Review: American Horror Story
October 25, 2011
The haunting began Oct. 5 when American Horror Story premiered. Dylan McDermott (The Messengers, The Practice) plays an unfaithful psychologist on this outstanding new FX series.
The show is about a family that has moved to a haunted house in Los Angeles to escape the husband’s infidelity back in Boston. The show is rated TV-MA SLV (may be inappropriate for audiences under 17 due to sex, language and violence).
The first three episodes, which are all that have aired as of Oct 25, have been great. Filmed in high definition, the show is more spooky than it would be if filmed traditionally. Although I don’t personally believe in ghosts, the highly credible story line has me looking for ghosts everywhere.
The only thing that I don’t like about the show is that the stories explaining why it is haunted are interesting, but fail to provide enough information about the family or the house, or what causes it to be haunted.
It is hard to tell if people are ghosts, possessed or normal and this confusion keeps the viewer guessing, interested, scared.
The first three episodes are full of twists. Although the family appears to be the perfect American family: husband, wife, child and dog, the more the viewer learns about them, the less normal and the more disturbing they are.
I enjoyed watching the show, even though I don’t like scary movies because although it doesn’t really terrify me, some images stay with me long after I turn the TV off. For example, the theme song of the show is creepy, with images of the downstairs lab and quiet moments broken by a loud fog horn. Overall, it is creepy, but not scary.
This fall’s television line-up doesn’t have a scarier show than American Horror Story.
nicole.vega • Oct 26, 2011 at 2:32 am
I’m digging this show! I agree with the fact that this show doesn’t give me nightmares, but it’s creepy and the mystery they’re winding around this house and the characters is riveting. I hope that they’re stringing further background about the house for writing purposes to make this a lasting series. If they completely unraveled all of the mystery around the house then American Horror Story would simply be a made for TV movie in 10 parts. FX has certainly got the best fall lineup this year. With shows like Sons of Anarchy, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and now this to keep us through until the new Archer episodes they definitely have become the best on TV. That’s why I wonder if Directv will fix things between them and FOX, otherwise their subscribers stand to lose a lot of entertainment at the start of next month. Being that I work for DISH Network I know I don’t have to worry about losing channels since they have a long term agreement to keep these channels. I’m looking forward to the rest of the show and to your thoughts on American Horror Story once this first season comes to an end.
Connor Thompson • Nov 1, 2011 at 7:49 pm
Well I will definitely be writing a review after the season, so hopefully it will be a positive one and that the show keeps up its quality. I agree that it is good that they are waiting to reveal some of the parts about the house that I still see as a mystery and I hope that they don’t just start to make up story line that never happened after this season, like some shows. I think that each season will start off with a new family though because it will be hard to come up with more story after this season from what I have seen this far.
nicole.vega • Nov 2, 2011 at 9:30 pm
Genius! I never even considered that they would use a different family each season, although it may get boring if each new family deals with the same ghosts. It is official that season 2 has been signed on for the making….