Sloppy. Deeply self indulgent. Fascinatingly trashy. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s “American Horror Story.”
The latest show from “Glee” creator Ryan Murphy has a simple set up. Each season, horrible things happen to a different group of people. In the first, a slightly unstable family moves into a haunted house, where various ghosts make their lives even more miserable. Over the course of the season, twisted psychosexual scenarios are played out, blood is spilled, and a gimp-suited maniac runs around alternately molesting and murdering people. The second season switches cast and location, centering in a horrible insane asylum, with all that entails. It’s all terribly thrilling.
AHS’s anthology-style set up is the best thing about it. The writers burn through events at an absolutely reckless pace, throwing out plot twists like they’re going out of style. In fact, the show seems to be comprised entirely of plot twists. A fire like that needs to be fueled, and so at any given time the plot elements shoveled into the boiler range from the strange to the insane. The current season alone has mixed demonic possession, serial killers, aliens and Nazis into a catch-all stew of American cultural fears, served piping hot and seasoned with dominatrix nuns.
If any of the above strikes you as familiar, it probably should. Ryan Murphy has claimed in interviews that his show draws from a wide range of influences, which is something of an understatement. “American Horror Story” steals from classic horror cinema like a magpie steals shiny objects, and with about the same level of shame. It’s clear that the writers love scary movies, and they’ve been very diligent in picking through the last forty years of chillers looking for effective scenes. A lumpy stew of events does not make a story, though.
If “American Horror Story” is unpredictable, then that comes less from clever set up than it does from arbitrary plotting. There are parts of “American Horror Story” that feel almost aimless, bereft of the forward drive that makes a good story sing. Things do happen, occasionally even in sequence, but the connective tissue is missing. The series is perversely unwilling to play by any consistent set of rules, which makes it difficult to care about the events unfolding onscreen. Often, the only reason to watch is sheer curiosity about what’s going to get thrown at you next.
To be fair, this very craziness makes for a fairly entertaining show. It’s helped that everyone involved knows their business, and the show’s cinematography and visual storytelling is very slick. The actors tend to chew the scenery, but given the material they’re asked to say, it’s hard to blame them.
Watching “American Horror Story” is very similar to listening to a decent band play an endless amount of covers. At first you’re charmed to hear things you recognize, but after a while, you wonder when you’re going to hear something new.
