American Horror Story
Horror stories are made to engage your whole body. They make the hairs on the back of your neck perk up. They force you to wince or close your eyes. They trigger grimaces and gags.
FX's American Horror Story might make you laugh … and cry, vomit, twitch and run maniacally from the living room.
The show's title is about two-thirds right. American Horror Story is American. It is horrible—in every possible way. But the story part? Well, let's just say that any sort of understandable plot or narrative is now lying in state and unlikely to haunt this series anytime soon.
The rest of the dead—that's another matter.
Ostensibly, this freak show focuses on a sweet-but-struggling family living in America's most haunted old Victorian. Family patriarch Ben tries to patch things up with wife Vivien. Vivien recovers from a miscarriage. Teen daughter Violet finds her way, emotionally, in a new school.
But, really, why worry about everyday trials and tragedies when you've got a killer-rapist-ghost running around your house in a rubber sex suit? Or you learn that one of the house's past occupants tried to revive a dearly departed child by augmenting the body with animal parts and turning it into a pint-size Frankenstein? Or you discover that anytime you dig a hole in your backyard to plant a tree or something, you'll uncover another corpse?
No joke. This plot of land has more corpses per square foot than the "Thriller" video—and none of their spirits seem ready to move along. This isn't a house, it's an overcrowded, undead B&B.
And it's not just the corpses that are bothersome. It's the fact that they all died in such gruesomely outlandish ways—and we see all their last moments onscreen (often multiple times). Had he seen the script for just one of these episodes, Edgar Allan Poe would've laughed himself silly, then buried the whole mess under the floorboards for being too over the top. One set of previous owners performed illegal abortions in the house. A gay couple are killed by a ghost wearing fetish bondage gear. Oh, and let's not forget that the Antichrist may call the house home as well.
Not that we'd expect much sanity from creator Ryan Murphy, the mind behind the despicably gregarious Nip/Tuck, and who also created Fox's very different (but equally implausible) Glee. When interviewed for New York magazine, Murphy says the show's spooky-sexual ethos was cribbed from Dark Shadows, ABC's supernatural daytime soap from the 1970s.
"My grandmother used to force me to watch Dark Shadows," he said. "Even when I was sobbing, she made me watch, to toughen me up."
Now, Murphy's grandmother's lack of entertainment discernment has come back to haunt us all. Where was Plugged In in 1971 anyway?
"There is nothing—repeat, nothing—subtle about this series," writes salon.com's Matt Zoller Seitz. "It's a jumble of pathology and mayhem—horror for the YouTube generation. … If it were possible to take a classic early '60s camp horror movie, feed it massive amounts of cocaine, then turn it into a basic cable drama, the result might look like this."
In a sentence, American Horror Story is off-the-charts ridiculous, filled with off-the-charts content. One of the ghosts was a Columbine-style killer (who continues to kill with some regularity), but really, almost everyone in this series—living or dead—has participated in their fair share of slaughter. Multiple murders take place seemingly every episode, most featuring R-level blood and gore. And when the violence wanes, it's often replaced with sadistic sexual elements, with the aforementioned rubber-suited rapist-killer-ghost being just the most obvious.
Morality? That's about the only thing truly dead and buried in American Horror Story.
Episode Reviews
"Smoldering Children"
After learning that Violet's been skipping school, Ben makes her promise to return. Instead, she spends the day with boyfriend Tate, which culminates in Tate asking Violet to commit suicide with him. Violet runs downstairs to wake up Ben, but finds that he's been knocked unconscious (by Tate, as the Rubber Man). She then discovers that she can't leave the house. Why? Well, 'cause she's already dead, that's why. Tate shows her her own corpse, with flies filling the gaping mouth. (We see a flashback to her suicide.)
In flashback we see Tate set his father-in-law, Larry, on fire. (He survives but is horribly disfigured.) We also see neighbor Constance shoot her cheating husband and housemaid. (Blood spatters the wall, and the housemaid's face is mangled.) Constance then grinds up her husband and feeds him to the dogs. Larry sees his dead daughters and speaks with his dead wife, who immolated themselves when they learned he was having an affair. (They're covered with horrific burns.)
Tate kills an exterminator and fights with Ben. Constance threatens to cut off Larry's privates, brandishing a knife near his groin. A newly dead murder victim (we hear he was cut in half and see horrific scars on his face in photos) seems thrilled at his posthumous notoriety. A mocking prayer is offered up. As are three s-words along with "a‑‑," "p‑‑‑ed," "h‑‑‑" and "b‑‑ch." God's name is misused about 10 times.