The first season of the Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk-produced horror anthology television series American Horror Story on FX is named American Horror Story: Murder House. Between October 5 and December 21, 2011, it was broadcast. Executive producers for the season’s production at 20th Century Fox Television included Dante Di Loreto and the show’s creators, Murphy and Falchuk. It concentrates on the Harmon family, which consists of Dr. Ben Harmon, Vivien, and Violet, who relocate from Boston to Los Angeles after Vivien miscarries and Ben engages in extramarital relations. Unaware that the renovated mansion is haunted by the ghosts of its previous occupants and their victims, they move in. The reviews for American Horror Story’s debut season were mainly favorable. After its inaugural season, the program had the most significant new cable series of the year, thanks to its consistently high ratings for the FX network.
BROADCASTING THE CAST OF AHS
The first casting announcement for Connie Britton, who will play the female lead Vivien Harmon, came in March 2011. In accepting the role of Vivien, Britton acknowledged that she was taking a risk. Murphy explained the position to her and remarked, “We’ve never seen you do anything like this before. What you just did will be turned on its head by it.” She was captivated by what he had shown her and decided to accept the role in the end. According to Murphy, Connie Britton’s character Vivien would die in the first season, who claimed he had told her early on. As Larry Harvey, Denis O’Hare joined the cast in late March 2011. In April 2011, Jessica Lange joined the cast as Constance, her first regular part on television. Ben Harmon, the main character, was cast as Dylan McDermott in late April 2011. Initially, his persona was “a gorgeous and masculine yet sympathetic therapist who loves his family but has betrayed his wife.”
HAVE A GLANCE AT THE FILMING LOCATIONS OF AHS
The house that acts as the series’ haunted house and the crime scene was used as the location for the pilot episode, which was filmed in Los Angeles, California’s Country Club Park. The Tudor or Collegiate Gothic-style single-family residence was designed and constructed in 1902 by Alfred Rosenheim, American Institute of Architects president. It was formerly a convent. CGI was used to eliminate an adjacent chapel from exterior shots. The television show is filmed on sets that are perfect replicas of the house. To maintain the house, details like Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass windows and hammered bronze light fittings were recreated. Beginning in February 2016, the home was offered on Airbnb for six months before being removed.
HOW WAS THE RESPONSE OF VIEWERS REGARDING AHS
Critics gave American Horror Story: Murder House favorable reviews. Based on 30 reviews, the first episode received a Metacritic score of 62 out of 100. A 72% acceptance rating and an average score of 6.59/10 were given by the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes based on 40 reviews. According to the website’s user reviews, “American Horror Story is convoluted yet effective—strange, nasty, and twisted enough to keep viewers captivated.” The first episode of AHS received a B+ grade from Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly, who noted that the show “is pretty much all fear, all the time: a lotta screaming, sex, jolts, mashed faces, crazy behavior, and dead babies.” According to Chuck Barney of the San Jose Mercury News, most TV shows rapidly vanish from memory. This will torment your dreams. Overdoing things is one of Hank Stuever’s characteristic failings, but this program has a compelling flair and exuberant gross-outs, according to his review in The Washington Post.