American Horror Story: Cult (Season Seven)

08:25: With the opening scene, we see a couple making out in what appears to be a large park ( or other rural area ) with a lot of old trees. He tells her an urban legend story about a killer clown without a jaw, murdering couples in the park.

Suddenly, they are approached by a scary, silent clown. When he acts menacingly, and won't speak, the boyfriend shoots him, several times, but the clown isn't phased. He viciously stabs the boyfriend to death, while the girl tries to run away.

The clown chases her across a covered bridge, and into an abandoned bus, where he kills her while she's trying to make a 911 call, and then cuts out her tongue.

Removing his mask, we see that the clown has no jaw, which matches the urban legend that the boyfriend had just told her.

( However, this incident ends with a child reading a horror comic book with the same story, so it probably isn't meant to be "real", in this fictional universe; just a comic book story tacked onto the beginning, to get things off to an exciting start. )

This is the only location in this episode which wasn't shot out on location in the real world, and instead was filmed inside the gates of a private movie ranch.

This was filmed at Disney's Golden Oak Ranch, at 19802 Placerita Canyon Road, in Newhall, CA (which is up by Santa Clarita.)

The wood house you see behind them in the screencap above is an outdoor set known as the "Cabin on the Lake". And the bridge that she runs across is called simply the Covered Bridge.

Here is a photo of both the cabin and the covered bridge, at the ranch:

During my hunts for filming locations, I have encountered this cabin before, as well as other sets at Disney ranch, in a wide variety of movies and TV shows. So I recognized almost immediately.

Now let's move out into their real world filming locations…

20:53: 'Ally' ( played by Sarah Paulson ), a neurotic liberal woman stricken with multiple phobias, and hovering on the verge of sanity, goes into a supermarket after being traumatized by watching Trump win the 2016 election.

She is upset when she encounters a pro-Trump clerk, is disturbed by the sight of pig snouts in the meat department, and then she sees what might be an odd vision/hallucination: two small clowns in a mirror, in freakish Halloween costumes, who then vanish when she looks a second time.

Then, in the produce department, it gets worse. She seems to see a nightmarish, green-haired clown having sex with another freakish clown.

Suddenly, the entire supermarket seems filled with killer clowns, as she runs around in a panic, trying to escape. One three-faced clown, riding a scooter and holding a knife aloft, pursues her.

She then grabs a bottle, throws it, and makes a run for the door, escaping out into the parking lot. From her car, she makes an insane-sounding phone call for help to her wife, 'Ivy' ( Alison Pill ), only to see a clown in her back seat. Panicking, she runs her car into a light pole in the parking lot.

This scene was filmed inside an actual supermarket (and its parking lot).

This is Fields Market , and you can find it at 23221 Saticoy Street, in Canoga Park (in the San Fernando Valley).

Here is a Google StreetView of that market:

Fields Market seems to be the go-to location whenever producers need a supermarket, especially if they're shooting in the Valley. You can spot Fields Market again in the TV show "The Last Man on Earth", and in the movie "Matchstick Men".

27:03: We see a sign on the side of the building reading "Butchery" in large letters. ( If you read the smaller letters it reads "The Butchery on Main". )

On the show, this is an upscale restaurant opened by the lesbian couple, Ally & Ivy, who have moved to a quiet Michigan suburb, following Ally's apparent breakdown.

In the screencap above, you can also see the number 106 on the building. But be don't jump to conclusions, because that 106 number belongs to the business next door to "The Butchery", not to the actual filming location.

On a street sign seen in that same screencap, you can read the name of the street ahead: Chapman Avenue, which makes this Old Town Orange, an old-fashioned small town plaza in the city of Orange, California ( in Orange County ), about four miles southeast of Disneyland.

Old Town Orange is a neighborhood which hasn't changed much since the turn-of-the-century, and which treasures its vintage, "Main Street USA" atmosphere. ( Tom Hanks filmed his nostalgic movie, "That Thing You Do" in Old Town Orange. )

Old Town Orange is centered around the Orange Traffic Circle, ( where Chapman Avenue and Glassell Street meet, in Orange ) and in the screencap above, the camera is looking south, out into that traffic circle.

Which means that the Butchery is on north Glassell Street.

The street number we see in the screencap is for 106 N. Glassell Street. That is a cafe named "Lucca". But that's not what we're looking for.

The actual location, the space used for "The Butchery" is next door, at
102 N. Glassell Street., in Old Town Orange, CA., at the corner of Glassell & Chapman ( which is the northwest corner of the Traffic Circle ).

Here is a matching panorama of the same view (outside of Lucca, #106):

The vertical neon sign we see at the corner of "The Butchery" actually reads "Masonic Temple" in real life. This old building was originally known as the Campbell Opera House, and the Masonic Temple has occupied its upper floors since 1923 ( and still does today ).

Over the decades, the large space below the Temple ( where they built "The Butchery" ) has gone through a number of occupants, including a candy store, several drug stores, and a Bank of America. Most recently, it housed "COBA Academy", a cosmetology school (which recently moved to new address).

As you can see, the set decorators removed the striped awnings, added the large "Butchery" sign to cover the windows ( of what was Coba ), added an awning of their own over the door, and also added a little snow to the streets of Orange, since this is supposed to take place in a Michigan suburb.

When they go inside The Butchery, it is obviously not Lucca cafe. It is an upscale restaurant, with distinctive, monochrome stained-glass-style windows.

Turns out that the interior of "The Butchery" is a studio set, built in Stage 6, at the 20th Century Fox studio, in Century City. (Thanks, Sean! )

In the shot below, the camera is looking west/northwest, across Glassell Street.

29:18: We see Ally & Ivy, come out of the restaurant and walk across the street, where they are confronted by 'Kai Anderson' ( Evan Peters ), a crazy, blue-haired Trump supporter.

In the crossing scene above, the camera is looking west across Glassell Street, from the east side of the street, next to the traffic circle. The couple is walking east across Glassell, where it meets Chapman.

In the shot below, the camera is looking north/northwest, up Glassell.

30:41: We see Ivy walking down a residential street, passing a nice colonial-style home, while she dictates a want-ad for a babysitter (for the couple's 10-year-old boy, named 'Oz').

When we first see her ( in the screencap above ), she is walking west down the south side of Selma Avenue ( around 7849 Selma ), in a residential neighborhood of Hollywood, about a mile southwest of Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

She then (in an aerial shot) is seen turning the corner to head south down the east side of Orange Grove Ave.

Here is a matching Google StreetView:

This area is what I always think of as the "Halloween" neighborhood, because the first time I went there was to photograph the two houses used in the original (1978) version of the hit horror film "Halloween".

So imagine my surprise, when Ivy gets to their house, and it's none other than one of those two "Halloween" houses!

It's the house at 1530 N. Orange Grove Ave., the house where (In the movie) Jamie Lee Curtis is babysitting a boy named Tommy. ( In the other house in the movie, Jamie's friend was also babysitting, but doesn't survive the night. )

This house is on the east side of Orange Grove, just south of Selma Ave.

Here's a StreetView of that house:

The producers put down a few patches of fake snow and dead leaves on the sidewalks to make it look like it is isn't California.

[ Warning: This is a private home. Do not trespass on their property,
knock on their door, or do anything to disturb the residents. ]

34:07: In a night scene, we see a pickup truck full of men wearing baseball caps, pull into a parking lot of a Home Depot-style hardware store. They appear to be Hispanic immigrant workers, who typically gather there looking for work.

Kai, the weird, blue-haired Trump fan, shows up singing "La Cucaracha". He then urinates into a condom and throws it ( like a water balloon ) at the workers, while calling them "wetbacks", and telling them they're not welcome here anymore.

It's clear he's trying to egg them into beating him up, but the question is why?.

Not surprisingly, responding to his taunts, they beat the crap out of him.

As the camera pulls back, it provides the answer: we can see that someone is videotaping beating incident. Kai has obviously staged the "attack" to make an anti-immigrant propaganda video ( from which he will no doubt edit out his own provocations ).

This was filmed in the parking lot of an actual hardware store.

It's the parking lot on the north side of
Virgil's Hardware Home Center

at 520 N Glendale Ave, in Glendale, CA.

Here's a matching view of that parking lot area:

42:54: We see Ally & Ivy driving home in a car, after a night on which they left their son, Oz, in the care of 'Winter', a woman who is actually the oddball sister of crazy Kai. ( Winter has posed as a big Hillary supporter in order to get the job, so she & Kai were obviously targeting the gay couple. )

As they approach their house, they see flashing emergency lights up ahead, with police cars parked out in front of their house, and yellow crime-scene tape up.

In a panic, they run to their home, but discover that their son is okay

No thanks to Winter, who had taken the kid to peer in the windows of the house next door, where he sees the neighbors being slaughtered, Manson Family-style, by a masked gang dressed like clowns, the same ones Ally saw in the supermarket.

( And it's seeming more and more likely that Kai is behind the cult of killer clowns. )

The shot above was filmed driving south down Orange Grove Avenue, in Hollywood, with the camera looking south (from about 1548 Orange Grove) .

Here's a matching view:

In a flashback, at 44:47, after an ice cream truck full of sinister clowns parks across the street, we see the babysitter (Winter) and the boy (Oz) sneak out and look in the murder house. with the boy witnessing the bloody murders.

Here's a StreetView of the neighbors' (murder) house:

Amazingly, this the SECOND "Halloween" house, from that original film, the one where Jamie Lee Curtis's friend was murdered by a masked killer.

It's located at 1537 N. Orange Grove Avenue., in Hollywood.

( This house is on the west side of Orange Grove Ave,

while the couple's house is on the east side. )

[ Warning: This is a private home. Do not trespass on their property,

knock on their door, or do anything to disturb the residents. ]

Obviously, it cannot be a coincidence that the producers of "Cult" chose to use both of the "Halloween" houses.

It's also probably not coincidental that the plot in "Cult", like the plot in "Halloween", also involves a young woman babysitting a boy in one house, while a bloody murder takes place in the other, by someone wearing a mask.

They not only used the same houses, they used them in the same context, with the babysitter & boy in the "Halloween" babysitter's house, and the murders taking place next door in the "Halloween" murder house. It's definitely deliberate