American Horror Stories – Rubber (Wo)man: Part One

By: Kelly Kearney

In the first two episodes of this spin-off anthology series based on “American Horror Story” we head back to the Murder House where all the deadly nightmares of this Murder-verse began. There is a new family moving in who, just like the house’s previous victims, have no idea of the evils that are waiting to welcome them.

Flipping the Murder House into a Murder Home

We open on the road with married couple Michael (Matt Bomer) and Troy (Gavin Creel) and their less than enthusiastic teenage daughter, Scarlett (Sierra McCormick). The family trio is on the move and on their way to their new home in Los Angeles. The Dads, who are full-time house flippers, bought the infamous murder house as a sort of horror themed bed and breakfast hoping its history would bring horror enthusiast to their doorstep turning the house into a must-stay for anyone interested in the paranormal. Scarlett, unlike her dreamer dads, is a pragmatist and questions if this evil money pit will bankrupt them, as if that is the worst scenario to come out of this purchase. Considering what happened to the families who last inhabited the home, going belly up is better than being gutted by a ghost, not that those stories scared off this family. Just the opposite in fact. Michael and Troy are not ghost believers, but for the right price, they can play the game.

Once inside the house Scarlett searches the rooms and stumbles onto a shiny rubber suit hanging in one of the bedroom closets. She makes the terrible decision to try it on and, of course, the taught black rubber fits like a second skin. Who lived there before them and is it a coincidence that the former kinky occupants just happen to be her size? This is a question that briefly flies through her mind as she poses in the mirror wearing her new find. Immediately something feels off with the reflection looking back at her. The image is bigger, more masculine and it is enough to freak her out and toss the suit into the trash without mentioning it to her dads.

Speaking of Michael and Troy, after the couple settles into their home they discover their daughter has been disobeying their orders about her internet searches. We already knew that Scarlett identified as a lesbian when earlier in the day she was caught starring at and flirting with classmate Maya (Paris Jackson), but that isn’t why her dads are concerned. It is her other interests that terrify them and those are much darker than a little girl on girl action. Thanks to their family’s Wi-Fi history the dads caught their curious teen watching torture porn and, considering she isn’t even sexually active yet, they’re worried about the ideas she is forming about sex before she has ever even been on a date. Her appetite for violent and misogynistic content is enough for them to call a therapist, to which Scarlett agrees to see but only if she can go to a sleepover Maya invited her to. They begrudgingly agree to let her go as long as she keeps her internet searches rated PG-13.

Trauma of the Past Wrecks Havoc on the Present

Other than that embarrassing lecture, Scarlett’s life is comprised of school by day and kitty-lick emoji texts with her crush at night. The sleepover is on and that helps soothe the pain from that awkward porn stuff. Sure, Maya’s friends are awful and how they will treat her is a turn off, but Maya does a good job of easing her worries that they won’t be an issue at the party.

Later that night Scarlett notices the discarded rubber suit has reappeared in her closet. Assuming her dads are playing a joke on her (because what dad hasn’t gifted their kid with a rubber gimp outfit) she slides into the shiny second skin and plots her own prank to scare them. Armed with a knife (again, this family’s pranks are twisted) she stalks the hallways of the house seeking out Troy and Michael until she bursts into their bedroom swinging the blade around. Michael screams and Troy bolts out of bed, with neither parent feeling amused when they realize who their attacker in rubber is. Considering their earlier “birds, bondage and bees” lecture, the dads are livid and they demand she take off the suit and ask where she got it. When Scarlett, who is still fooling around, refuses to give it up Troy tries to rip it off of her and gets accidently sliced in the arm by her knife in the process. The suit seems to be influencing her in ways she isn’t even aware of, but she does realize she went too far and apologizes for the poorly though out prank. Troy, bleeding and spiraling into a tornado of hysterical drama, tells her he “…will not be talking to you for weeks!”

Those weeks last less than twelve hours when the following day when both dads and Scarlett invite Doctor Grant (Merrin Dungey), the adolescent therapist, over to talk to Scarlett. As the doctor listens to the dads’ concerns, we learn a shocking fact about Scarlett’s past that could be what has influenced her recent delve into darkness. When their daughter was a few years old she was kidnapped during a carjacking in the grocery store parking lot. Scarlett was missing for ten days and was later found with a grieving mother who snapped after her boyfriend killed her own child. Troy tells Dr. Grant that Scarlett was found in perfect health; without a scratch on her, but that he and Michael have wondered if her wounds were beneath the surface causing her issues today. It’s an interesting question and it shows the level of attention and care both Dads have for their daughter. They do not shame her for her sexuality or her interests as they simply want to pinpoint any past traumas hoping it can help them understand why their sixteen-year-old daughter enjoys marinating her brain in torture porn. Dr. Grant has a different take on Scarlett’s issues, blaming the house itself for the change in her. However, Troy and Michael disagree. Even though they are turning the famed Murder House into a haunted hotel, they do not actually believe in the paranormal. It is not the ghosts Dr. Grant worries about, but the stories swirling through the community about the murders that took place inside those four walls. Those could be enough to push any impressionable child to investigate the darker sides of life. With that Dr. Grant cuts their session short and makes a stop off at the bathroom before she leaves. Back in the living room the Dads are still reeling from the therapy session and tell Scarlett she has to cancel her sleepover plans. This is not what she wanted to hear and she freaks out, screaming she wished that kidnapper had kept her! Michael whispers he agrees, but quickly apologizes for his moment of weakness. Scarlett stomps up to her room and her dads engage in a little self- care with edibles and watching Gillian Anderson in “The Crown.” Neither Dads nor child meant what they said in the heat of the moment, but the house is always listening, which is one of the reasons Dr. Grant found it so unsettling. The good doctor’s fears were proven right when she exits the bathroom and walks right into the throat slitting knife of the Rubber Man – the very entity who had been stalking the shadows of the house and Scarlett’s mind waiting for his first victim. Michael and Troy find the suit and a trail of blood in the hallway and the only excuse they can come up with is that their moody daughter got her period and left it for them to clean up. They really seemed like great parents up until this point. Having no clue what really went down with the suit and Scarlett’s therapist, Troy tosses the bloody suit into the fire and the couple heads back to their room to resume their Margaret Thatcher fanboy binge.

Revenge

Passed out from an overindulgence of edibles and Netlfix, Troy and Michael sleep right through Scarlett sneaking out to go to the sleepover. The mean girls are there, as expected, but Maya lavishes attention on Scarlett making any negativity they might sling her way worth it. Things start to go south when Scarlett takes off her clothes to change into a pair of Maya’s pajamas. Maya pushes her to admit why she was grounded to begin with and Scarlett shares that her taste in violent pornography landed her in Daddies’ Doghouse. The truth is out, but it isn’t just Maya who heard it. The entire school got a juicy earful via a hidden phone and a plot to live stream Scarlett into social suicide. Besides the fact that everyone saw her take her clothes off, they now know that her lesbianism isn’t the most interesting thing about her – her perverse porn habits are! Devastated, she flees the sleepover and immediately plots her revenge. She calls Maya, who places her on speakerphone, and says that she wrote a suicide note blaming them for her death. If they do not show up at her house in thirty to stop her, her blood will be on their hands.

Worried about what this means for their futures, the four girls decide to go to Scarlett’s and stop her before she can ruin their lives by taking her own. The front door is open and the girls follow the sounds of children playing in the basement, as if they had never heard a single story about this house or watched a horror movie! Lighting the path with their cell phones they make their way down into the dark underbelly of the home and Scarlett, dressed in the black rubber suit, is waiting for them. With her knife she slashes the throats of each of the girls who attempted to ruin her, leaving them all in a bloody heap on the floor.

The next morning Michael and Troy find their daughter doing a little DIY penance on the exposed brick missing from her bedroom wall. Apparently, she learned a lot from being raised by two house flippers and fixing the crumbling brick was a good way to prove to them she was sorry for earlier meltdown. The dads are thrilled that their daughter found a hobby outside of her porno pain fetishes, having absolutely no idea that her interest in masonry came only after she shoved five bodies (Dr. Grant included) behind those very bricks and mortar! Scarlett won’t be able to hide those secrets for long (a few days tops) and the truth will start to linger in the air pointing to her deadly deeds rotting behind the wall.