10 Reasons Murder House Is The Best Season Of American Horror Story
It's back to the start to see what made Murder House the greatest season of American Horror Story.
They say that sometimes the original is the best, so can that be said for the premiere season of American Horror Story? Reinventing the haunted house genre with ghosts, affairs, and one gnarly burned up face, American Horror Story: Murder House came screaming onto our screens in 2011, and into our nightmares ever since.
Ryan Murphy's horror anthology may be wrapping up its sixth season, but the show is bigger than ever. Season 6's Roanoke harked back to Murder House with its ghostly abode and pig-masked murderers. So, 5 years later, a bag full of Emmys, and being the network's most-watched show, who would have guessed that we would be looking at the jewel in FX's crown?
With superb performances from Taissa Farmiga, Connie Britton, Denis O'Hare, and Jessica Lange, Murder House put the horror in Horror Story. From tiny acorns do mighty oak trees grown, and from small horror stories do mighty shows blossom.
10. It Reinvented The Genre
Another haunted how idea, strewn out over 10 episodes...yawn!
Hopes were low when we entered the Murder House, but that is what made it so much better. Amityville Horror, The Haunting, and Poltergeist - looking at the old haunted house films, Murder House tried to make it relevant to the 21st Century. The first season took all your favourite tropes and mixed them together in one terrific cocktail. Arguably, if it wasn't for American Horror Story we wouldn't be in such a boom of horror genre TV shows.
As well as having mystery, suspense, and gore, the first season was also uncompromisingly clever. Not confined to one timeline, and with a smorgasbord of interesting characters, the show was a horror nerd's wet dream. It also took on urban legends similar to Candyman, while interweaving the real-life crimes of the Black Dahlia, AND a meta social commentary - Horror Story was the thinking-man's show.
The following seasons tended to get bigger, and you can't help but feel that sometimes it lost what made the first season so claustrophobic. There is no denying that the show always has something interesting to say, but the first season really broke the mould with imaginative storytelling.