Image via Complex Original
A month into the new fall TV season, we’re still waiting for our new weekly obsession. Seriously, what are we supposed to do once Breaking Bad’s amazing fourth season ends this Sunday? Finally see what all of the Grey’s Anatomy hype is about? Slim chance.
There are a few freshman shows worth riding out, but definitely not enough. ABC’s Pan Am, about sexy ’60s-era stewardesses, has promisingly captured a fraction of that Mad Men allure; the futuristic dinosaur series Terra Nova, on FOX, makes up for its narrative handicaps with impressive special effects; and NBC’s Will Arnett/Christina Applegate sitcom Up All Night is the season’s funniest new comedy, despite its lack of focus (we love Maya Rudolph, but why is her slightly obnoxious character just as prominent as theirs?)
Mostly, though, television’s fresh slate falls more in line with NBC’s just-cancelled The Playboy Club: dead on arrival. That’s why we’re so geeked about American Horror Story, which premieres tonight at 10pm EST, on FX. Created by Ryan Murphy (Nip/Tuck) and Brad Falchuk (Murphy’s Glee counterpart), American Horror Story is a demented, sexually twisted, and unabashedly dark series about a husband (Dylan McDermott) who moves his wife (Connie Britton) and teenage daughter (Taissa Farmiga) from the East Coast to a creepy old house in Los Angeles.
The family brings its own demons; daddy cheated on mommy with a younger woman, and their kid is an anti-social eccentric who cuts herself. And that’s all in action before the haunted house’s own demons (i.e., pre-teen ghosts, ethereal S&M fetishists, a fanged phantom in the basement) come out to play. Intrigued yet? Having seen, and really dug, tonight’s pilot episode, we’re thinking that FX’s wild genre show could become that elusive “new weekly obsession.” Learn why you, too, should join the club with our 5 Reasons You Should Watch American Horror Story.
Written by Matt Barone (@MBarone)
5. The opening credits sequence is perfectly unsettling and intriguing.
Much like the entirety of American Horror Story’s premiere episode, the show’s bizarre opening credits sequence (which you can watch above) is a mystifying head-fuck. Set to a sparse, indecipherable tune simply titled “American Horror Story,” with its booming static and marauding bass, the announcement of the show’s cast is interspersed with shots of turn-of-the-century baby photos, jars filled with fetuses, a cadaver in plastic wrap, and someone holding bloodied shears. The location: The central house’s demonic basement, which plays heavily into the pilot’s cold open, and, presumably, American Horror Story as a whole.
Co-creator Ryan Murphy promises that the barrage of creepy, seemingly random images in the show’s title bit all play a part in the first season’s arc. “By the time you see the ninth episode of this season, every image in that title sequence will be explained," Murphy tells Entertainment Weekly. “So, for example, What are the jars in the basement? What is the mystery of the floating white Christening dress? Why is somebody holding hedge clippers that are bloody? Each time you watch it and you watch the week’s episode you’ll be able to say, ‘Oh that’s why that’s in there!’”
Whether that all proves to be true, only time will tell. But what’s certain about American Horror Story’s kick-ass credits sequence is its solidification of the show’s all-horror demeanor. As evidence by tonight’s premiere, Murphy and co-creator Brad Falchuk were in a darkly perverse head-space when they conceived this wild property.
4. It’s the most ambitious TV show in years.
Tonight’s American Horror Story debut, directed by Ryan Murphy (and co-written by Murphy and Falchuk), doesn’t feel like a television show. At least not in the sense that we’re used to. Crammed with overt influences from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, it feels more like a short, experimental, art-house horror flick. The cuts within scenes are jarring, bouncing through otherwise straightforward shots as if the editor’s on some kind of upper drug; the musical cues, curiously lifted from this year’s horror smash Insidious, blast off-kilter strings and dreary keys with unannounced verve, though what they accompany are firmly held images, not cheap jump scares.
And we haven’t even gotten to the peripheral characters themselves. One creeper, played by Denis O’Hare (Russell Edgington on True Blood), stalks the house with his half-burnt face and talks about how once he set his wife and young children ablaze; the sassy, brash next door neighbor (a delightfully colorful Jessica Lange) warns the family’s elderly housekeeper, “Don’t make me kill you again.” And the psychiatrist-father’s patient, a teenage, Colombine-copycat-in-the-making (Evan Peters), can somehow channel the midget-sized ghoul in the basement.
So what does it all mean? Not a clue, but American Horror Story’s kickoff hour is so out there and bewildering that’s it impossible not to fervently speculate just how in the hell they’re going to pull off a 13-episode run, let alone multiple seasons.
3. There’s been an impressive amount of creativity put into its marketing campaign.
Even if we hadn’t seen American Horror Story’s pilot before tonight’s unveiling, we’d be just as excited to see where show is going to take us both visually and story wise. The fuel for that curiosity: The unconventional marketing strategy that FX has taken over the last month or so.
Check out the promotional viral video posted above; taking cues from Burger King’s silent, creepy ass “King,” the folks behind the AHS public awareness machine scared the ever-living shit out of a few unlucky people, thanks to that faceless dude in the black latex, and captured the reactions on camera. Are these "Gotcha!" clips faker than The Bachelor? Perhaps, but that doesn’t take away from the marketing imagination.
Even cooler is the website You’re Going To Die In There, which provides visitors with a virtual “Open House” tour of the show’s haunted house. There’s a healthy amount of clues scattered throughout the pad, including mummified creatures, a dead girl in a bloody wedding dress, psychiatric reports, a body stuffed into an oven, and a distorted home movie playing on loop.
The hell if we know what any of it means, but, rest assured, most, if not all, of the site’s imagery will somehow factor into American Horror Story’s first season—that is, unless Ryan Murphy and the gang have adhered to the Lost school of “show tons, explain little” thought. That’s doubtful, though; well, sure hope so.
2. The cast is top-notch, not to mention totally game.
Imagine if a lesser-credited showrunner had pitched American Horror Story to acclaimed talents like two-time Oscar winner Jessica Lange, Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under), Dylan McDermott, and Connie Britton. The laughable scenario would have probably gone something like this: “So, Connie, your character has sex with what could be a ghost wearing kinky S&M latex, and you, Dylan, will masturbate in the nude over what could be a sexy redhead ghost. Don’t even get us started on how you’re going to ride Dylan, Ms. Conroy!”
But when it’s Ryan Murphy presenting such outlandish and ballsy set-ups, it’s easy to see why the respectable cast all jumped at the chance to get all spooky-freaky. Being the brains behind FOX’s irrepressible Glee, Murphy has earned a certain amount of carte blanche in the industry, which guarantees that his nutty ideas for American Horror Story would make it past the pilot stage.
So for the actors in question, the gamble wasn’t all that risky. And then when you take into account that Murphy prefaced Glee with the decidedly adult, gory, and sexually demented Nip/Tuck, there’s no wonder that Britton, Lange, and company are going all out for their new boss’ batshit concepts.
1. Ryan Murphy has something to prove.
As we just mentioned, Ryan Murphy is kind of a big deal in Hollywood, particularly in the television world. But his Nielsen ratings successes with Glee and Nip/Tuck haven’t come without any backlash.
The most vehement bile has been spewed toward the former, FOX’s song-and-dance dramedy that’s become a pop culture landmark, despite pissing off “esteemed” musicians and singers who claim the show belittles and embarrasses the Billboard-topping songs it covers. Even Murphy’s peers have joined in on the Glee bashing; Sons Of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter, for example, attacked the show in his epic anti-Emmys rant on Twitter back in July, typing, “F--k glee. hate those annoying, 'please accept me for who I am', singing brats. there, I said it. are you happy?” The FX Christmas party is sure going to be awkward, huh?
Murphy isn’t a stranger to criticism. By the end of Nip/Tuck’s third season in 2005, fans and critics alike started picking apart the show’s unforeseen dips into ridiculous absurdities. At the time, though, Murphy had fallen back from Nip/Tuck writing duties to focus on his directorial film debut, Running With Scissors, but, still, the critical darts had to sting.
With American Horror Story, he’s devised a series that can ideally retaliate against both stances. The pilot’s first five minutes alone are darker and meaner than all of Glee’s 47 episodes (thus far) combined; AHS’ surreal and extremely peculiar horror elements, meanwhile, could, if handled properly this season, prove that Nip/Tuck’s illogicalities were simply a practice run.
So, now, the question is, Are you as amped to see whether Murphy scores a genre milestone or lands flat on his nose as we are? If not, don’t be surprised if a silent dude in black latex pops up behind your couch tonight and flips the controller to FX for you.
