Review: American Horror Story

I've been thinking of using my blog as a venue for posting reviews of movies and TV series for a while now.  The main reason I haven't done it is because I haven't seen a film worth posting a review about in a while - honestly, what kinds of thoughts could I say about Transformers: Dark of the Moon that could either encourage or discourage anyone from seeing it?  And what sort of debate could come from that?  Now if I see The Ides of March in the next couple weeks that could change things, but that's a different story for another time. 

Back to my point: Here is my review for the premiere episode of the new series American Horror Story.  It's from Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, the team behind Nip/Tuck and Glee.  Having those three series compiled on a resume is like combining Frosted Flakes, steak, and asparagus all into one meal.  Talk about radically different genres.

The series opens in 1978, where adolescent twin boys in Los Angeles take their Louisville sluggers into an old mansion for a game of wrecking ball. A young girl with Down syndrome watches them, ominously warning them if they enter the house they'll die in there.  I won't give away much else of what happens in the teaser, except to say they ignore her warning and things don't end pretty for them.

Fast forward to present day.  Vivien Harmon (Connie Britton) is dealing with a miscarriage of her baby and also discusses her husband Ben (Dylan McDermott) having an affair in the aftermath of everything with her doctor.  This is the entire setup for the series, since Ben and Vivien take their teenage daughter Violet across country to start things over as a family.  They hunt for a new house in Los Angeles, and wouldn't you know the very same mansion from the opening teaser is the same house they purchase for themselves?

It doesn't take long for Ben and Vivien to meet some of the locals, including Jessica Lange as the eccentric Southern mother of the Down syndrome girl from the teaser.  I think the last time I saw an actress chew scenery as much as Lange did in her role as Constance was - oddly enough - Jessica Lange in a terrible, terrible movie from the late 90s called Hush.  I'm not sure exactly where the character's eccentric nature ends and Lange's overacting begins, but the line is clearly blurred considering this is Ryan Murphy at work here.

Then weird stuff starts to happen.  Ben and Vivien find some bondage outfits belonging to the previous owners (who, by the way, were both killed in a murder-suicide) in the attic; a mysterious man with burn scars covering half his face approaches Ben, warning him about the house; a maid in her 50s who claimed she used to work for the previous owners wants the same position with the Harmons; and Violet befriends a boy who shares her desires to cut herself.

There's plenty more twisted stuff going on, and I haven't even gotten to the apparitions making appearances or the maid's relationship with Ben at all.  Suffice to say, even though Ryan Murphy hasn't ever gotten into the horror genre before, his stamp can clearly be seen all over this show.  Just like in Nip/Tuck and Glee, there's plenty of marital and teen angst to go around, and music plays an integral part in setting mood in key scenes.  I could have lived without crazy cutting and editing, but it's used mostly for setting mood instead of being done for its own sake, so it's a minor quibble I have with the directing.

What I liked most about the pilot was being left wondering just where in hell could they be going with the story.  I've always preferred series that aren't procedurals because they're the same damn show every week, e.g. CSI and Law & Order.  I have no idea where American Horror Story is going ultimately, especially with one of the characters telling another in the pilot episode, "Don't make me kill you again."  I have to believe it won't have a happy ending given the series' title, but it's definitely the perfect series for the Halloween season.

I don't normally like horror that involves lots of gore, or horror that involves haunted houses for that matter.  The great thing about American Horror Story is that while there are some ghastly images, it's much more about psychological horror than anything else, and the mansion is simply a setting versus a plot device.  There are lots of layers to uncover as the series unfolds, and that's the sign of real storytelling here, something that television as a whole has started moving away from over the last few years. 

Don't be misled though - American Horror Story is NOT for the faint of heart.  There's a reason why it's on at 10:00 at night.  I do recommend it for anyone interested in the horror genre and can handle some really deeply disturbed and twisted stuff in it.