quiet weekend indoors, since it’s self-consciously designed to be binged in a single sitting. For those ready to be fully immersed in a story-world of grisly crimes, perplexing mysteries, and mind-bending narrative ambiguities, Grotesquerie is among the most entertaining things on television.

Ryan Murphy’s Grotesquerie Was Made To Be Binge-Watched

It’s no surprise that Grotesquerie experienced major streaming success upon its initial release in September and October 2024. Hitting all the right notes in the run-up to Halloween, this horror thriller disguised as a crime procedural is meant to hook you in from the beginning, and keep you watching until its final twist.

Before that point, however, there’s a stunning moment of plot upheaval akin to looping the loop on a rollercoaster ride, which occurs just past the halfway mark. Without being fully immersed in the series, balancing precariously between its gritty detective genre conceit and its nightmarish atmospherics, you don’t quite feel the full force of this sudden transformation.

Ryan Murphy and his fellow Grotesquerie writers Jon Robin Baitz and Joe Baken are clearly aware of the need for viewers to binge-watch the show, as they leave a trail of breadcrumbs leading towards what’s coming, but subtle enough to keep viewers guessing. They also integrate multiple levels of narrative into the show’s first seven episodes.

This approach allows the elements of horror, mystery, procedure and psychological drama to be tied together when the time comes. Until that moment, there’s something for fans of almost every kind of TV genre in Grotesquerie, provided that you’re ready to be seriously horrified by what you see. It certainly isn’t a show for the faint-hearted.

How Grotesquerie Adapts The American Horror Story Formula

Ryan Murphy has repeatedly stressed the fact that Grotesquerie isn’t a part of his beloved anthology series American Horror Stories. Nevertheless, the two shows definitely belong to the same oeuvre of TV horror storytelling. The miniseries has various traits AHS fans will recognize, from stylized depictions of nuns and nurses, to gothicized biblical themes.

Then there’s Nicholas Alexander Chavez’s supremely unsettling turn as Father Charlie Mayhew, which is highly reminiscent of the Joseph Fiennes villain Monsignor Timothy Howard from AHS: Asylum. But the biggest connection between Grotesquerie and American Horror Story is the show’s integration of psychological nightmares into its plot and narrative perspective.

This storytelling device is a move frequently employed in Ryan Murphy’s flagship anthology series – so frequently, in fact, that some viewers might be able to see it coming in Grotesquerie. Nevertheless, expecting it is one thing, but remaining unphased when it comes around is quite another.

The crucial mid-series twist is still just as effective, however much you know of Murphy’s previous work. More broadly, Grotesquerie adapts the American Horror Story formula for its own idiosyncratic ends. It’s a singularly brilliant genre-blending mystery, which deserves more appreciation than it gets from horror fans.