After premiering last week to a resounding “Wait, what?” from audiences and critics alike, “Glee” creator Ryan Murphy’s horror drama “American Horror Story” dialed down the weirdness and began to find its feet in its second episode. The program continues to be hampered by its unpleasant cast of characters and uneven tone, but viewers in the mood for some mid-October spookiness are sure to find something to enjoy.
As in the first episode, “Home Invasion” opens with a flashback to the grisly past of the Harmon family’s house – the double murder of a pair of nurses — before returning to the present for another dose of its current residents’ family drama.
While Vivien Harmon, newly pregnant after an encounter with a gimp-suit-wearing ghost in the first episode, struggles with her marriage and her creepy neighbor Constance, her teenage daughter Violet deals with the fact that her crush, the deeply disturbed Tate, might be a murderous psychopath. Meanwhile, Vivien’s husband, Ben, stalks around shirtless and cries about his past infidelity. A lot.
That’s when the psychos show up. While Ben is out of town visiting the patient who originally tempted him away from his marital vows, three true-crime devotees break into the Harmon house and attempt to replicate the murder at the beginning of the episode with Vivien and Violet as its centerpieces. Fortunately for the Harmons, the house proves both more protective and much more murderous than even the wannabe killers could anticipate.
Despite its high production values and the somewhat more even pace of this episode compared to the pilot, something still feels off about “Horror Story.” As a viewing experience, it’s intriguing, but also quite unpleasant. Even as a die-hard fan of horror films and television, I find it hard to imagine myself sitting down to watch alternating scenes of miserable family drama and bloody axe murders every week. Good horror stories break up the scary stuff with moments that build sympathy for the characters. “American Horror Story” breaks up the scary stuff with tense, stilted dialogue and ghost sex. For an episode or two, it’s fascinating, but Ryan Murphy will have to shift some of the focus if he hopes to sustain interest in the program. Maybe a Britney Spears episode would help?