American Horror Stories Season 1, Episode 4 recap: The Naughty List

This week’s episode of American Horror Stories, “The Naughty List”, brings a classic horror story to life–a killer Santa Clause. Okay, it’s not exactly classic, but it’s been done plenty of times before, plus it fits with the whole “Christmas in July” sentiment. Unfortunately, even the involvement of Danny Trejo couldn’t save this episode from crashing and burning.

The episode is a homage to the culture of Tik Tok houses that have taken over the last few years. In reality, many will know about “Hype House” where a lot of famous TikTokers have lived, but in this episode, they call it, “Bro House”. Within this house, a group of influencers obsessed with likes, money, and worldwide recognition live together to create social media content.

We come to learn their ultimate goal is to reach 5 million subscribers, and while they do, it comes at a great cost to them. And as stupid as this episode was, it does shed a spotlight on society’s obsession to be noticed. The great lengths people go to is rather frightening, and this episode pokes some fun at it.

“The Naughty List” features each of the men in the house through over-the-top, cheesy intros, We’ve got Zinn (Nico Greetham), Wyatt (Charles Melton), Barry (Kevin McHale), and James (Dyllon Burnside. Each of them is pushing through to the other side of their twenties so their time as influencers may soon be coming to an end. Or so they say according to some unsaid rule that post-30-years-old you can’t be famous on Tik Tok.

They spend the episode trying to figure out ways to increase their followers and let’s just say, they get way too creative at times. Dangerously creative, at that. To find out exactly what, check out our recap of this week’s episode of American Horror Stories below–and share your favorite moments with us!

American Horror Stories Season 1, Episode 4 recap: Anything for the ‘Gram’

While out “bro-ing” around, the Bro House men notice a distraught man standing on a bridge contemplating a jump that would surely kill him. Instead of calling for help or doing something to convince the guy to stop, they decide to record the guy committing suicide. They think it will get them a ton of followers, which seems rather familiar if people remember what Logan Paul did some years back.

Barry isn’t thrilled with the idea but decides to film the suicide and posts it to their YouTube page. The video is then “premiered” at their house party later, and the plan to gain followers completely backfires. Instead, they start hemorrhaging followers by the thousands and face a lot of backlash over their insensitivity. Even the victim’s family holds a press conference to tell the world that Bro House should be boycotted.

Sadly, this doesn’t really faze Bro House in the slightest, and instead, they start focusing on how they can rebuild their following. Zinn comes up with the idea to be “homeysexual” despite none of them actually being gay. He thinks that straight guys pretending to be gay, will get the attention of followers.

It’s supposed to be about transcending the idea of sexuality, but really, it’s just absolutely offensive on so many levels. Who actually thought this was a good idea to put into the episode? I’m sure people do this, but did they really need to pick this to talk about in the episode?

Barry and Wyatt are against Zinn’s idea but Zinn goes through with it anyway and what follows is a series of horrendous and offensive videos of the guys being sexual with one another. Or pretending to be anyway. Of course, as anyone intelligent could have told them, they ended up losing even more followers.

American Horror Stories Season 1, Episode 4 recap: Correcting grave mistakes

Barry realizes that they need to course-correct and fast if they are ever to get their followers back. He comes up with a plan to get them back to the types of videos they became famous for, you know when it was about having fun and being silly.

They head to the mall which is decked out in Christmas decorations and head to the area where kids are taking pictures with Santa Claus (Danny Trejo). The thought process is to create some silly video featuring Santa but it all goes very wrong, very fast.

The boys start making offensive jokes (surprise, surprise) to the female elf employee which garners the attention of one of her coworkers. The debacle results in Zinn going up to the kids and telling them Santa isn’t real (really, dude?) and then doing a lap dance on Santa Claus.

Zinn is unaware that this is not the Santa Claus you want to mess with. In fact, he’s aggressive and pushes Zinn to the ground and threatens him telling him he’ll get what he deserves. Yikes.

The mall security escorts the Bro House out and they go back home to chug down some celebratory beers. Except, there is nothing to celebrate because their fans are once again disappointed with the content they tried to create. The Bro House breaks out into arguments over the future of their influencer career and goes their own ways inside of the house.

American Horror Stories Season 1, Episode 4 recap: Holiday murder spree

Things take a turn when Detective Deena Gibbs (Taneka Johnson) calls the Bro House inquiring about their failed prank at the mall earlier that day. As it turns out, the man that was dressed up as Santa was an imposter. He had killed the real employee and taken his place. The cops wanted all the footage the Bro House got from the mall in hopes they can get a bit closer to the murderer.

Elsewhere in the Bro House, Wyatt meets his unfortunate end after walking into the garage to get some beer out of the fridge. He notices a camera inside the fridge and just as he goes to grab it, the Santa killer grabs his neck and twists it until his neck breaks and his spinal cord is sticking out.

The other boys notice a video has been uploaded to their account and it turns out that it’s a video of Wyatt’s brutal murder. The fans are in love with it and think that it’s all special effects, as do the other Bro House guys. Little does everyone know, Wyatt is actually dead and not messing with anyone.

Barry and James try to delete the video while Zinn goes looking for Wyatt in the garage. He hears a strange noise outside and runs right into the killer Santa, still believing someone is playing a prank on them. Of course, Zinn learns the hard way that this is a murder spree and he’s the next victim. The Santa killer smacks with him a giant bone, puts leaves into his mouth, and then ties him up with string lights. He then throws Zinn into the water so he can die via electrocution, which shuts off the electricity inside the house.

American Horror Stories Season 1, Episode 4 recap: The boys who cried wolf

The Bro House does not have the best track record so when James tries to call 911, the operator puts a “no rush” order for a squad car to go check out what’s going on. Unfortunately for both Barry and James, they aren’t able to escape the wrath of killer Santa in the meantime. James is killed with a crossbow but Barry is still hanging on with an arrow embedded in his leg.

Barry locks himself inside Bro House and tries to use a Christmas stocking as a tourniquet. It doesn’t do much and the blood loss begins to get to him. Before he completely passes out, he scoots over to the laptop and writes a comment on their YouTube channel asking for help. Of course, none of the followers believe him and write it off as yet another prank.

Much like the original St. Nick, the killer Santa is heard on the roof and for a moment it seems like he might even come down the chimney. Instead, he begins pouring gasoline just as the laptop makes a celebratory noise from it–the Bro House has five million subscribers! It took all of them dying to get there, but yay?

Instead of freaking out that he’s moments from dying, Barry is ecstatic that they finally reached their goal as flames engulf him. Shortly after, the cops show up and learn about the murder spree that has just unfolded in the house. Detective Gibbs finds the Christmas tree which has Zinn’s head at the top and other body parts used as ornaments.

The episode ends with killer Santa waiting in his car in a parking lot, looking out for his next prey–yet another innocent mall Santa. And, that’s a wrap?

We told you it was a weird episode of American Horror Stories!

What did you think of this week’s episode? Tell us in the comments below!