The Beauty is the latest addition to Ryan Murphy's repertoire, bringing back familiar faces and formulas. As often is the case, it's a delight to watch once again. It's 2026, and horror is back with a vengeance, if it ever really left. Or at least, it's increasingly getting the recognition it deserves. This year, several prominent horror films were even nominated at the Oscars. The previous year, The Substance was a big hit. I mention that film on purpose because The Beauty fits nicely into that category.
The Beauty is based on a comic book series of the same name. The series revolves around a sexually transmitted 'beauty treatment' that makes the recipient physically attractive. However, after a while, the treatment has disastrous and deadly consequences. Evan Peters and Rebecca Hall play two FBI agents who are set loose on the mystery.
The first episode is essentially nothing more than the description above. We see the disastrous consequences, we see how the treatment works, we see how society makes people feel inferior because of their appearance and why treatments like this are so popular. We also see the detectives at work. All in all, a regular episode that follows a fixed formula. The setup for the story is interesting, and I'm curious to see where the rest of the season will take us.
With The Beauty, Murphy takes on the beauty ideal. Not necessarily an original angle, but that doesn't make it any less fun to watch. Just look at The Substance, the film I mentioned earlier. The subject we're discussing isn't new, but it remains interesting. There are many comparisons with The Substance, but The Beauty really follows a different formula. So it remains interesting and refreshing, even though it's not necessarily original.
What The Beauty does very well is embrace the genre. The series is categorized as body horror and in the first episode, we already see plenty of good examples of that.
What The Beauty does very well is embrace the genre. The series is categorized as body horror, and in the first episode, we already see plenty of good examples of that. The special effects are good, and the body horror is graphic. You really need that to make a series like this succeed. You can't get away with half-hearted work.
Meanwhile, the series remains delightfully Murphyesque. The acting has the quirkiness you expect from a Ryan Murphy series. The same goes for the entourage, the atmosphere, the dialogues. Murphy has created a certain kind of genre for himself that he keeps playing with. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But this time, it seems to be heading in the right direction. And if it's not of high quality, it's often still entertaining.
As far as I'm concerned, a fine kickoff for this new horror series. The rest of the season will determine which category of Murphy series this will belong to. We'll see.
About the writer, Karzal
Mike (1995) has been a member of MySeries since 2016 and is mainly active on the English version of the site. Since 2018, he has been actively translating news articles, columns, reviews and basically everything that ends up on the Dutch site. The original articles, columns and reviews were actually written by others. During the week Mike can be found at IKEA, where he is a national systems specialist and occasionally also in the classroom to teach an English lesson. In addition, Mike logically enjoys watching series and has actually been spoon-fed this from an early age. The genre doesn't matter, there is a place for everything in the otherwise busy life.
After the fantastic, brutal opening scene with model Bella Hadid going absolutely wild, I was already hooked. And after that, this episode definitely held my attention. So far, the best new series of the year, in my opinion.
