American Horror Story: 1984 – Mr. Jingles

By: Kelly Kearney

As the first night descends on Camp Redwood, evil lurks from the woods in the form of a key jingling maniac set out to finish the massacre he started fourteen years before.

Mr. Jingles strikes Again…

In what can only be described as a shout out to the 70’s horror film Halloween, Benjamin Richter’s doctor is on the hunt to find her patient before he’s unleashes unholy terror on the unsuspecting counselors at Camp Redwood. Dr. Karen Hopple (Orla Brady), Chief of Psychology at the local asylum for the insane, makes her way to Margaret Booth’s (Leslie Grossman) cabin to warn her that Mr. Jingles (John Carroll Lynch) is on the loose and headed straight for her newly reopened camp. Karen pleads with Margaret to close down the camp because Benjamin is obsessed with killing the girl who survived and helped lock him away. Margaret, who claims to have reopened Camp Redwood to prove to herself that Jingles no longer holds any power over her, refuses. “God helps those who help themselves,” says Booth as she reaches into a drawer and pulls out a loaded handgun. If Mr. Jingles is coming for her, Margaret is armed and ready. With her warning falling on deaf ears Karen leaves to continue her search, but winds up with a tire blowout somewhere along a wooded and dark road.  A truck pulls up behind her and the doctor thinks it’s someone there to offer help. As the man approaches she hears the jingle of a set of keys as Benjamin Richter reaches into her car window, pulls her out by her hair and stabs her in the chest! Then, he cuts the doctor’s ear off as a memento of their deadly encounter.

Back at camp the counselors gather to watch the Olympics on TV when Brooke (Emma Roberts) spots an important news break while the rest of her group is otherwise occupied with snacks and beer. The report states a man at a local gas station was murdered and the police are wondering if his death could be linked to The Night Stalker killings across Los Angeles. Brooke realizes the dead man is the station attendant who warned them about the camp from earlier. She starts to worry that the Night Stalker (Zach Villa) could be in his way to find her. When her friends turn to see what she’s talking about the news is over and the group begins to worry this is all in Brooke’s head. That’s when Margaret enters to break up the party and remind them all of her no fraternizing with the opposite sex rule. She sends the male counselors to the showers and orders the ladies to bed. Montana (Billie Lourd) does her best to soothe Brooke’s fears, but we soon learn that the frightened woman’s problems didn’t start with the Night Stalker.

A Not So White Wedding…

We flashback to one year earlier where Brooke’s trauma began. Set to marry her childhood sweetheart Joey (Spencer Neville), all her friends and family are gathered at the church waiting for the bride to make her way down the aisle. As the couple reads their vows Joey stops the wedding to accuse his best man of sleeping with his bride-to-be. Brooke denies it, claiming she was afraid to be alone and Joey’s friend was only keeping her company the night before their big day. Enraged with jealousy Brooke’s fiancé doesn’t buy her excuse and pulls out a handgun and proceeds to shoot his best man and Brooke’s father (Steven Culp)! Brooke is left standing in her blood splattered white wedding gown as her future husband pulls the trigger and kills himself.

Back to the present and Montana tries to comfort Brooke with some sympathy and girl-on-girl kissing, but it’s all too much for her and she leaves the cabin to go clear her head. Outside, the guys make their way to the outdoor showers and talk about hooking up with Montana and Brooke. Xavier (Cody Fern) goes back to the cabin because he forgot his towel and on the way gets the feeling like he’s being followed. He is right. He is being followed by his porn director daddy, Blake (Todd Stashwick), who followed him to the camp. Xavier accuses Blake of stalking him after he told the porn maker that he’s done being his “gay for pay” star. He wants to be a mainstream actor, but his daddy won’t take no for an answer. Instead, he threatens to destroy Xavier’s hopes of a legitimate film career and soon their argument turns physical. Blake throws Xavier to the ground and starts strangling him. Quick on his feet with a way out, Xavier offers Blake an alternative. If the filmmaker lets him off the porn hook, Xavier will point him in the direction of some fresh meat in the form of Trevor (Matthew Morrison), the camp’s big packaged activities director. Blake orders Xavier to show him who this guy is and the two head to the showers where Trevor is soaping up and bragging about his body. Blake peers though a hole in the shower wall and after he gets a glance at what Trevor has to offer, daddy seems pleased with the offer. Xavier leaves him to his porno peeping and that’s when someone creeps up behind Blake and drives a knife through his skull. The porno daddy peeper is pinned to the shower and gasping out his last breath.

Two Killers, Once Camp…

Meanwhile, Brooke’s relaxing stroll by the lake takes a deadly turn when she spots a body floating in the water. Cue the Night Stalker, a/k/a Richard Ramirez, who emerges from the shadows!  Brooke takes off running from the knife wielding killer after clocking him over the head with a shovel, but Richard is right behind her. That is until the missing hiker Jonas (Lou Taylor Pucci) steps in and tries to stop him. Ramirez slices Jonas’s throat just as the dying man yells something about this not being how he was supposed to die. It appears Jonas was right because minutes later he comes back to life and Ramirez is forced to stab him again. Apparently, Jonas is impervious to death…or at least by the hands of the Night Stalker anyway. His body disappears right before the confused serial killer’s eyes.

Back at Camp Nurse Rita (Angelica Ross) is stocking the infirmary in preparation for the opening of camp when she’s interrupted by Mr. Jingles! Outside Brooke is still running from Ramirez and finds a payphone but it’s out of order. Montana shows up to ask her what’s going on, but when Brooke explains what just happened Montana doesn’t believe her.  Their talk is cut short when the guys find Blake’s body and start screaming. Brooke, Montana and Xavier run to see what’s going on, but Blake is long dead and there’s no point in calling an ambulance. Xavier starts panicking and pretends that Blake is some random stranger and not his porno blackmailing stalker. The group start to brainstorm over what they should do next, but the body leads Montana to finally believe Brooke about her fears. She tells the others about the killer who could lurking around the camp, but when Trevor spots Blake’s missing ear they all start to panic. Mr. Jingles and The Night Stalker at the same camp? That’s two threats too many, so they all decide to leave before they become his next earless victims. They take off towards Xavier’s van just as Margaret enters her cabin to find a mysterious man in her living room. “Who are you,” she asks. “A servant of the Lord’s son,” the man replies. Only, it’s not the Lord she’s thinking of but the dark lord who was cast out of Heaven. Margaret asks the man what he wants and he shows her the camp ID he took off Jonas’ body before he disappeared. He wants to know who the man is and why he can’t kill him. This leads to a very bizarre chat between Boothe and The Night Stalker. While cleaning his wounds Richard talks about his past and what led him to becoming L.A.’s most notorious serial killer.  It all started when his stepfather returned from Vietnam with a handful of snapshots of the innocent people he murdered under the pretense of a brutal war. Eventually, this man killed Richard’s mother and that’s when Satan claimed her son’s soul. Margaret isn’t afraid, but intrigued and possibly even turned on, but she lets Richard continue because she’s sympathetic to his struggles. The two flirt and eventually she tells him that the man he’s asking about died fourteen years ago, the night Mr. Jingles went on his killing spree. She goes on explain that God can help Richard not feel bad about the deaths he’s caused. She rells him, “You can use him to explain why something happened, but you can also use him to explain why you did something, even something horrible. Isn’t that great?” Spoken like a true hypocrite. For Margaret, God and trauma are the top two excuses for getting away with whatever you want and that really clicks with Richard. She believes in him, but mostly she believes she can manipulate him into killing Mr. Jingles before he can kick off another camp massacre. She agrees to look for Jonas if Richard agrees not to kill anyone else at the camp. Just Jingles, who totally has it coming to him.

Outside the group piles into Xavier’s van only the relic won’t start and the mood is frantic. Eventually, the engine turns over, but they don’t get far because Xavier crashes into a tree while trying to avoid hitting a screaming Rita in the road! They all jump out to help the nurse, who has some seriously bad news; Mr. Jingles is back and she barely escaped him! With the van dead, the group is out of ideas and nobody has a car big enough to fit them all. They decide to split up into separate cars just as their boss happens upon the vanishing Jonas in the woods. The two know each other, but the strange thing is Margaret has aged and Jonas didn’t. The last time the two saw each other was the night of the massacre and Jonas has been filled with guilt ever since. Apparently, he fled and left Margaret to die by the hands of Mr. Jingles. The next thing he remembers is running in the road and the killer catching up to him. How can that be if he’s alive? Is he a ghost?

Back at the camp’s infirmary half the group is looking for Nurse Rita’s car keys while the other half is searching a cabin for another way out of the woods. The key search isn’t going well and now Brooke is blaming herself for all of this drama. According to her, she’s cursed and anyone who gets near her seems to die. Likewise, Xavier is also blaming himself for bringing everyone to the camp just so he could get away from Blake and the porn industry. Everyone is in panic mode and that’s when things go from bad to worse. They hear someone coming and it sounds like a jingling set of keys! Could it be Mr. Jingles or has the Night Stalker come to finish what he started? Whoever it is, one thing is for sure, death seems to follow Brooke wherever she goes.