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The last time American Horror Story spent a a substantial amount of time in the woods, everyone died. And that’s exactly what happened in American Horror Stories Episode 6, “Feral.” Written by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Manny Coto, this episode dove into one of horror’s favorite tropes: cannibalistic forest monsters.
It would be easy to imagine “Feral” as a full-fledged movie. After losing their beloved son while on a camping trip, a husband and a wife become desperate to find him. That search leads them to a National Park that’s hiding a huge, deadly national secret. Wondering what you may have missed in American Horror Stories Episode 6? From the return of Cody Fern to those wild men connections, we have you covered.
Kern Canyon National Park is a real place.
American Horror Stories may have made up the terror, but it didn’t make up the place. Kern River Canyon National Park is a very real park, located in the Southern Sierra Nevada in California. The show also got another detail right: this park has seen a lot of death. In 2021, the Kern County Sheriff’s Office updated a sign off of Highway 178 that shows how many lives have been lost. Since 1968, 315 people have died in the park. Most of these deaths were due to people jumping into the river, not cannibals.
This was Aaron Tveit's second 'American Horror Stories' appearance.
There’s a first for everything, and Aaron Tveit just became American Horror Stories‘ first double appearance. Tveit starred in the two part “Rubber (wo)Man” as the adulterous Adam, and he appears again in “Feral” as Jay Gantz, a grieving father desperate to find his son. This is a pretty big year for the actor. Tveit also starred in Apple TV+’s delightful Schmigadoon! as dancing bad boy Danny and The Good Fight as Spencer Zschau.
Cody Fern wasn't the only one who's appeared in the Murphyverse before.
“Feral” saw the return of a newer AHS fan favorite. Cody Fern starred as park ranger Stan Vogel, a role that allowed the Aussie actor to use his actual accent. Prior to Stories, Fern starred as the antichrist himself Michael Langdon in Apocalypse and as camp counselor Xavier in 1984. But one of his first major roles was in another Ryan Murphy production. Fern starred as the tragically murdered David Madson in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.
He’s also not the only Murphy alum. Episode 6 stars Tiffany Dupont as mourning mother Abby Gantz. Dupont played Ali in Fox’s 9-1-1, an artist who had a brief relationship with Buck (Oliver Stark). She’s also starred in Brian Banks, Proven Innocent, and Murder in the First.
The "yowie" is a real urban legend.
In passing Stan mentions that there’s no such thing as Bigfoot in Australia, but there are yowie. That’s a real thing in folklore. This mythical creature goes by many names: quinkin and joogabinna in Queensland; Ghindaring and jurrawarra in New South Wales, just to name a few. Rooted in Aboriginal oral history, the yowie is typically described as a hairy ape-like creature that’s around six feet tall. Some people who claim they’ve witnessed the creature say it’s timid, whereas other describe it as violent. But American Horror Stories’ point still stands. It’s basically Australian Bigfoot.
The myth of the wild man appeared again.
It turns out Bigfoot wasn’t to blame after all. Stan tells Jay and Abby that the massacre they witnessed was the result of wild men, cannibalistic subhumans who roam America’s forests. According to him, that’s why the National Park system was created in the first place. It was never to preserve anything but to keep these dangerous threats dangerous inside.
This is the second time the myth of the wild man has appeared in American Horror Stories. In “The Naughty List”, Danny Trejo’s murderous Santa Claus sent his Bro House victims the link to a website about these violent and mythical woodland men. This implies that this bloody Santa may have escaped from his own National Park to cause chaos across the country. He certainly likes entrails enough to be part of this twisted tribe.
