American Horror Story (FX) - season 1 thread

I could definitely tell that this was from the same creative team as "Glee." It has the same more-is-more philosophy about it. My big question after seeing the pilot: is the Columbine kid real, or is he another apparition of the house? We never see him outside it.

I dug it.  Not really into the horror/paranormal thing but man was that creepy.  Certainly better than any horror movie I've seen in the last several years (not that I've seen many).

 

Was that Frances Conroy?

Frances Conroy is one of the co-stars, but I haven't watched it yet to be able to answer yes or no. I hope to get to it today.

Holy $#@!. This show is nuts. Definitely not like anything on TV now or I think ever.

With the premise it could've went really bad but the premier was just the opposite. Having a good cast helps too. Imagine this with some of the b-rated actors that show up in horror these days - it wouldn't work.

I watch a lot of horror but on my way up to bed I thought to myself that I might have trouble sleeping. Not many, if any do that to me.

I hope it doesn't go off the rails - might be hard to keep the intensity going forward.

And yes it's derivative, but what isn't these days - there are no new ideas, everything's been done before. The key is doing it with a fresh spin.

Just read they brought on Zach Quinto as a recurring character.  Should be a good fit.

I was unable to tape this last night.  FX.com is crap...it looks like there are NO reruns of this AT ALL?  iTunes has it for $1.99 (not sure if I'd ever re-watch it.)  Any other options that I am missing THAT ARE LEGAL?

I enjoyed the pilot much more than I thought I would. Definitely held my interest and made me want to see more.

 

Yes, that was Frances Conroy as the maid (at least in her older incarnation).

 

Wonder why they found it necessary to use the Bernard Herrmann's soundtrack music from Vertigo at one point in the story?

That's not all the score borrowing; remember the whistling of Darryl Hannah's theme from Kill Bill.

I watched it on demand on cable (Bright House).

There's at least one repeat at midnight the evening before the new episodes, and I believe you can watch it for free at the FX website.

I wasn't really thrilled by this. I had to roll my eyes right at the very start when the wife calls 911 because she thinks there's a prowler in the house. Then, instead of getting the hell out of the house and waiting for the police to arrive, decides to go upstairs and check it out for herself.

The scenes with the husband seem like they're just going over the same territory as covered by "The Shining."

I'll probably watch another episode or two, but I was rather disappointed by the pilot. The only thing kind of keeping me interested was when Jessica Lange said to the housekeeper:
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

I had no idea how raw this show was going to be. Not something that bothers me normally, but when watching with my 17 year old daughter the

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

 really made me uncomfortable....

FX ran plenty of warnings, but I agree it was still a little surprising for basic cable.

I just find it funny that you didn't even mention the Gimp impregnating the wife.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned how heavily this borrows from "Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark".

I am not sure what I was expecting from this show, but I was a little disappointed. I will watch a few more episodes to see how it goes, but honeslty I am not all that excited about it.

Yeah, add that one too.  In any event, I'll still watch...just took me off guard. I suppose I just filtered out the FX warning on content.
 

 

Pretty creepy premiere.  Not sure where they will go with it, but I'm along for the ride for now.  Any word on how the ratings were?

 

It's finally up on the FX website....and you have to ENTER YOUR AGE to watch it!

From the show's page at Wikipedia:

The 18-49 rating is better than some major network shows, and similar to a high-rated CW series.

An interesting second episode. I'd assumed from the pilot that all of the forces in the house were evil, with the strongest evil concentrated in the basement. The second episode made it appear that that wasn't so; with forces that aid the family as well as forces that torment it. The death of the virgin nurse was particularly interesting; by Catholic standards, she should have died a pure death, unblemished in the face of God. So either the supernatural forces in the house exist in universe with no God, or things are more complicated than that. The nurses seemed in this case to be avenging angels.

The scene at the end in the basement confirms that Tate is one of the quasi-supernatural forces connected to the house. But like Constance and the maid, he isn't a phantasm or ghost either. The way they talked about Them, the forces in the basement are clearly more fantastic and extreme than their level of reality. Constance in particular is a real nasty piece of work, with the closet full of mirrors to punish her daughter.

My favorite part was the wife declaring that she wants to sell the house. I've always wondered about that in haunted house movies: why don't they just get the hell out of there? Obviously they're going to stay, but I'm glad the show's going to address that and give them some reason not to pull up and leave. Clearly Tate needs the father to treat him, so the family was brought to the house for a reason. And clearly the occupants share a symbiotic relationship with the house. But if it were straight forward, they'd be dead by now.

I liked the second episode as much as the first. Although it seems a little campy Jessica Lang is very good in this.

And boy has this house had some nastiness happen in it.

I'm also guessing that Tate is Constance's son - the one good one as she had said. There will be some interesting back story there, I'm sure.

I agree about Tate being Constance's son.

 

I actually think that the second episode was a bit BETTER than the first...and DEFINITELY creepier!

 

 

EDIT:  With the talk of "borrowing" musical scores, I loved the "Psycho" homage...and the opening credits don't borrow from it musically, but visually is an ode to Nine Inch Nails video "Closer,"

Some interesting observations/opinions from the recap at EW.com:

 

 

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

 

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

 

Enjoyed the second ep a bit better than the premiere, which I thought was too derivative of a dozen different movies.  But still not loving anything about it except Jessica Lange's character and performance.  She absolutely makes the show for me.  All three Harmons are about as boring and tedious a family as I have ever seen on TV.  Sheer drudgery to watch them.  Not the cast, but the characters.  And they need to cut down on the cliche Blair Witch-Paranormal Activity camera work.  Boring and too predictable.  For now I'm watching more or less just for Lange.

I think Lange does a phenomenal job with her character, but she's also probably my least favorite character on the show.

So when I was watching I kept thinking that the girl that plays Violet looks really familiar. She reminded me of someone. So I look up American Horror Story on IMDB and her name is Taissa Farmiga - ah that's it. She's Vera Farmiga's sister. That's who she reminded me of.

Seriously?  Isn't Vera Farmiga like 40?

Well, according to IMDB;

Vera Farmiga is a Ukrainian-American actress who received an Academy Award nomination for Best Performance in supporting Role as Alex in Up in the Air. She was born Vera Ann Farmiga, second of seven children on August 6, 1973.

There's a movie in theaters now called Higher Ground where Taissa Farmiga plays the younger version of Vera Farmiga's character. The 21 year gap is pretty significant, but not unprecedented -- especially in such a large family. One of my best friends in high school is also the youngest of a large family. He's closer in age to his oldest niece than he is to his oldest sister.

While the two Farmigas look VERY similar, Vera has a weird way of talking that Taissa doesn't have. I think Vera grew up speaking Ukranian as her primary language, whereas English was probably the dominant household language by the time child number seven rolled around.