‘American Horror Story’ Just Dropped a New Trailer, and It’s Bringing Back Nearly Every Iconic Villain at Once

Ryan Murphy’s horror anthology has spent over a decade terrifying audiences with a rotating cast of killers, witches, and supernatural nightmares, each season building its own self-contained mythology. That format has made every new installment feel like a fresh start, but the show’s upcoming thirteenth season is throwing that formula out entirely.

Titled simply ’13,’ the new season is set to premiere Thursday, September 24, at 9 p.m. ET on FX and Hulu, and its latest trailer makes clear this isn’t going to be business as usual. Rather than introducing a brand-new setting or storyline, the season is bringing back some of the franchise’s most beloved characters and actors for what’s being billed as a true crossover event.

The new footage opens with Twisty the Clown, played by John Carroll Lynch, before shifting into appearances from Jessica Lange as Constance Langdon, Evan Peters as Kai Anderson, Sarah Paulson as Cordelia Goode, Angela Bassett as Marie Laveau, and Emma Roberts as Madison Montgomery. Rubber Man also makes an appearance, pulling characters from ‘Murder House,’ ‘Cult,’ ‘Coven,’ and ‘Freak Show’ into the same story for the first time.

Ryan Murphy has been upfront about just how ambitious this crossover really is. “Everybody thinks it’s a Coven season and it’s not. It’s all the seasons,” Murphy told Entertainment Tonight. “Sarah Paulson is playing six or seven roles. Jessica Lange is playing all four of her iconic characters. Evan Peters is playing five characters… It is like the Avengers. They all come together to defeat the ultimate evil.”

That framing helps explain why Lange’s involvement in particular has generated so much excitement among longtime fans. Lange departed the series back in 2015 after helping define its early seasons, and her return alone has been treated as one of the biggest surprises tied to the show’s announcement.

The rest of the ensemble reads like a genuine franchise reunion, with Kathy Bates, Billie Lourd, Gabourey Sidibe, Leslie Grossman, Frances Conroy, Jamie Brewer, and Mena Suvari all reprising fan-favorite roles. New faces are joining the mix as well, including Paul Anthony Kelly, a breakout star from Murphy’s ‘Love Story,’ who appears in the trailer as a mysterious new addition wearing a blonde wig, alongside Avantika, Joey Pollari, and John Waters.

FX has described the season’s premise as an anthology-defining event, with an official logline promising the series will “do justice to everyone’s most feared number” while building on a legacy that’s amassed more than 700 million streamed hours globally. It’s a fitting way to mark the show’s thirteenth outing, treating the number itself as both a title and a thematic hook for the season’s supernatural stakes.

Structurally, the rollout is just as unconventional as its cast list. ‘AHS: 13’ will consist of 13 half-hour episodes, with the premiere week and the following week each releasing three episodes, before settling into pairs of episodes released weekly through the season finale on October 29, timed perfectly to land right around Halloween.

Production on the season wrapped back in July after filming began in April, giving the creative team months to fine-tune a project that’s clearly been designed as a celebration of the franchise’s entire fifteen-year run rather than another standalone chapter. For a show that’s built its identity on reinvention, bringing everything full circle for its thirteenth season feels like a deliberate and fitting swing.

With so many returning faces and overlapping storylines promised, ‘AHS: 13’ is shaping up to be one of the most ambitious seasons the franchise has ever attempted, and fans won’t have to wait much longer to see how it all comes together.

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