NEW YORK – Producing and sustaining a horror show for the American television audience is not a mission for the squeamish.
Over television’s 60-some years, very few continuing horror series have truly taken hold in this country. “Dark Shadows” survived five years in the 1960s by blending camp and soap opera. Joss Whedon succeeded by making “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” into a “Beverly Hills, 90210″ of the undead. “Supernatural” works because it is, in effect, about two brothers on a really long road trip, and “True Blood” pins its allure on sex and deep bayou weirdness.
Then there’s “American Horror Story,” the brainchild of “Glee” creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, which finished its addictively off-kilter first season last week on FX. Against every single odd, this haunted-Hollywood saga managed to take all the horror cliches in the book and, using those ingredients, spin a thought-provoking stew of compelling originality. (Warning to DVR jockeys: Read on and you WILL encounter spoilers.)
The show’s first season documented the travails of the Harmon family in a 1908 mansion known as the “Murder House” for all the bad things that happened there. Now here’s why the Golden Globe-nominated series shouldn’t work:
Watching an episode of it is
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