American Horror Story: Series Premiere

The horror genre hasn't fared too well on TV in recent times.  Showtime's Masters of Horror, despite both its network's affinity for gore and nudity and the veritable who's who of genre writers and directors, lasted only two seasons.  Transitioning to a major network with all its censors and limitations was out of the frying pan and into the fire as NBC's Fear Itself faded away after only one season. Tales from the Crypt was able to hang on for longer than people remember, but that show tended to embrace the campy side of the 1950's source material on which it was based and its home – HBO – has long been known as fertile ground for creative types. 

One thing all these shows had in common was that each episode was a standalone story in which the setups, exposition, character arcs and payoffs all occurred within one sit down viewing.  Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, the guys who brought us Nip/Tuck and Glee, have apparently taken horror's failure on TV to heart with the creation of American Horror Story, a serial horror series that will take its time exploring the demons – both literal and metaphorical – haunting the Harmons as they move cross-country into a notorious Victorian house in Los Angeles.

FX, the show's parent company, has a history with intelligent content that tests boundaries (Justified, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Louie) and American Horror Story takes full advantage of the relative free range in its pilot, unloading an ungodly amount of images, characters and subplots all pregnant with the possibility of terror, intrigue, debauchery and blood.  For this reason,American Horror Story has the potential to either be the most awesome or the most ridiculous entry into horror TV.

Months after Vivien Harmon (Connie Britton) walks in on Ben (Dylan McDermott), her therapist husband, mid-affair, the troubled couple and their teenage daughter, Violet (Taissa Farmiga), pack up their Boston home and move out to a fresh start in Los Angeles.  With Ben carrying the guilt of infidelity and Vivien struggling to overcome the grief of a miscarriage, the trilogy of misery becomes complete when the popular girls in school don't take too kindly to Violet's smoking and devil may care attitude. 

Each Harmon deals with the change in their own ways: Vivien takes to some home decorating, removing the house's tacky wallpaper to uncover the macabre murals underneath; Ben takes on a new patient, Tate (Evan Peters), a teenage boy with fantasies of mass homicide who takes a liking to Violet due to her similar social ostracism. 

But just as soon as the Harmons settle in, the problems begin: Ben starts sleep walking in the nude; cabinets and doors open by themselves; and Vivien becomes abruptly and unintentionally familiar with her next door neighbor, Constance (Jessica Lange), a Southern belle whose hospitality belies some undoubtedly dark secrets and whose daughter, Adelaide (Jamie Brewer), has a penchant for breaking and entering and prophesying the death of anyone living in the house.  "She says that to everyone," Constance says, but the two twin boys who were murdered in the house in the 1970s would've behooved from heeding her words. 

Gradually, the transpirings take a turn for the surreal as the tension within the house mounts.  The house's old housekeeper shows up to offer her services and though she appears as a weathered old woman to Vivien, Ben literally sees her as a voluptuous young redhead who constantly tests his faithfulness to his wife.  When Violet comes home from school and sees her father being straddled by the latter version, it only increases her distaste for the patriarch.  But that's just the tip of the iceberg: Vivien has sex with what she thinks is her husband dressed in an S&M suit while he's actually out sleepwalking; a man with third degree burns covering 70% of his body corners Ben and recounts his own dark experiences living in the house; the nature and past of Tate hint towards something evil and physically horrific; and Constance warns off the maid with a malicious, "don't make me kill you again."

And with that, American Horror Story kicks off with a pilot as twisted and intriguing as anything else on TV.  It'd be one thing if Murphy and Falchuk just decided to cram as much macabre imagery as they could into one episode, but the co-creators deserve a lot of credit for taking the time to craft a backstory to give the series some emotional weight and casting the right actors to carry that promise.  McDermott and Britton are given and earn the most screen time, but Lange steals a few scenes with her fake smile and veiled animosity and Peters deserves his own share of attention for his portrayal of a very troubled kid who's probably hiding more than just homicidal fantasies. 

The relationships do well enough on their own in crafting ominous clouds that hang heavily over everyone, but the real darkness comes from the disconcerting scenes of horrific imagery and the way that Murphy chooses to shoot them.  Quick cuts, Dutch angles, strobe lighting, and abrupt, short zooms are all techniques that Murphy employs to unsettle us as an audience and make us question what it was we just saw.  Sometimes, what happens is so bizarre – such as Vivien having sex with an unidentified character in a bondage suit – that sheer morbid curiosity is enough to keep us tuned in. 

But the main problem with American Horror Story, one that could very well cause the show to fall apart if it continues, is that it tries to do way too much. In just one episode, these are the characters and plot threads that have been introduced:

– Ben trying to repair his relationship with Vivien after his infidelity.

– Vivien trying to overcome the grief of her miscarriage.

– The girls at school hate Violet.

– Tate, the psychotic teenage patient of Ben, cozies up to Violet but then scares her off because he appears to be more than human.

– Vivien hires the house's old housekeeper, who appears old to her, but young and seductive to Ben.  She also is allegedly already dead.

– Constance and the old maid have a history.  Constance is also a total bitch.

– The house's former resident, Larry Harvey, shows up to warn Ben about the house and reveals his own history with it.

– The twins murdered in the prologue reappear as ghosts.

– Somebody or something had sex with Vivien dressed in a bondage suit.

Granted, some of these are paid more attention than others, but why couldn't some of them be revealed gradually? Tate was creepy enough on his own, so why not hold off the scene with him and Violet in the basement until later when their relationship had developed further?  Why did Larry need to be introduced right away?  I understand the idea of laying out all the groundwork to explore them all in intimate detail throughout the season, but there are so many subplots laid out in the pilot that the series could be in very real danger of becoming oppressively schizophrenic it if attempts to give the same amount of care to each thread in each episode.  There are plenty of scares and an absurd amount of intrigue, but if not handled carefully moving forward, American Horror Story could quickly derail and go the way of its predecessors.