AMERICAN HORROR STORY - THE END......

SPOILERS – Well we finally had a happy ending but only after the last living member of the Harmon family was sent off swinging into the afterlife – of course that’s not to mention a new family terrified into leaving the house. And amongst all this we had the usual mayhem and creepiness that has become a hallmark of this truly bizarre and original series. I, for one, have loved the entire season and I’m not at all let down by the ending – though what happened to the ninety minute episode we were promised. This episode was normal length and it did feel rushed in the way it dealt with gathering all the loose ends together, Ben, for instance, was killed off in the first ten minutes. Then we saw him reunited with his dead family and then it was fast forward to the new family moving in, and the Harmons scaring them out of the home so that they could avoid the inevitable tragedy that would befall them if they remained. This scene ticks all the boxes of the haunted house genre and there are one or two genuinely scary moments.


There was a great scene in which the ghosts were getting the house ready for Christmas and Moira was invited into the Harmon family, even becoming godmother to the baby. The dead one that is since the living spawn of Tate is being brought up by Constance and the episode ended with that demon baby slaughtering his nanny and then grinning at Constance. Credit to AHS for producing an addictive first season, which it capped off, fittingly, with an oddly heartwarming holiday tableau of a dead family and their damned roommates around a Christmas tree, even adding a festive soundtrack.

Confused??? - You will be

I’m enjoying American Horror Story, even if the myriad twists and turns are leaving me confused. I can only describe the show as a little bit Twin Peaks, mixed with Ghost Story and a sprinkling of an LSD trip I once experienced at the tail end of the Seventies. We’ve had four episodes thus far here in the UK and I’m frantically avoiding spoilers on the net since I think the US is now somewhere around episode eight or nine. The show started off with nothing we hadn’t seen before – a couple and their teenage daughter leave their big city life after the hubbie has an affair and the momma suffers a miscarriage, and move into a restored mansion but the house holds more than its fair share of secrets and ghosts -imagine the Amityville House on steriods.
To kick off there were the twin ginger kids who died in the basement back in 1978 . Then there are the gay couple, the most recent owners, who died in a murder suicide, and then there’s the maid who appears as both a sexy vixen and an old hag, and that’s not to mention the strange lady next door and her Downs Syndrome daughter. Addy. The bad vibes seems to stem from the “doctor to the stars” who owned the house in the 20’s and tried to bring his own dead child back to life Frankenstein style. Or at least that’s what I think has happened – I’m not really sure. Remember that tag line at the end (or was it the beginning) of each episode of cult comedy, Soap – Confused, you will be. Well I most certainly am.


Regardless of how all this eventually turns out it has to be said that the show offers a fun ride and many genuinely scary moments – the acting is mostly superb and the writing cleverly done – little tidbits that build on the story are drip fed to the viewer making for some truly compelling television.

There are moments that are absolutely horrific, but the overall feel of the show is one of an all pervading creepiness. The news is that this strange show has been renewed for a second season so maybe we won’t get all the answers with episode twelve, but all the same I’m hooked. I only hope that this all makes sense in the end, that the various plot threads can be brought together as a satisfying whole and that the writers don’t dilute what is looking like a remarkable TV series by stretching things out to deliver more episode to a network who now find they have a major hit on their hands.