TOPLIST TUESDAY: 3 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH AMERICAN HORROR STORY

Let me start by saying that I've become somewhat obsessed with American Horror Story. Now that this year's True Blood sexiness is over, the first season of Game of Thrones with the overwhelmingly hot Khal Drogo is over, The Vampire Diaries has become too repetitive and hormonal, The Secret Circle lacks hormonal outrages, Glee is too PC, Grimm is just in the line-up, The Walking Dead is somewhat picking up its pace but still haven't gotten quite there yet and my yearly Twin Peaks-marathon is finalized, I really needed something this fall to trigger my senses and satiate my need for the sexiness of horror.

And American Horror Story definitely has!

I loved it from the first minutes in the pilot and I'll probably love all 13 episodes. It's all a bit over-the-top, but that's obviously what you get when you let Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck (co-creators of Glee) go bananas! You need to have a thing for stylized cliches, a fondness of B-horror, a humorous approach to cinematic homages, a special love reserved for Twin Peaks aesthetics and no PC ethics to dig this. Well, since I'm raised in probably the world's most liberal country (Sweden) outside any politic, religious or other traditional condemnation and have a life long love affair with all things horror related, it's in my nature to love this! So here are three reasons why you should watch American Horror Story.

OBS! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! 

#1. The underlying mystery of the 'murder house'
Fueled by the use of adorable 30's to 50's songs during perverted and gory scenes, the underlying mystery of American Horror Story is accompanied by a series of juicy jingles and mood setting tunes. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm a huge advocate for using the effect of music as a mood setter. With hints dropping everywhere, the storyline changes with each episode's flashback to previous house owners' life stories and brutal deaths. New and interesting characters are introduced as the timeline and history of the house is laid out piece by piece. It also becomes more and more evident that the next door neighbor Constance is pulling the strings, having the Harmon family at her mercy. The question is how and why. Each episode development also leaves me wondering which character will turn out to be dead despite their full on staging.

#2. The cinematic homages
Homage paying or rip-offs? Without being shy about its influences, American Horror Story acknowledges and blazes through every horror movie reference that they could possibly come up with in a bloody blur. A horror nerd fan base for a show like this a given, although I bet half of them think American Horror Story might be knocking out one too many references, as they get piled up in each episode. I, however, think it's a ballsy move and I love all the hat tipping. Some references are full on homages where as others are more subconscious absorptions by personal reference. Here are a number of my personal favorites:

The shapeshifting, ghostly seductress: The Shining 

The home invasion: The Strangers

Creepy twins: The Shining

Mentally unstable mother trying to up-bring an even more unstable daughter: Carrie

Whichever party being ghosts: The Others

Abortion clinic doctor sewing together his dead baby with animal body parts: The Human Centipide  

The housekeeper with too much inside information: The Others

Father turned mad by potential haunted house: The Amityville Horror

A potential supernatural rape resulting in pregnancy: Rosemary's Baby

 And last but not least - taking an adorable song (or a nursery rhyme) and pervert it in a horror sequence: A Nightmare on Elm Street, Insidious... amongst others.

  
#3. The characters
Going on its sixth episode American Horror Story has finally let horror mythology take a back seat to the characters.

The creepy next door neighbor

Straddling the genre line between drama and horror extremely well, Jessica Lange plays the role of next door neighbor Constance; who makes Ipecac cupcakes, has a cleptomaniac behavior going on when it comes to silverware and refers to her daughter as the not so PC term 'mongoloid'. This aggressively sassy woman, who had to put her acting dreams on the hold to give birth to previously mentioned mongoloid daughter, has a define cruel streak that is evident in her history of killing the housekeeper (Moira) after finding out she had an affair with her husband. Constance also seems to be pulling the strings of the haunting drama with her growing number of ghost accquaintances.  



The mongoloid girl next door

First seen in the pilot episode as the little girl back in the 70's who warns the twin brothers Troy and Brian ("You're going to die in there") when they're vandalizing the 'murder house', the next door neighbor girl Adelaide plays a short but impressive role in the first four episodes. Born with Downs syndrome she (in a Carrie-Margaret kind of relationship) has been resented by Constance since birth; a condition that makes me love her character. The resentment from her mother's side is so strong that Addie undergoes less ethical methods of up-bringing. Her (lack of) intelligence is also constantly undermined as her mother even sees her as a threat towards her (alarmingly) younger lovers. 

The future high school massacre kid
Being Ben Harmon's first patient in LA, Tate Langdon reveals his dreams of going on a killing spree at his high school, constantly speaking in a provocative way in order to upset Ben. Your average revolting teenager gone pervert, sort of. Masturbating to keep his high school massacre thoughts at bay, Tate starts secretly visiting Ben's daughter Violet in her bedroom at night. Having some dark evil friend hidden in the Harmon's basement and being the (bastard?) son of Constance, Tate would have his share of PTSD-syndromes. And it turns out that his dreams are based on his subconscious memories of him already having gone on a murder spree at his old high school in the 90's (Bowling for Columbine, much?). Current ghost-Tate doesn't seem to be aware of this fact, though. And despite his verbal perverseness he's unable to perform sexually with Violet. If this is due to him being a ghost or his unstable mental health in general; we don't know yet. 

The teenaged, self-harming daughter  

The typical teenager; resenting her parents because her father is a liar and her mother is weak. Add being a cutter to the equation, and we've heard the story before. But the petulant side of Violet Harmon was over shadowed by her strong will and courage during 'Home Invasion' (S01E02) and she's the only one who's actually willing to stay in the house as she sees it as a place of triumph, where she and her mother survived the attackers. Even though she's a bit annoying and immature for her age, I would have to agree that Violet grows with each new episode, much due to her emotionally struggling the fact that her boyfriend is a ghost.  



The all-time horny father

Ben Harmon; the all American dad, the handsome therapist, the uninterested father, the douche bag husband. The list can be made long. After Vivien had a miscarriage, Ben couldn't accept the fact that she was no longer interested in sex, and being horny as he was, he decided to have an affair with Hayden. The event of Vivien walking in on the two of them is what led the family to move to LA, making their relationship strained in the start of the series. The new house immediately starts to play tricks with Ben. It makes him sleepwalk and perform violent actions which he forgets about due to constant black outs. It makes him see the housekeeper Moira as her young 80's seductive self instead of the 60 year old woman she portrays herself as in front of the rest of the living. Topping that off with Ben walking in on her as she's masturbating with her legs sprawling in the air. Poor guy. As if that wasn't enough, he gets stalked by a pregnant Hayden who claims he's the love of her life and he really can't seem to get his hormones under control, as he lashes out and kills Hayden in a rage. 

The dependent and rock solid mother

It's still taking some personal adjustment to see Connie Britton in any other role than Tammy Taylor in Friday Night Lights. However, she does a fantastic job as the betrayed but strong mother of Vivien Harmon. Vivien has developed a strange biological tie with the house (like all pregnant women on the Island in LOST) after having sex with the rubber man (which she thought was her all-time horny husband being S&M playful) and becoming pregnant. With a fast growing baby in her belly, Vivien puts all her awakened time and energy into trying to sell the house after falling out of love with it due to not only the home invasion, but some very persistent ghost visits.


The scorned ex-mistress

Following Ben to LA and stalking him in his home, Hayden can't seem to get over the thought of Ben having another family apart from her and the pre-born baby that he left her with and which she never had aborted. Killed by Larry in a rage after terrorizing Ben in his home and pissing off Larry, Hayden's body is buried underneath the gazebo in the garden. It doesn't take long for Hayden to return, making Vivien believe she's still alive and Ben to believe that she faked her death in a conspiracy with Larry.


The stalking psycho

Larry seems to be the only actual living person who knows the secrets and evil of the house. Being the previous torment victim of the house's mental games, Larry burned his wife and daughters to death and became left behind covered in second degree burns. Having been recently released from a mental institution, Larry claims he has inoperable brain cancer and not much long to live. In an attempt to be either a pain in the ass or actually trying to help Ben to become free of the house's power, Larry starts terrorizing Ben, taking advantage of Ben's dire situation. After having killed Hayden with a shovel, Larry starts to blackmail Ben to pay him off or he'll tell the cops about Hayden's body being buried in the back yard.

The seducing housekeeper

Being one of the ghosts of the house, housekeeper Moira, was shot in the eye and killed by Constance during the 80's after Constance caught Moira and her husband Hugo having what she believed was an affair. When the Harmons move in to the house, Moira shows up on their doorstep revealing herself as an old woman to Vivien, asking to be taken on as their maid. While Vivien sees the older version of Moira, Ben sees the young seductive version that is stuck in a seducing-her-employer-loop. One thumb up for young Moira constantly trying to seduce Ben and two thumbs up for Violet walking in on the old version of Moira straddling her dad.