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While home ownership - that classic American Dream - is at an all-time low throughout parts of this country, our interest in the classic haunted house narrative and all the paranormal activity behind its closed doors is at an all-time high. We are, of course, drawn to the supernatural unknown. It makes sense then that a small cable network would wish to kick-start its new horror anthology by capitalizing on our collective interest with new ghost stories inside an old house.
From spooky to downright disturbed, the constant mystery inside the fictional Murder House betrays its sunny California setting and chills viewers to the bone and beyond. FX’s American Horror Story, created and produced by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, is a classic and complex narrative about one family’s real nightmare as they awaken to discover that their home is so much more than brick, mortar, and aged wood.
Season One of American Horror Story focuses on the Harmon family as they confront the consequences of infidelity as well as the previous owners of the house they have just purchased. Ben (Dylan McDermott), Vivien (Connie Britton) and their teenage daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga) uproot themselves from Boston and move to Los Angeles after Vivien gives birth to a stillborn baby and Ben is caught having an affair with Hayden (Kate Mara). Both claim to be dealing with their disappointment; both are depressed. And when their realtor reveals that the house previously belonged to a gay couple whose ownership ended with a murder/suicide, the Harmons discover that information is only the beginning of their new home’s nasty legacy.
Neighbor Constance Langdon (Jessica Lange giving a seriously great performance) and disfigured Larry Harvey (Denis O'Hare) routinely and frequently affect the Harmons' lives…especially when the house and all its inhabitants begin to reveal themselves in weird and twisted ways. Ben, vowing to be closer to his family, begins seeing his patients in the home. While Violet starts showing signs of depression, Ben’s new patient - Tate Langdon (Evan Peters) - attempts to console her with his own demented treatment.
Winning over its audience with gutsy drama rather than settling for typical spooks and chills, American Horror Story is a pot-boiler that doesn’t easily give in to its paranormal pratfalls. Not that it’s fighting that fact either. The opening few minutes is proof positive that the show embraces everything we’ve come to expect from the genre. From it, we already know the “perfect” house isn’t the perfect house. The magic is in how the episodes, working their momentum slowly, reveal that aspect, allowing the supernatural elements to cook longer. A fair amount of twisted psychology is thrown into the murderous mix and, after a few episodes boil awhile longer, the terrifying results are a tasty haunted house story by way of Twin Peaks.
Well-developed characters abound inside each of the twelve episodes that make up Season One; the performances are riveting and the setting is a well-manicured lawn of straight-up weirdness. The dialogue, crisp and cutting edge, is almost perfect for this type of narrative and burns its audience with subtext and character depth. It is too terribly easy to watch the entirety of Season One in a single setting. The atmosphere is weirdly haunting and inviting and, pushing sex and nudity to its limits for a television show, cutting edge. Its high ratings, awesome for supernatural material that doesn’t typically go for easy scares, were hard earned by its cast and crew.
Seldom does paranormal fiction get this good.
MPAA Rating: TV-MA.
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