The Terrors of History in “American Horror Story”

One of Ryan Murphy’s signature shows explores the sites and times of the most scarring American traumas.

Ryan Murphy is, arguably, one of the most notable auteurs working in television today. By this point in his career, he’s managed to create a truly dizzying array of shows and films, ranging from the exquisitely optimistic and joyous Glee to the melodramatic and soapy Nip/Tuck to the pathos-drenched Pose. Again and again, he’s proven that he knows how to take a singular concept and transform it into a series that bears the mark of his authorial persona. One has only to take a look at one of his series, to know that it is a Ryan Murphy production.

Within Murphy’s oeuvre, American Horror Story is its own special beast. While it definitely shows signs of being a Ryan Murphy series — with its intense visual style, its narrative that at times veers into the ridiculous, and its melodramatic affect — it engages with questions that are unique to itself. It explores the darkest spaces of the American psyche, immersing us in those spaces of national trauma that we collectively try to repress. In Murphy’s imagination, even the space of the house becomes a locus of horror, a place where the family’s innermost demons are set loose to play.