INTO THE ASYLUM: 'AMERICAN HORROR STORY' SEASON TWO

Troubled Souls... Jessica Lange returns to head the cast of the innovative AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM. Images: FX.

It looks like Louise Fletcher's Academy Award winning, unspeakably evil turn as Nurse Ratched is finally about to get some competition for potential all-round nastiness in the habit wearing shape of Jessica Lange as Sister Jude, a Nun with a difference in the second season of the splendidly chilling and oh-so-kinky goings on of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk's splendid and perversely enjoyable horror anthology series, AMERICAN HORROR STORY, with the subtitle ASYLUM, returning for a bold and no doubt compelling new run this October on the US FOX channel, with a a UK premiere not too far off...

Having said goodbye to last years ambitious and mostly satisfying storyline with the pent up, ripe for self-destruction Harmon family in their horrific ex-abortion clinic home, in a series of fiery and blood-soaked events that would send shivers up the spines of even the most solid of residents in Amityville, this new season has an intriguing starting point, surely bringing diverse and chain clanking new life to a well-worn horror cliche, within the sterile and scream filled art deco wings of an East Coast based mental asylum, Briarcliff Manor, in a time frame far removed from the City of the Angeles sunny but equally doom-laden climes, with what looks like a diverse and equally disturbing, and surely also darkly humorous, set of new characters for the writers to unspool their wonderfully twisted imaginings on to, including new main casters Joseph Fiennes (playing a mind-warped Monsignor), Chloe Sevigny (as Shelley, a stockings clad nymphet) and the always welcome, on-screen creepy presence of James Cromwell as the ultimate hypodermic needle wielding psychiatrist/supervisor of the facility, and possibly former Nazi experimentalist, Dr. Arden. No doubt, though, that Lange's Mother Superior will be the sublimely stern and sadistic presence that glues it all together.

Black tears! No one can not accuse the shows behind the scenes team of scary creativity...

One trailer for the new series that Doris Day will definitely not be watching: American Horror Story: Asylum -- New video | Inside TV | EW.com

American Horror Story: Asylum Promo #2 - YouTube

Other creepy teaser trailers: ‘American Horror Story: Asylum’ Trailers Tease Season 2 Clues (Updated)

Also returning from the original series, but in all-new characters, will be STAR TREK and HEROES Zachary Quinto, previously playing a jealous and murderous partner last year and now adding the Hippocratic Oath to his new Doctor duties as Thredson, Sarah Paulson as committed lesbian journalist Lana, Evan Peters and Lily Rabe, along with Frances Conroy, no longer the popular ageing servant Frannie and apparently playing a character described as "the ultimate angel"! Expect other strong guest stars, including Clea DuVall and Franka Potente, to make appearances throughout the thirteen episode run... 

Set to give Alexandra Breckenridge a sexy run for her money this year, Chloe Sevigny as inmate Shelley.

Certainly one of the most striking and repellent memories of last year was the ghostly S and M wearing figure terrorising the family in the most unexpected and surreally grim moments. This new season promises a worthy successor tormenting our incarcerated characters: the scarred and disfigured form of Bloody Face (more here: New American Horror Story pics expose a bloody new villain | Blastr). Never more so will explorations of the dark side of our soul and sanity be keenly felt through such foreboding and haunting inter-actions. 

More info here: 'American Horror Story: Asylum' Unveils First Look at Characters and New Teasers

With all this darkness clouding them, Nuns have had a pretty bad time of it in horror films and TV over the last few years. I think its time for someone to do Nuns versus Zombies, so as to give things a bit of positive and heroic counterbalance...