We’ve been waiting a long time for a quality “haunted” house show…and courtesy of Ryan Murphy (the co-creator of Nip Tuck and Glee) we’ve finally been delivered one. Wednesdays @ 10/9c on FX
AHS - A Twistedly Dark and Mildly Erotic Approach On the Classic American Haunted House Experience
Meet the Harmon Family of American Horror Story
Long a fan of the classically chilling ghost and “horror” stories over the more widely accepted and commercially successful slasher/gore films, I’ve been waiting my entire lifetime it seems for an American television show to deliver something watchable in this genre. Sure, we’ve had shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural and even to an extent the Ghost Whisperer that have tackled certain elements of the classic American haunted house but none have tackled the genre head on and in detail…until now.
Larry Harvey One Of Murder House's Many Former Residents
The brainchild of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk (co-creators of both Nip Tuck and Glee) American Horror Story, while not a perfect show is never the less a testament to the innate power of the haunted house to resonate within the American psyche and leave the viewer with that uniquely uneasy and uncertain feeling we can only attribute to unexplained things that go bump in the night. It’s a basic formula, you take an innately malevolent house rife with a dark history and filled with equally twisted and malevolent and ill at ease spirits and loose them both upon a troubled but decidedly unaware family…and let the cards fall
Moira As Ben Harmon Sees Her... (Alexandra Breckenridge)
where they may. It’s not rocket science and it’s not uniquely original material but what it is, is delightfully unsettling and frightening! Dark escapism, which provides the sort of introspective and interrogative fear we need as a form of phantasmagorical escapism in much the same way we enjoy the escape offered by situational comedies, dramas and dramedies alike.
AHS from the pilot episode on throws us (along with the Harmon family) into a majestically malevolent and time bending mansion that holds more secrets than answers and
Moira As Vivien Harmon Sees Her... (Frances Conroy)
more sorrowful history than initially conceivable. With each episode we jump to a different decade in the house where we see the forces that be, a sort of malevolent deus ex-machina at work with a different set of people and families that all eerily tie back into the plight of one and other; a century long downward spiral that you as the viewer are quickly lead to believe is building to something big…and soon. A journey for the Harmon family that is unsettling as it is fascinating and thought provoking…evoking a sense of schadenfreud in the viewer as the creators egg you on to know just
Murder House Circa 1978 In the Show's Opening
what dark secret or outcome lies just beyond next week’s episode.
And that is where the show is at it’s best…it’s serial nature. Incredibly detailed, it makes you think, evaluate and contemplate not only what comes next but what’s happened so far…the audio-visual equivalent of a classic serialized page turner; Charles Dickens with his Pickwick Papers would approve. The writing and set production however do not make the show, the actors play a
Murder House As Seen In Present Day
huge part in not only making the show visually appealing but at times even actually believable.
Already hugely successful for Fox’s FX network, AHS airs it’s 7th episode tonight fresh off the network’s post Halloween announcement that it has already been signed for a 2nd season…it would seem there is plenty of ghostly goodness left in our immediate television viewing future.
American Horror Story – Season 1 Trailer
A native of Tampa, FL Robert is the presiding editor and co-owner of both Down Shift Magazine and DS Holdings, LLC. A proud alumnus of the University of South Florida’s class of 2005 Robert is active in the Tampa Bay community and when not residing at his home in Tampa, FL enjoys traveling throughout the United States and abroad covering the motorsports and cultural phenomenon that shape our modern automotive enthusiast community.
