American Horror Story season 10 is inspired by a disturbing true story

American Horror Story season 10 spoilers follow.

It’s often said that the most disturbing horror stories are the ones based on real life, and that’s absolutely true of American Horror Story as well. For all its absurdity, Ryan Murphy’s flagship show has actually been inspired by more real events than you might think, including the Black Dahlia case in season one and season five’s Hotel Cortez AKA the Cecil Hotel.

At a glance, season 10 seems stranger than most chapters of this show, but that doesn’t mean Double Feature isn’t also rooted in something real. Just minutes into the very first episode, the writers even acknowledge this directly with a rather telling line of dialogue.

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While the Gardener family tour their new home in Provincetown, Harry (Finn Wittrock) mentions hearing something about a family from Truro, the next town over, who were recently found dead in their beds. Rumours suggested that the victims had their throats torn out by something animalistic, although the estate agent is of course quick to downplay all this.

Still, with just this one scene, American Horror Story essentially confirmed that season ten is inspired — at least in part — by one of New England’s most famous serial killers.

Antone Charles ‘Tony’ Costa was a handyman slash cannabis farmer who committed several murders in the town of Truro, just a ten-minute drive away from Provincetown where Double Feature is set.

Costa was suspected of killing eight women during his murder spree in the late ’60s, although he was only convicted for the deaths of Patricia Walsh and Mary Ann Wysocki. The press dubbed Costa the ‘Cape Cod Vampire’ because there were bite marks left on each of his victims. Costa’s story was even picked up by notorious author Kurt Vonnegut, who compared Tony to Jack the Ripper and went on to correspond with him after an arrest was made.

The connection between Costa’s story and American Horror Story is plain to see because as fans already know, Provincetown is plagued by vampires of a very real kind in Double Feature.

There are those that require blood to fuel their creativity and then those who transform into a ghoulish “pale person” and go on to lose almost all of their cognition. Their victims are also covered in bite marks, much like those killed in real life too.

But that’s not all. Costa also took pills and LSD frequently, to the point where he even wrote about using these drugs with two of the victims in his unpublished novel, Resurrection (which he wrote in prison following his arrest). The book claims that Carl, Costa’s alter-ego, was responsible for the murders, and it’s here that more parallels can be drawn between these crimes and American Horror Story.

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By the end of episode one, Harry takes some “tragic magic little black pills” that help him write his book, but he’s no longer the person he once was. The drugs transform him into a vampiric creature whose personality has become almost unrecognisable to those around him.

All combined, this tale of a struggling Massachusetts writer embroiled in drugs and murder sure does sound similar to Costa’s life, minus the supernatural elements of course. And that’s why the writers alluded to his crimes so early on in the very first episode, hinting that Costa himself could have also been a vampire-like creature.

American Horror Story isn’t striving for accuracy in its version of events, of course. However, those interested in the nuances of Costa’s true story might be interested to hear that Robert Downey Jr’s production team has acquired the series rights to Helltown, a Casey Sherman novel that follows Kurt Vonnegut’s aforementioned obsession with the killer.

What remains to be seen is how Harry’s story in season ten might go on to mirror the end of Tony’s life. On June 12, 1969, Costa was arraigned for three deaths and by May 1970, he was convicted of two murders — that of Mary Ann Wysocki and Patricia Walsh. Costa was sentenced to life in prison at Massachusetts’ Walpole Correctional Institution but just four years into his incarceration, the Cape Cod Vampire killed himself.

Although Double Feature isn’t a direct retelling of Costa’s story, don’t be surprised if things end badly for Harry as well, not to mention his family. Whatever happens though, the show won’t be nearly as gruesome or disturbing as what actually took place in Provincetown all those years ago.

American Horror Story: Double Feature airs on FX and Hulu in the US. Season 10 will arrive in October on Disney+ in the UK. Catch up on series 1-8 on Netflix, with seasons 1-9 available to buy on .