American Horror Story – A Triumph of Style v. Substance

Immaculately timed for an October release, American Horror Story promised audiences to be unlike anything they’ve ever seen.  At the time, I remember thinking those were some mighty big words coming from the same people who brought us Glee, and who also helped promote AHS as the new “psychosexual thriller” to watch this season.  The hype machine got an early start and the trailers teased audiences at home with short clips of a sexy maid, a flexible gimp in a rubber suit, and numerous creepy shots of a dusty old house that says “I’m haunted” from a mile away.

Being a sucker for not only sexy maids and gimps but also haunted houses, I felt a sort of prurient curiosity to see if AHS could live up to its billing and be scary, sexy, and smart.  To be honest, I wasn’t even sure what a “psychosexual thriller” was, but I envisioned some kind of bizarre cross between Basic Instinct and the Sixth Sense with some Trent Reznoresque music droning in the background.  The realms of erotica and horror are not complete strangers, but have a complicated relationship that is difficult to maintain in the long term.

Not one to tease, the show delivered early and often on its promise of “kinky-enough-but-not-too-kinky” sex scenes, spooky background music, just the right amount of gore  and plenty of dimly-lit scenes in haunted basements and attics.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  “What’s the show about?” you ask – or at least should be asking.  That’s right, underneath all of the rubber suits, ball gags, spooky shadows and garter belts there is actually something of a story here – namely the story of the Harmon family, made up of Ben (Dylan McDermot) and Vivien (Connie Britton) and their teenage daughter, Violet.  Ben works as a psychiatrist and they all decide they need a fresh start in California after Vivien catches Ben banging one of his young, female patients in their own bedroom.  As if that weren’t enough, Vivien has a sudden and devastating miscarriage that has left her feeling empty and resentful of Ben.  Violet, playing the cliched troubled teenager role well acts about how you’d expect her too – moody and withdrawn, though not afraid to speak her mind on occasion.

As you can imagine, things are already pretty rocky when the family moves into the house, and it soon become clear to them that the house has some drawbacks – namely a whole bunch of ghosts, most of which appear to be those of the previous owners.

I have to admit that, at first, it appeared as though the show was going to have legs.  The first couple of episodes tried to walked a fine line of telling us something about the characters, teaching us about the house’s history, and making sure to work in some good, old-fashioned sexual tension between a couple of the characters from time to time to keep things fresh.

For some reason, though, the sultry undertones did not seem to strike quite the right chord and I wondered why the creators had tried so hard to make this a “sexy” type of horror story in the first place.  In a way, it seemed they had boxed themselves into a promise they can’t really deliver on a channel like F/X.  While not guaranteeing success, American Horror Story could have been given a much longer leash on one of the premium channels in much the same way that True Blood has been successful – assuming they could also abduct some of HBO’s writers and get a few more cast members.

As it turns out, American Horror Story is tragically married to its hype.  All of the style, costumes, and on-screen sizzle simply have to stay because there is not much of a story here.  Once the Hanson family moves into the house, major developments in the story either do not come or come only as the result of some outside intervention – usually ghosts who can apparently come and go as they please.  Ben wants his family to be back to normal, but continues to talk with his former mistress behind his wife’s back.  Vivien wants to have a baby but is not sure if she can ever trust Ben to be a faithful husband and a good father.  Violet likes the house and wants to stay – probably due in large part to her developing teenage romance with the troubled Tate, who also happens to be one of Ben’s patients and is the spitting image of what I envision when I think of how Billy Corgan must have looked before he discovered music.

Like most films and movies that try to lure you in with style and get you to stay with substance, it’s difficult to keep a viewer enthralled for very long.  It’s easy enough to show a gimp suit, pull of some nifty camera work and a show few flashes of skin and get people’s attention.  But ultimately good stories (and TV shows in particular) require a strong cast of characters who drive plot and character development through the pursuit of their desires…and that is the one thing missing from this “story”.

-Bill Henry