American Horror Story: Season 1 – Spoiler Free Review

American Horror Story: Season 1 – Spoiler Free Review

• DVD/Blu-Ray Release Date: September 25, 2012

• For fans of The Walking Dead, True Blood, Twin Peaks, and The Shining

Wildly provocative and stylishly macabre, American Horror Story fills a void in television’s psychological horror genre. By embodying classic horror tropes, the series evokes haunting moments that play on our worst conceivable fears in love, marriage, and progeny, bearing the weight of its ambitious narrative without succumbing to it. Not for the faint of heart, Season One is an entertaining and frightening deconstruction of the contemporary American family.

Continue reading for a spoiler free overview of FX Network’s American Horror Story – Season 1.

Sizzling Hot! The Vampire Diaries’ Stars on Entertainment Weekly Cover

Threesomes are fun! But not on the Vampire Diaries … is anybody in this love triangle content? Most typical love triangles work because at least one person is on the outside looking in. However, TVD takes it a step further. At this point in Season 3, Stefan cannot forgive himself with how he treated Elena and won’t allow himself to show he still cares for her. On the other hand, Elena still has lingering hopes of reuniting with Stefan and is hesitant to develop her relationship with Damon. As much as Damon cares for Elena, he doesn’t allow her to make decisions for herself as seen in “Dangerous Liaisons”. When Elena lets it slip that Damon’s love for her is a problem, Damon presses the self-destruct button and hooks up with Rebekah, the girl that tried to kill Elena the night before (Yikes!). Even as rivals for the affections of Elena, brothers Damon and Stefan’s bond of family and blood over the last century is certainly the most  enduring if not most endearing.  The EW covers – that’s Entertainment Weekly not ewww, reminds me too much of romance book covers, but if it gets the attention of readers I’m all for it! ;)  Read my mid-season review of The Vampires Diaries Season 3: All Killer or Just  Filler?

All Killer or Just Filler? The Vampire Diaries Season 3

Exploring The Central Themes of The Vampire Diaries

If you have never seen The Vampire Diaries television series, it would be easy to dismiss it as another supernatural teen melodrama. Elena Gilbert is not your typical high school student. Her parents tragically passed away in car crash accident. Although there is always a bit of sadness in her heart she is not without hope. Her world changes when she falls in love with a new student, Stefan Salvatore, who happens to be a vampire that does not feed on humans. Complicating matters is Stefan’s older brother Damon Salvatore. Damon is also a vampire but lacks a moral conscience and will kill when he’s angry, hungry or just for fun. Both vampires are initially drawn to Elena because she looks identical to their past love Katherine, who is later revealed to be an ancestor of Elena. Developed by producers Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson (Dawson’s Creek, Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer) The Vampire Diaries (TVD) is an exciting blend of mystery, horror and high-stakes drama. However is TVD just a rollercoaster ride of “vicious bloody vamp action” or are there more complex stories, character development and themes being explored?

Stefan, Elena, Damon

 More Human Than Human

Supernatural creatures in film, television and literature are often used to explore the human condition in conflict. In the campy horror movie Ginger Snaps, lycanthropy is an overt metaphor for a teenage girl’s transformation during puberty where the “curse” was not so much the full moon, but the 28 day cycle. When synthetic blood is created on HBO’s True Blood, vampires decide they no longer need to live in secret and “come out of the coffin”, living openly amongst humans and seeking equal rights. The myth of vampires can also be an allegory for the inevitability of isolation, power of seduction and fear of mortality.

On TVD, these issues are explored but the show’s real strength is in using the supernatural to showcase the importance of the struggle for existence through despair, suffering and loss. When a vampire is sired on TVD, their personal characteristics are greatly intensified, forcing them to either confront or give in to their deepest flaws and desires such as Stefan’s battle with his addiction to human blood. Further, vampires on TVD have the ability to turn on and off their humanity or moral conscience. On a show where a characters’s action and free will determine their development and meaning to exist, there is a deeply layered significance in Stefan’s choice to embrace humanity, life and love. However, in Season 3, episode 5′s “The Reckoning”, Stefan is forced by original vampire hybrid Klaus to turn off his humanity, resulting in his inability to feel remorse, empathy or guilt and thus removing any restraint to his dark impulsive nature. When Klaus allows Stefan to regain his free will in Season 3, episode 9′s Homecoming, there is not an immediate reversion to his former compassionate self, but rather the beginning to what will be a complicated journey of finding his purpose in life and on how to live it.