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Going the route of successful anthology series like American Horror Story, AMC’s rooted-in-fact cocktail of historical and supernatural horror returns as The Terror: Infamy, ditching the titular English ships of the first season. Instead of the Terror, now it’s just the terror!
Set amidst the Japanese internment camps of the 1940s, in which Japanese-American citizens were detained amidst the xenophobia and post-Pearl Harbor paranoia seen on the homefront, Infamy‘s immediate aesthetic is, right off the bat, a stark contrast to the first season’s doomed polar expedition.
It also seems to be more upfront with its supernatural elements, with an interned Japanese warning of the bakemono, a shape-shifting creature of… slippery intentions.
Interesting also is the focus on internment camps, coming at a volatile time in the United States when camps on the US-Mexico border are being denounced for their inhumanity and fascistic implications. Infamy could potentially spark even further conversation in this regard, and will certainly fall under scrutiny for the timeliness.
Our own Rick Lash kept up with The Terror‘s first season and was a fan, and personally I just a week ago caught up and finished it–The Terror is terrific! From its great period detail (those costumes and props are incredible) to the intentionally-paced, gnawing glimpses of gore and an atmosphere of decay and dread, it seems destined for cult status in the years to come.
How Infamy will fare switching things up so dramatically, time will tell. With Ridley Scott returning as an executive producer, we certainly aren’t being shoveled into something half-baked; a series like this, with a niche audience, has to have some passion behind it to continue. We don’t have long to wait, with The Terror: Infamy premiering on AMC August 12th.