American Horror Story Season 1 goes from horror to soap.

I know that lately my column has, maybe, focused a bit too much on horror but somehow I keep getting attracted back to the genre. Which means that finally – after I got fed up seeing everyone waxing lyrical about it online – I decided to start watching American Horror Story.

I have never watched a horror serial that is truly worthy of its name. When I first started following Supernatural, it did, sort of, fit – I remember watching Season 1, Episode 1 back in 2005 and being seriously freaked out. I was so freaked out that I found falling asleep a problem.

Every time I closed my eyes (and I’m not giving away any spoilers here since it has been so long), I kept picturing one of the characters of the story who had just met a rather horrible end after settling down to sleep.

Fast-forward a season and the scary element got considerably tamed down. And after another season yet, things became more action-based than freaky.

The supernatural beings became more like the villains in a superhero movie than eerie, all-powerful and frightening. Although it remained a favourite, the serial wound up yet another action-based production.

I developed a theory about this; it is impossible to sustain fear (based around the same cast of characters) for a long time. Fear may work well in well-crafted films, but when we are talking of a protracted season, you cannot really sustain it.

I started watching American Horror Story hoping I would be proven wrong. I wasn’t. Season 1 starts out horrifically enough. We have a truly eerie, haunted house, an all-American family, a dark basement people insist on visiting (I’d have barred the entrance) and a beautifully sinister aura.

I’m not joking when I say that I spent the first five episodes furtively looking around me, wondering whether any of the creatures on my screen were also lurking in the darkness of my corridor (they weren’t).

Then, halfway through, the season seemed to take a different twist. Once I discovered that virtually everyone is a ghost, the story seemed to lose the fear aspect for me. From “Oh my goodness, I wonder what nasty creature is lurking down there”, it became “Oh my goodness, when will the owners of the house realise what’s happening and how thick can they be?”

The story still kept me riveted, but it was more of a soapy interest that kept me there. Will Violet and Tate, the two teens, find eternal love? Will Vivian and her cheating husband make it through? Who is the father of one of the unborn twins? Yes, it gets that soapy, which makes it very difficult to stay scared.

The story still kept me riveted, but it was more of a soapy interest that kept me there

I haven’t started the second season yet, but I do not hold hopes of a prolonged fear factor. I’ve been told each season is a separate story, with totally different characters and individual endings. I quite like this idea of different plotlines for the different seasons – for one thing, it eliminates the problem of over-saturating the characters. And of generally boring the viewers.

I have no doubt, however, that the second season will also fail to keep our hearts racing. I suppose genuine horror is impossible to sustain past the 1.5-hour mark.

Anything beyond that becomes routine to our senses.

rdepares@timesofmalta.com