American Horror Story “Pilot”

I’ve been toying with trying this series out for a while.  It has a bit of a reputation.  I’m not sure how scary it is so much as it’s campy.  At any rate, since it’s an anthology show with a new story, cast of characters, and so forth, it won’t be too hard to set it aside from time to time in case one of my regular Tuesday shows comes back.

So, let’s check out this so-called Murder House.

It’s the first episode, so instead of digging too much into the plot, let’s see if it’s scary.

Um, not really.  Weird, creepy, and rather silly, but not scary.

I mean, let’s see how this “murder house” is working out.  The Harmon family moves in, coming from Boston to L.A.  There’s Vivien (Connie Britton), who had a miscarriage and caught her psychologist husband Ben (Dylan McDermott) screwing a younger girl.  He says he did it because he was lonely and she just got a dog when they both needed comfort after her miscarriage.  And then they have sex after that fight.

I think I know what kind of show this is now.

If I didn’t realize it before, there’s former True Blood cast member Denis O’Hare as a guy with half his face burned off, explaining how the house told him to burn his family to death.  Maybe I’ll just call him Burnt Larry.

So, what is so weird about this house?  Well, people have died in there, and they may all still be hanging around in there.  A pair of twin boys from the 70s.  A maid who looks like old Frances Conroy to most people but as a young, seductive hottie to Ben.  Yes, she comes on to him.  There’s the Rubber Man.  Vivien has sex with him thinking it’s Ben.  Oh, and she’s pregnant at the end.

Creepiest may be Ben’s patient Tate (Evan Peters), who seems like a serial killer in the making.  He’s sorta romancing the Harmon’s teenage daughter Violet and helps Violet terrorize a school bully by…scaring the crap out of both girls with the possible presence of something else.  I am never asking that guy to rescue people at superspeed again.

Oh, and there’s Constance Langdon (Jessica Lange), a faded Southern belle type who wanted to be an actress.  Lange became the face for the series, hamming it up in various roles, and she has some really meaty craziness on display here, threatening Vivien if Vivien ever lays another finger on Constance’s daughter Downs Syndrome-affected daughter Addie again, and then threatening Moira the maid with “Don’t make me kill you again.”

Again?

Yeah, that is definetly the type of show this is.