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It is odd to me that a series would dedicate itself to a genre style in which it is the most difficult to craft a good story. When it comes to cinema, the horror movie is most known for producing a ton of misses and the very rare hit. It is difficult to craft a scary or haunting story on the screen it seems, and so many of them these days have swung back to the 70s and 80s style of using heavy gore rather than substance and atmosphere to get to the audience. The fact that there is now two high quality shows on television which explore the horror genre in an episodic fashion blows my mind. AMC‘s the Walking Dead and FX‘s American Horror Story are two of the highest rated episodic shows on television, and both of them are quite good.
The first season of American Horror Story takes place within a sub-genre of horror that has to be the most difficult one to do well. The haunted house scenario has not had many successes; while there have been some good ones critically, most are just pretty bad. Ghosts may captivate American audiences with reality shows that try to capture or debunk them in the real world, but it has been a long time since we connected with a fictional story about them on screen. Given the track record, I was not surprised that the Walking Dead is as good as it has been; zombies are popular right now. Haunted houses, on the other hand, not so much. So when American Horror Story premiered, I was intrigued to see how it would stand up.
Don't they look happy? You know what that means! They're screwed!
The answer is, pretty damn well. American Horror Story draws influences from an incredible amount of sources, and pulls them together in interesting and thrilling ways. The role of the family that moves into an old house with a shady past is played by the Harmons, who act as an archetypical deconstruction of the modern American family. The Harmons have moved away from their old lives in order to heal the relationship of Vivian (Friday Night Light’s Connie Britton) and Ben (The Practice’s Dylan McDermott) after Ben was caught cheating with one of his young students. Their teenage daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga) is in a bad place as well, she is not a popular kid, and she soothes her depression by cutting herself. When they come across a large classic L.A. Victorian home on the market for a very low price, they take it, even after being told that the last residents had been a part of a murder suicide. All of them are of course skeptical that anything would happen, and what starts as a classic re-telling of your everyday ghost story quickly spirals into a take that touches on some very heavy subject matter.
The story of the Harmons does not shy away from controversial topics, it takes on the subject of rape, teenage suicide, school murders, abortion, addiction, homosexuality, infant murder, and sexual fetishes as well as the deeper subjects of infidelity, fame, beauty, aging, guilt, and America’s dark past with a flourish that when it all comes together, creates the single best ghost story of the aughts (a word for the 2000′s, a word I actually don’t much like). While at first it is difficult to understand how a haunted house story could last for 12 full hour episodes, it somehow pulls it together and puts many of the initial fears of a project like this to bed early on. A fear that many viewers had was that it would become difficult to understand why the Harmons would stay in that home, especially after the second episode included a group of three people breaking into the home to kill Vivian and Violet in a ritualistic manner. The story doesn’t take long to lay its cards on the table, and the family soon finds out that the house has been the scene of a large amount of murders and has even been dubbed “the Murder House.”
This is the maid Moira, one of the main reccuring ghosts in the show. She has the ability to appear as people want to see her. Which means as this sexy vixen to men, and as an old maid to women.
Yet, somehow the writers made it all plausible and the season stayed captivating to the very end. It avoided digging too deep into the typical “family investigates the weird house’s history” moments by distracting the Harmons from getting much of that done. The twists within are plentiful, and one of the most captivating parts of the series are the old residents of Murder House. There is a power within the home that takes anyone who dies on the premises and traps their spirits within, these are not your typical spirits either; they can talk and interact with anyone and it is because of this strange power that the Harmons take a long time to realize what is really going on. These aren’t normal ghosts, and some of them don’t even know they are dead, but all of them are caught in some sort of loop that keeps them going through many of the motions they were in before they died; things they might not want to do. All of the spirits in the show have a story, and the way the show tells their story and evolves many of the characters (the fact that some of them change and even break their loops to a degree is quite wonderful) is one of the biggest highlights. I am also glad the show avoided the ‘ghost of the week’ formula, even though it liked to tease that it might go in that direction.
The ghosts aren’t all there is to this story though, the Academy Award worthy performance by veteran actress Jessica Lange as Constance; the Harmon’s southern bell neighbor that came to LA in her youth to become a star, is one of the best in the show. Her story unwraps in a fashion that connects her to the Murder House in a very deep way, and it is one of the best to watch unfold next to that of Ben’s first on-going patient, Tate (Evan Peters). Tate is a young and disturbed teenage boy that dreams of killing people he knows and cares about at school, he is a character who’s identity becomes apparent early on, but continues to evolve in drastic fashion. His relationship with the depressed and moody Violet also leads to one of the most surprising twists I’ve seen in a horror story, or even on TV, in a good long while.
Larry Harvey (Denis O'Hare) is one of the surviving old residences of Murder House that plays an interesting role in Ben's life. While his character burns out near the end, he is a captivating character none-the-less.
Each consecutive episode of American Horror Story continued to evolve the lore behind the Victorian home and while it left plenty of mystery by its finale (that while good, pales in comparison to the tension and sadness of its previous episode), it delivered a series by Glee and Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk that is worth catching up on and paying attention to. Especially now, considering the news that season 2 will take place in an all new locale with all new characters.
While this may disappoint some, I feel it is a good move for the show. By the end of the season, the story was wrapped up in a fine way for a horror story. No, we didn’t get closure for everything within the house, and not all characters got their due, but the story saw a close and the mystery is better left in the dark. The allure of a ghost story is often what works best, and while it is frustrating that the show left open as many loose ends as it did, there is nothing saying that the show wont loop around back to them in the future.
Final Call: American Horror Story is the new big hitter on the block, and I hope Ryan Murphy does a better job with this show than he has with Glee. It shows a lot of promise, and the fact that each season will be in a new place and revolve around a new cast of characters means that there is no excuse for anyone not to jump in on this season or the next, there is none of that ‘having to catch up’ pressure. Think of each season as its own horror mini-series, one that is quite a bit better than any Stephen King mini-series that I can remember. Season 1 is dark, brutal, and above all else a very good ghost story that ends with some surprising twists and leaves a deep impression of some of the characters on viewers. I am sad to say goodbye to some of them, but I feel optimistic about the premise of the show as a whole.
Rating:
4/5 A captivating show that shows what is possible within a horror story if given the time to develop. While it left a lot of loose ends, the story it told is a good one.
If you notice, I left out spoilers. While most season reviews don’t, I feel that a lot of people have not given the show a shot yet, and it deserves one. Also, considering that the story itself seemingly has a beginning and an end just like a movie or mini-series would. I decided to review it that way, and give those who haven’t seen it a chance to read a spoiler free analysis.
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