Over the last few nights I have been slowly getting into American Horror Story from the very start. This is a show I have been putting off watching for many years now despite having no real reason for doing so; hearing various conflicting opinions on the show and also not really having anywhere to watch it for the longest time. I noticed the show was on Disney+ the other week and decided to give it a go from the start. A few months ago during the Covid hysteria I was staying at a relative's place and they insisted that we watched through the show's most recent season. I found it quite engaging, but after that continued on with the regular types of films and shows I usually watch. Now, I am definitely not the biggest fan of horror films and shows. I prefer the older, slower paced version of horror films, something more the likes of John Carpenter, where atmosphere is strong but the horror elements are relatively weak. The films not necessarily attempting to get you to have an increased heart-rate and jumping due to cheap tricks through jump scares, but ones that play around with themes and create an interesting, still somewhat unsettling story.
For the longest time I believed, mostly due to the name, that American Horror Story was just another generic television show that would try to capitalise off of the, at the time, rise of these cheap jump scare ridden flicks that came and went seemingly every other day. Upon watching its most recent season, I realised that it was similar to what I enjoyed: atmosphere, cinematography, simple stories and characters that are given time to be explored as the audience can watch their lives slowly unfold and take a turn for the worst. There is something so much more engaging in these horror and suspense films and shows when the characters actually look and feel like regular humans, and the films ridden with jump scares always failed to establish this. For the most part, location and context never really mattered, because as always these events would take place in some grand house. Which is ironic to mention given the location of the first season of American Horror Story.
First Impressions
American Horror Story's first season does not just take a look at some sadly plagued individuals that move into a house totally unsuspecting of any issues that may arise. I have noticed it does something much more, something more engaging and interesting that I don't think I have really seen elsewhere: it gives the ghosts personalities. The many spirits that linger on within the house's four walls are victims of their own lives throughout different eras, left haunting the house and even interacting with the new owners as if they too were living. Over the span of the season it appears to give more depth into these people who are now ghosts, some seeming to have evil within them, though through their own complicated lives that led to their demise. I found it really interesting to see this, and the gradual build up of how these many different characters come together and are given context, rather than merely being these haunting spirits that make living in the house a horrific experience. These ghosts don't roam the house and open doors in the night, but there are these undertones in which the house itself is apparently evil, how it traps people in and leads them to death.
American Horror Story's first season is built on the older formula of filmmaking and building suspense, showing how the people that live within the house over many eras were rarely ever good people themselves. As if this house pulls in the bad and entraps them, holding them there forever, keeping them from the outside world where they may inflict more pain on others. We see how many of these characters hold their own flaws that connect them to the living and thus make them feel more human, to the point where we can feel for them as the audience. Characters that have died from complicated trust issues in their relationships; characters that have died from the mere fact that they could not accept the loss of a child and attempted their own twisted methods in effort to bring them back. The idea of loss plays throughout this story in the dead and the living, as it becomes something that everyone can relate to in some manner. To accompany the idea of guilt, greed, and mistrust comes a series of unique to the genre camera angles and directing which makes the whole thing feel more dramatic and full of suspense.
I found myself noticing the ambient music which is rarely used in productions these days regardless of the genre, where music is playing constantly beneath the breaths of characters that spew out their manipulations and reveal their tactics and agendas to each other. The cinematography dark, softly lit, but also displaying dutch angles to twist and distort the visuals for the viewer, making things seem less real and comfortable as we get these views that seem nauseating and wrong. Somewhat dizzy in their angles, as if one has consumed too much alcohol and is now only starting to notice at the point of no return as the room begins to spin around them as they sit idle. These techniques within the cinematography are simple, but very much effective in portraying this strange environment that our characters find themselves within. Where it begins clear that they too are staring to question reality, finding themselves within lies and manipulation and attempting to piece things together while never really coming to the realisation that something beyond life may be the cause. It is done really well in the sense that while there are ghosts within the house, we see them, the main living characters even see them, but never really realise what is going on.
To match this, the show goes through rather engaged character development that reveals the characters to us over many episodes, showing us their true feelings and lengths. At first we believe they are just yet another happy family moving into a hellscape that they do not deserve, but as the season progresses we begin to feel that even they too deserve it, going back to the idea that this house itself isn't really evil, but perhaps pulling in what it considers to be evil and then punishing it. Putting these various spirits against each other to the point where it could be considered some additional dimension of suffering, similar to purgatory or Hell itself.
I'm pretty interested to see how things turn as I still am yet to finish this season, but at the ninth episode and things seemingly coming to some conclusion, I still don't really know how it might end. The most recent season's ending was strange and certainly lost me, but knowing that each season is different makes me hold the assumption that just maybe this one will have a satisfying conclusion.
