American Horror Story: Prepare to Meet Your Maker—But Not Really

            At this point I’m off the American Horror Story bandwagon and hitching a ride back into town while said wagon rolls unsteadily, merrily onwards. During the fall of 2013, I began watching the series on Amazon at $1.99 a pop starting with the premiere of Coven. When that particular season didn’t amaze me with its opening episode (and would go on to disappoint me further), I swapped over to Asylum, and it was the show’s second season that got me. With Asylum, I fell into the “Just one more and then I’ll quit” loop. I still argue that Asylum represents the series’ high point—aliens or no aliens—because it manages to tap into the terror of institutional misuse of power: namely the fear that you can be trapped somewhere until someone else says you can leave. The truth of the matter is that both Asylum and Murder House had strong, haunted settings backing them. The former had the asylum where the main characters were stuck for most of the season, and the latter had the family home—a far from original setting but one that always resonates because of the symbolism (dissolution/dismemberment of the American family and so forth) and the suggestion that “It could happen to you too!” Coven and Freak Show had less effective settings which rarely felt dangerous or scary, and Hotel seems to have tried to remedy this problem by making its Cortez hotel its centerpiece once more. Although settings in horror films get reused a lot, setting is still an important part of the scare, and if the atmosphere isn’t oppressive—if the audience can’t feel threatened or trapped like the characters—then there’s a massive obstacle to overcome when it’s time to really turn the screws and put them on the edge of their seats. I don’t want to belabor this point, but the fact that the characters in Coven could come and go as they pleased lowered the stakes considerably.

            The biggest problem with the AHS formula, however, has been its treatment of character death. Although the spirits of deceased characters in Murder House were forever doomed to haunt a building, they were still able to behave and interact as if they were alive (albeit with serious restrictions on their ability to leave the domicile). In Coven, the magical premise allowed the writers to kill and then revive major characters several times before finally deciding to kill them for good. Freak Show even resorted to cheap “It was all a dream!” cop-out scenarios where it would show a major character dying in a gruesome fashion and then reveal that it was all just a Denis O’Hare murder fantasy. Now Hotel has vampires, and I think that point pretty much bears itself out. I’ve saved Asylum for last because, even though its aliens do intervene to revive one major character, it still feels like the show with the highest stakes where character deaths are concerned. There are no ghosts, vampires, or murder fantasies. When characters die, they don’t live on thanks to a supernatural or storytelling loophole (again, except for the occasional alien intervention).

(And it's a problem.)

           

           I think AHS has the Heroes problem, as it’s a show that became so enamored with its stars that it is reluctant to kill them. This isn’t a perfect comparison since AHS is an anthology series and doesn’t really carry characters from season to season, but it is a similar principle. Heroes became too fond of its major characters to kill them off. Meanwhile, AHS is too in love with its star power. For example, it was pretty much a given that Jessica Lange wasn’t going to die until the very end of each season. Kill Sarah Paulsen or Evan Peters? Perish the thought! Part of the thrill of horror films is the threat of character death, and American Horror Story has squandered that potential. It’s established a trend of saving its major players from death from the very first season, but the pattern has become especially obvious in more recent years. Every year, the show comes back with creepy trailers and opening sequences that look great but have only a tenuous, symbolic connection to the actual and atmosphere of the show. I’m fine with the way that these materials show off the motifs or themes of the season to come rather than giving away actual plot details, but I also have to admit that these short snippets have become more horrific and entertaining than AHS itself, which is more interested in being a soap opera with horror elements than a horror series with soap opera elements. Character dynamics always play a role in horror films even if the characters are easily identifiable as tropes; however, AHS seems to have mistaken its characters/actors as the real focus of a genre that really only uses and abuses them in order to accomplish its actual purpose: scaring or horrifying the audience.

            I was able to watch the premiere of Hotel on Amazon for free earlier this fall, and that’s the only episode of the season I’ve watched so far. I will undoubtedly continue to check out American Horror Story as the new seasons make their way to Netflix or Amazon, but the love affair is over. I consider myself a fan of horror movies and of the premise and potential behind a series like AHS, but unless the show manages a renaissance of sorts where it gets over its squeamishness regarding major character death, I’m unlikely to spend any more money on it. This is not to say that the series’ only problem is its considerably lowered stakes, but even the worst horror movies can at least manages this much. I’m sure there are folks who love American Horror Story for its glamorous side and because of the hype machine it still manages to be by casting Lady Gaga in a starring role, but I’m not one of those people.