American Horror Story - Season 1

American Horror Story first came to our screens in 2011, with a story-line following a selection of characters who are directly involved in the cryptic, odd and creepy happenings in an old, haunted house.  After Vivian and Ben Harman are trying to recover from an infidelity incident they move away to try and start over - well they certainly moved to the wrong location to try and solve their problems! Don't get me wrong the house they have found is stunning but after they find out that the house has certain history that they were not warned about things start to get a little bit weird.

So where to start? We have a gay couple who were the previous owners, who were murdered in the house. The original owners were con-artists who lured young woman into the house so a practising doctor could experiment on them and then a few more families who also came to an end under the roof of this house. And not to mention the fact that everyone's ghosts are just lingering (and linger they do) around acting like they are still the owners of the house. With all of this going on, it's no wonder that after all the tormenting from these spirits that the main characters go slightly loopy. And with this only being a ten parter series, the characters go pretty crazy, pretty quickly. Despite being a psychiatrist, Ben Harman tries desperately to fabricate an excuse for all these odd things that have been happening to his family but ultimately he starts to see that there is something very wrong about what's going on. We have a house keeper who is in fact dead but still doing the cleaning, who appears to certain men as a desirable, saucily clad young woman when she is in fact an old hag and not to mention that a few of his patients he is treating who aren't actually there! If you are a horror fan, then this is definitely one to watch, it is utterly clever and original with story lines that will shock and haunt you. With brilliant performances from the entire cast - catch this one along with the second series which is arguably on par if not more impressive that the first before the third season hits our screens.

Directed by Various People
60mins, 18 (2011)