History Series / AmericanHorrorStoryMurderHouse

The first season of ''Series/AmericanHorrorStory'', originally titled ''American Horror Story'' but retroactively titled ''American Horror Story: Murder House'', follows the story of a couple from Boston, Ben and Vivien, and their daughter, Violet, who decide a change in location to sunny Los Angeles will help heal the wounds left by Vivien’s miscarriage and by Ben’s affair with a former student. Their nightmares are far from over, however, as their new dream house turns out to be full of dark secrets.

* WrongfullyCommitted: Being a SupernaturalProofFather, Ben has Vivien wrongly committed because [[TheCassandra he doesn't believe that she really saw ghosts]]. Violet denies that she saw anything so she wouldn't have to leave the house, and [[UnfortunateImplications out of revenge because one of the twins wasn't his.]] Ben eventually pulls Vivien out of the asylum after realizing she wasn't lying and had been raped by Rubber Man.

* AndIMustScream: Unlike most examples, Moira has the opportunity to actually scream.
** Well, not just Moira, but pretty much all of the ghosts trapped in the house. They can scream all they want about their condition and beat the shit out of each other freely, but they're still stuck there for as long as the house stands (and possibly longer, who knows).

* DualAgeModes: Moira, who appears as an elderly lady to women and as an attractive young woman to men. Nobody compares notes to realize the discrepancy, even when Violet comes across old-lady Moira straddling her dad. In the third episode, Moira says that men see what they want, whereas women see into a person's soul. Both forms are technically her real appearance; men see her as [[spoiler:she looked before she died]] whereas women see her true age, as well as a reminder of [[spoiler:the gunshot wound that killed her, in her one blind eye]]. Eventually, when [[spoiler:Ben rejects Moira's advances once and for all and begins looking deeper, he begins seeing her as an old woman, too, signifying that he is starting to see the truth]].
** This typically shown to work on living, straight, men and women. [[spoiler: She's seen talking to Chad briefly in her old form, but it's never explained if he sees her that way, or if him being gay, a ghost, a longtime acquaintance, or particularly perceptive has anything to do with it.]]

* FanDisservice: Young Moira playing with herself is hot, until you remember that she's actually an old lady who appears young to Ben.[[note]]She did [[spoiler:die a young woman]], but her true self is presented as an old woman[[/note]]

* MrFanservice:
** Tate Langdon.
** Dr. Ben Harmon.
* MsFanservice: Young Moira, ''so much''.

** Most ghosts have at least some control over their appearance, being able to mask or hide the bodily disfigurements that they may have gotten when they died, and some can make themselves appear to age after their deaths. Moira, for example, alternates between appearing young and elderly (despite dying when she was around 30), and she often appears with one blind eye because she died from a gunshot to the eye.

* ProHumanTranshuman: In the final episode [[spoiler: Moira and a loose confederation of ghosts team up with the Harmons to scare new buyers away so they don't get killed.]]

* ShapeshiftingSeducer: Moira probably counts, appearing as a beautiful girl to seduce men when it will help with a bigger plan. However, it's complicated in that she doesn't change herself to seduce them, they just automatically see her that way.

* AbsenteeActor: Constance doesn't appear in "Rubber Man" and Violet doesn't appear in "Spooky Little Girl".

* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:None of the Harmons survive. (Except the dog.) Really, this show killed off almost every cast member. Constance and Larry are the only major characters who are still alive (and since Larry has brain cancer, he likely didn't survive for long)]].

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: The dozens of people who have died in the house are all still there.

* AdultFear:
** One of the reasons the Harmons (and Chad and Pat before them) [[ClosedCircle can't just leave]] is because they've sunk so much money into the house that just leaving or making the house price low enough to attract people would be like committing financial suicide.
** Nora and Charles' son getting kidnapped, murdered, and sent back to them ''in jars''.

* RealityEnsues: Nora is introduced as a very cold, distant, impatient mother with her son Thaddeus. When he [[spoiler: was kidnapped and murdered]], she's distraught, and forever cries, "Where's my baby?" However, when she finally gets her wish, [[spoiler:she's back to being cold, distant, and impatient with the baby she had Tate take from Vivien, and promptly dumps him on her the second she gets a chance. She then finally has to admit that she doesn't have the patience (or desire) to be a mother.]] What? You didn't think that being remorseful over what happened to her son would magically imbue her with the traits of a nurturing mother, did you?

* InTheBlood: [[spoiler: Tate's son]] apparently inherited his dad's psychotic tendencies, if the nanny he murdered at ''three years old'' is any indication.

* PatchedTogetherFromTheHeadlines: The house's whole history. All of this take place there: a UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} school shooting, which at least had something to do with the ghost of Nora, who was involved in a baby's kidnapping that closely resembles the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindbergh_kidnapping Lindbergh kidnapping]], and whose husband explicitly committed the Black Dahlia murder. Separate from all of this, a man also committed crimes that closely resemble [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Speck Richard Speck's]] although with two nurses rather than eight.

* YaoiFangirl: Violet thinks gay porn is hot. [[BiTheWay Tate agrees]], though he didn't seem sincere.

[[caption-width-right:350: ''Murder House'' cast.[[note]]From left to right: {{T|eensAreMonsters}}ate, [[EvilMatriarch Constance]], [[IJustWantToBeBeautiful Adelaide]], [[MsFanservice Young Moira]], [[LoveMakesYouCrazy Larry Harvey (on fire)]], [[TheWoobie Old Moira]], [[NightmareFetishist Violet]], [[SupernaturalProofFather Ben]], [[OnlySaneMan Vivien]]. Above them: [[CreepyTwins The Twins]] and [[DressedAllInRubber Rubber Man]].[[/note]] ]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: All of the Harmons die and are trapped in the House with all the other ghosts forever, but are actively working to make sure no other family ends up like them and are finally happy being dead together. Moira still can't move on, but she finally finds happiness in being embraced by the Harmons as a friend and member of the family. Constance is raising the Antichrist, with mixed emotions. Tate and the rest of the ghosts in the house are still miserable]] and the dog lives.

** The episode "Spooky Little Girl" also counts. Aside from the ghost of Elizabeth Short appearing and a depiction of how her murder happened, this episode is more character driven, focusing mostly on Ben, as well as Hayden's motives and Travis wanting to become famous. Then enters MoodWhiplash territory when Billie Dean and Constance talk about what exactly happens [[spoiler: if a spirit had a child with a human, with Billie revealing that it would result in the AntiChrist]].

* ChristianityIsCatholic: The [[spoiler:Antichrist]] subplot is played out in Catholic terms.

** [[spoiler: Vivien's AntiChrist baby.]]

** What the situation with [[spoiler: one of Vivien's twins, specifically the one Vivien and Rubber Man conceived during the pilot,]] appears to be. [[spoiler:It started kicking ''at eight weeks'', then was revealed on the ultrasound to be much further along, and ''made the nurse faint''. The nurse later quits her job. When Vivien meets her again, she claims she saw what can be interpreted as the AntiChrist.]]

** When Violet's ex-bully tells her that [[spoiler: the devil is beautiful, not ugly]]. It mainly works as a parallel to her relationship with [[spoiler: Tate, but it later applies to her beautiful baby brother - the AntiChrist]].

* AntiChrist: [[spoiler:Michael, conceived by a ghost and a living woman: Tate and Vivien. He kills his half-brother in the womb and kills his nanny at the age of three.]]

** Marcy, the real estate woman. She sells the house to people knowing the full history of the it and the fate that usually awaits the people who own it, but she deliberately fails to mention this to potential buyers, just so she can continue to receive the commision for the sale. She is a truly a dispicable woman who nonetheless experiences no consequences for her actions. When all is said and done she is shown on the final episode ready to try to make a sale to the next potentially doomed family.

* KarmaHoudini: For all of the pain and misery she causes to the people around her, she more or less suffers no real consequences.

* KharmaHoudini: For all of the pain and misery she causes to the people around her, she more or less suffers no real consequences.

* EvilDetectingDog: Hallie, Vivien's dog, which leads Violet to the basement the first time they visit the house and bites Adelaide.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: All of the Harmons die and are trapped in the House with all the other ghosts forever, but are actively working to make sure no other family ends up like them and are finally happy being dead together. Moira still can't move on, but she finally finds happiness in being embraced by the Harmons as a friend and member of the family. Constance is raising the Antichrist, with mixed emotions. Tate and the rest of the ghosts in the house are still miserable]].

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Constance mentions in the second episode that she had four children. Only three show up in the show. [[spoiler:The eighth season, ''Apocalypse'', finally reveals that Constance's fourth child was a little girl named Rose with no eyes, who is also a ghost in the Murder House along with her brothers Tate and Beauregard. We still don't know how she died, though]].

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Constance mentions in the second episode that she had four children. Only three show up in the show.

** [[spoiler: Tate]] claims to want redemption in the season finale, but is doubted even by [[spoiler:his own formerly-idealistic therapist]].

** The events of episodes 5 and 6 are alluded to when Tate [[spoiler: has his first session with Ben; the sequence where Tate is shown walking through a school and a very brief shot where Tate sees himself covered in blood alludes he actually has acted on his murderous thoughts.]] Additionally, Tate also [[spoiler: being a ghost is implied when the dead cheerleader remarks that she would be 34 if he hadn't killed her; since she went to the same high-school at the same time at Tate, it's highly implied that he should be about 30 too.]]