American Horror Story: The Recap Of All Nine Seasons Of The Series and Explained

American Horror Story, an anthology series – that is, with characters and settings that change seasonally – was created in 2011 by the award-winning firm Ryan Murphy – Brad Falchuk. The two, already co-authors of the great success of Glee and in the future engaged in 9-1-1 and its spin-off Lone Star, have given life to an author horror series, bringing the genre back into vogue also on the small screen.

Over the years, thanks to the great success of critics and audiences – as well as extraordinary performers awarded with Emmy and Golden Globes – the narrative links between the various seasons, the settings and the characters have emerged more and more markedly, feeding a rich mythology of the series that made American Horror Story a fantastic (and scary) universe complete from every point of view.

At the dawn of the highly anticipated tenth season, in full Covid pandemic with all the difficulties of the case, American Horror Story confirms itself as a reference point for high quality TV, in which the postmodern figure – made up of quotes, tributes and references – is the guiding thread in a long, articulated history.

From the house of horrors of the first season, which went down in history as the house of murders, Murder House, we met serial killers, witches, bizarre creatures, ghosts, psychics, sects … And we saw the history of the United States of America, from Roanoke to Donald Trump, to be closely tied to the horror themes that Murphy and Falchuk have chosen as a metaphor for our lives. TV, always at the center of stories or as a means of communication or as a filter of reality, has become the home of American Horror Story in the USA on FX and in Italy on FOX.

Over the course of its first 9 seasons, the series racked up 2 Golden Globes – one to Jessica Lange and one to Lady Gaga, in her acting debut – and 16 Emmy Awards beauty. Waiting for the next chapters of Murphy and Falchuk’s horror saga – already officially renewed until season number 13 – let’s remember together the seasons, the themes, the cast, the awards and all the curiosities about American Horror Story.

American Horror Story: Murder House (2011)

We knew it like that, simply as American Horror Story, and then it became Murder House: the first season, broadcast in the USA since October 2011 and a month later in Italy, told us in 12 episodes the terrifying story of a family who moves into a cursed house.

A house where the souls of those who died within those walls remain trapped forever. A house where the boundary between natural and supernatural disappears, and ghosts – or rather presences – mix. Dead and alive live together under one roof, as Ben (Dylan McDermott) and Vivian (Connie Britton) Harmon, along with teenage daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga) prepare to see their lives turned upside down.

The meeting with Tate (Evan Peters), the memory of the bloody events of the past, the influence of Constance Langdon (an extraordinary Jessica Lange, who adds a Golden Globe and an Emmy to her 2 Oscars with this first season), l creepy character of what will become known as Rubber Man (the man completely covered in a black latex hooded suit) … Everything contributes to transform a simple move into the beginning of a nightmare that binds present and past, live and dead , tangible and intangible realm.

When the Harmons move into the house in Los Angeles, all the events that have taken place since the 1920s to the arrival of the Harmons become part of the nightmares of the new tenants.

Sarah Paulson plays psychic Billie Dean Howard, Frances Conroy is housekeeper Moira, Denis O’Hare is Larry Harvey, one of the previous owners of the house, while the story of the past and future of the Langdon family is set to become one of the cornerstones in the narrative universe of AHS.

The house of horrors, in which Dr. Montgomery (Matt Ross) in ancient times practiced horrors in the basement, is a kind of trap for souls, a kind of place that we will find in the future also in other seasons. But the starting point, the first season, will always remain a reference for future narrative links, and not just for the main characters. Christine Estabrook’s real estate agent Marcy returns in season five, Hotel, ready to be punished for her crime: selling cursed and haunted places.

Billie Dean Howard and Dr. Montgomery will also appear in the Hotel, whose protagonist – the Countess with the face of Lady Gaga – in the past had visited the Murder House this first season.

American Horror Story: Asylum (2012)

One more episode than the first season, 13, the return of Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson, a new “home” of horrors, Briarcliff, and a serial killer who seems to be immortal. Asylum, the second season of American Horror Story, is set in Briarcliff’s asylum in the mid-1960s. Sister Jude (Lange) directs Briarcliff, where Dr. Arden (James Cromwell) and Dr. Thredson (Zachary Quinto) work among others.

Kit Walker (Evan Peters) is interned following the discovery of the body of his sweetheart, a young black woman at a time when mixed couples were seen as an abomination and accused of being the terrible killer known in the news as Bloody Face. Journalist Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson) tries to investigate what really happens within the walls of Briarcliff. She will end up being locked up there and discovering the identity of Bloody Face.

Once again the narrative moves between present and past, exploring the history of a cursed place, the asylum of horrors where innocent souls were considered cursed … Very often ending up becoming one. Among the patients appears Pepper (Naomi Grossman), who we will find again in the Freak Show, while the character of Lana Winters will also appear in Roanoke.

Asylum wins 17 Emmy nominations, winning 2 and giving us a new, extraordinary interpretation of Jessica Lange. The plot, which comes to involve Nazi plots and alien theories, has its roots in an act of denunciation of how, in previous decades, any deviation from “normality” derived from social dictates was considered as a mental illness.

Starting with the homosexuality of Lana Winters who, if only for the fact of being a lesbian, according to the evaluations of 1964 should live forever in Briarcliff as she is suffering from a “disease”. American Horror Story continues its path full of tributes and references, but also the denunciation of man’s cruelty towards his fellow men through the assignment of superficial labels.

American Horror Story: Coven (2013)

In a self-respecting anthological horror series they could not miss them: the witches. Coven centers on a modern coven of witches in New Orleans, gathered in a school – the Miss Robichaux Academy for exceptional girls – but as always, its story ties into the past.

There are still 13 episodes and the season, almost all female, Jessica Lange returns as Fiona Goode, the Supreme who is losing her powers to leave them to the witch destined to replace her. But who is it? The girls of the Robichaux Academy undergo several tests to try to understand who the future Supreme leading the coven is, turning the research into a no holds barred competition.

Between black magic, voodoo (with the character of Marie Laveau, played by Angela Bassett), a dark past (Kathy Bates is Delphine LaLaurie, legendary bloodthirsty monster) and a future threat, Coven delves into a theme that the horror genre he has explored for a long time, both in cinema and on TV, in various forms (including comedy) but without ever reaching the heights of American Horror Story.

The power of the coven generated by the union of its witches – who will have to learn to put aside envy and rivalry – reminds us that against evil only the union of all the warriors available for battle can make a difference.

The cast is enriched by Emma Roberts as Madison Montgomery, movie star and witch; Lily Rabe is Misty Day, endowed with one of the most extraordinary powers among those of witches; Taissa Farmiga is the young witch Zoe Benson, while her academy partner Queenie has the face of Gabourey Sidibe.

Frances Conroy returns to the cast, to give life to the eccentric witch Myrtle Snow. We also meet Evan Peters and Denis O’Hare, as we prepare to transport the characters of Coven into the future, with Apocalypse (season number 8, crossover with Coven) and with Hotel (in particular for the character of Queenie).

In the role of the assassin known as Axeman (The Man with the Ax) is Danny Huston. The actor plays the serial killer who actually terrorized the city of New Orleans between 1918 and 1919, killing at least ten people. After breaking into the homes of his victims, mostly Italian Americans (which made the police think he was linked to organized crime), the killer killed with axes or razors found on the spot. To date, no one has yet discovered his identity: the few who survived his attacks were unable to describe him.

American Horror Story: Freak Show (2014)

13 episodes for season number 4, Freak Show one of the most loved by critics. Referring explicitly to Tod Browning’s masterpiece, Freaks the new American Horror Story tells the story of Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange), after undergoing the amputation of her legs, she travels the world in search of those “freaks of nature” that in his circus they can rediscover the dignity that the hypocritical world of the “normal” has stolen from them.

We are in the 1950s , in Florida, and we are witnessing the show that Elsa has set up in Jupiter, a town in which a bloodthirsty monster sows panic by massacring young couples.

Under Elsa’s circus tent are Siamese twins Bette and Dot Tattler (Sarah Paulson), lobster-hand boy Jimmy Darling (Evan Peters), her mother Ethel Darling (Kathy Bates), the bearded lady, the woman with three breasts Desiree Dupree (Angela Bassett), the strong man Dell Toledo (Michael Chiklis), our old acquaintance Pepper (from Asylum) and many others.

But the two scariest encounters of the season are the one with the killer clown Twisty a character destined to remain imprinted in the collective imagination of the horror genre, not only for the small screen (the references to coulrophobia, the terror of clowns, will be fundamental in Cult ), and Dandy Mott (an outstanding Finn Wittrock, making his debut in the series), a rich and highly disturbed young man obsessed with deformities.

The references to Elsa’s past, to Dr. Arden (of Asylum), to the post-war period and to intolerance, with all its forms, are sublimated in the homage to David Bowie with the unforgettable interpretation of Jessica Lange of Life on Mars (song who gave his character his name).

Twisty the clown is openly inspired by John Wayne Gacy , the real serial killer known because he disguised himself as a clown (and painted many, bought with great controversy even by stars like Johnny Depp) to attract part of his 33 confirmed victims. Gacy also appears in the Hotel, in the episode entitled The Devil’s Night, which is considered one of the best of the entire series.

American Horror Story: Hotel (2015)

Season 5, Hotel, with its 12 episodes, revolves around another cursed place, a Los Angeles hotel where souls are forever trapped and the boundaries between the living and the dead disappear, just like in the well-known Murder House.

Investigations into the serial killer the press dubbed the Ten Commandments Killer in today’s Los Angeles brings Detective John Lowe (Wes Bentley) to the Cortez Hotel. Customers disappear, never leaving the hotel again, while the staff – headed by a priceless Denis O’Hare as a drag queen inspired by Liz Taylor – try to scramble between “normal” customers and the supernatural events that cause them. they constantly threaten.

At the reception is Iris (Kathy Bates), who seems to know everyone’s secrets but has a hard time dealing with her past. When we are told the story of the former owner, the multimillionaire James March (Evan Peters), suspected of committing atrocities within the walls of the Cortez, the arrival of Countess Elizabeth (the character of Lady Gaga, awarded a Golden Globe) a cruel and immortal creature, along with his inseparable Donovan (Matt Bomer) the Cortez’s vortex of terror begins to move through time, as well as between two dimensions.

John Lowe’s investigations will end with a twist, while the characters’ past will reveal unspeakable secrets. Unforgettable the episode in which, during the night of the Devil (Halloween), March brings together some of the most notorious serial killers of all time, from the Night Stalker Richard Ramirez (Anthony Ruivivar) to John Wayne Gacy (John Carroll Lynch), passing for Jeffrey Dahmer (Seth Gabel) and Aileen Wuornos (Lily Rabe).

In addition to the obvious plot links to Murder House and the aforementioned Countess visit to Dr. Montgomery, Hotel ties into Coven thanks to the story of Queenie and the upcoming season 8, Apocalypse. The Cortez hotel is inspired by the real Cecil Hotel, built in 1925 in Los Angeles and with a history full of suicides, murders and disturbing guests: Richard Ramirez, in fact, stayed there for several weeks.

American Horror Story: Roanoke (2016)

Season number 6 of American Horror Story tells us a story through another story: the narration starts from a fictitious TV broadcast during which a filmed reconstruction tells the story of the real protagonists. There are actors who play other actors , in short.

Murphy and Falchuk take us behind the scenes of the small screen, on the hunt for that TV that never grants privacy to those who appear there and the equivalent of click-catching titles disguised as ghost stories. Over the course of its 10 episodes, Roanoke divides us between the reality (of the narrative) and the docu-fiction in which the spouses Shelby and Matt Miller tell the nightmare lived in the cursed house of Roanoke the year before.

Shelby (Lily Rabe) and Matt (André Holland) reconstruct the purchase of the old colonial house, the meeting with the spirits of the Roanoke settlers, the terrifying facts and the presences that push them to the brink of madness and death.

As they turn to the camera, the two protagonists are supported by the actors who bring them to life in the filmed reconstruction: Audrey Tindall (Sarah Paulson) and Dominic Banks (Cuba Gooding, Jr.). Each character has their own double, an actor invited to spend time in Roanoke’s house. Needless to say, they too will experience the same horror…

In the cast, the always memorable Kathy Bates stands out in the double role of the Butcher a fearsome killer at the time of the colony, and the actress who plays her in the TV program, Agnes Mary Winstead. Sarah Paulson even has a triple role…

Evan Peters, Denis O’Hare, Wes Bentley, Cheyenne Jackson, Angela Bassett and Adina Porter return to the set, to leave us with one of the most evocative, disturbing and scary seasons of the series, as well as one of the richest in cinematic quotes (complete with reconstruction of the origins of Dandy from Freak Show in a parallelism with Don’t open that door).

American Horror Story: Cult (2017)

With its 11 episodes, the seventh season of American Horror Story: Cult anchors itself unequivocally to contemporary reality. Famous, in fact, the beginning during the night of the elections that decreed the victory of Donald Trump at the White House: Allyson Mayfair-Richards (Sarah Paulson) reacts with desperation while, in a house not too far away, Kai Anderson (Evan Peters) celebrates as if he had won himself.

Cult’s premise, centered on the cult of personalities, plunges us into a vortex of terror in which Allyson will have to deal with shocking revelations about her own life.

Married to Ivy (Alison Pill) and a loving mother, Allyson works at the family restaurant, where Ivy is the chef. But when he meets  Kai Anderson  and his sister Winter (Billie Lourd), his whole world begins to collapse. Galvanized by Trump’s victory, Kai decides to go into politics and runs for the city council, but when his proposal is rejected and his political role humiliated, he decides to found a sect made up of rejected people and seeking revenge …

The entry into the cast of Leslie Grossman’s AHS is memorable, destined to return later and give us really noteworthy characters. We review the familiar faces of Cheyenne Jackson, Adina Porter and Frances Conroy, and meet Colton Haynes, Billy Eichner and Dermot Mulroney.

Oz, the little son of Allyson and Ivy – whom Winter babysits – is terrified, like his mother, of clowns: his comic about Twisty  (the monster of the Freak Show) is the evident inspiration of the members of the sect, who dress up as a clown before killing.

Between politics, murderers who terrorize the neighborhood, secret sects and clowns, Cult represents the will of the authors to tell us how horror, the real one, tangible and without anything supernatural, is basically an integral part of our daily lives.

American Horror Story: Apocalypse (2018)

Broadcast in Italy between 2018 and 2019, with 10 episodes in total, Apocalypse presents itself with a real crossover with Murder House and Coven, respectively the first and third season. The last, frantic and desperate hours of the world as we know it give way to a post-apocalyptic world where the atmosphere is radioactive and the only survivors are gathered in underground anti-atomic bunkers, managed by a mysterious Organization.

One of the outposts run by Miss Wilhelmina Venable (Sarah Paulson), which hides its true purpose. Inside the outpost, between rivalry, strict rules and food shortages, a (second) chaos will break out. Until the witches of Coven change the scene, facing the son of Tate Langdon given birth by Vivien Harmon and raised by Constance: Michael Langdon (now adult and with the face of Cody Fern), the Antichrist himself.

To save what’s left of the world, the only hope is to go back in time, in true Star Trek style, and try to change everything. The participation of Joan Collins in the role of the elegant, very rich and young grandmother of Evan Peters, is memorable who somehow manages to get her to the outpost, among the highly selected (and paying) survivors.

Jessica Lange returns to play Constance, beloved and award-winning character, in a season that brings together all the recurring actors of the series, and that ranges between nuclear apocalypse, witchcraft, time travel, spells, struggle between Good and Evil and creatures born by an unsuspected technology. The most bizarre season of American Horror Story mixes very different themes and somehow pays homage to the journey taken by the actors – now a family – year after year.

American Horror Story: 1984 (2019)

Los Angeles, 1984. A group of kids – including aerobics enthusiasts and aspiring future stars – heads to Camp Redwood to work as animators and guides under the orders of Margareth Boot (Leslie Grossman), who plans to enforce respect for both employees and to the guests very strict rules based on its Catholic setting.

But the guests will never arrive, and there will be a massacre among the staff: a dangerous killer, escaped from a nearby criminal asylum, is returning to Camp Redwood to carry out a new massacre. Benjamin Richter (John Carroll Lynch), a veteran from Vietnam and a very problematic ex-kid, killed the boys in the camp in 1970. Margaret escaped the massacre and is now determined to reopen Camp Redwood to restore it to its former glory. But things, as always, are not at all what they seem…

Between false leads, twists, famous killers – starting with the aforementioned Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez (here with the face of Zach Villa) – and a screaming soundtrack, American Horror Story: 1984 refers to the Friday 13 saga and Halloween but also to the themes already explored by the series, from the cursed places that trap the souls of those who die there to the story of a past whose truth emerges only thanks to someone’s stubborn will.

Rewriting history, while dealing with one of the horror sagas and some of the most famous killers in the history of cinema (and news), between an aerobics class, a leg warmer and a drug addiction, is the goal. last of this season.

Skier Gus Kenworthy joins the cast to play one of the camp managers alongside newcomer Brooke (Emma Roberts), daring Montana (Billie Lourd), aspiring actor Xavier (Cody Fern) and aerobics teacher Trevor (Matthew Morrison).

For the first time in American Horror Story history, both Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters are missing from the cast, but the well-known faces of others – including Dylan McDermott and Lily Rabe – make us feel at home. Or, better, immersed in a 9-episode slasher movie.