American Horror Story has had its fair share of controversial scenes that have been portrayed on television and although their first season, Murder House, is relatively tame compared to more recent seasons. Though it might not be as troubling, it is still is full of disturbing imagery, storylines, and brutally callous moments.
Most of the first season focused on a family living in a house that has been filled with death and is haunted by several ghosts. The first season tended to mix fiction, horror movie homages, and reality to varying degrees of success and some scenes might not be shown on television today.
Tate’s School Shooting
Tate was certainly a creepy character in Murder House, but it was shocking when the show revealed Tate had murdered 15 people in a school shooting before eventually being killed by the police.
The show depicted the school shooting in a graphic manner that made the scenes truly disturbing and callous especially since school shootings are real-life tragedies.
School Shooting Victims’ Ghosts
Tate and Violet are pursued by a group of high school aged victims who are obviously ghosts from their clearly fatal wounds. The group surrounds Tate and ask why he killed them and targeted jocks as it’s revealed they’re victims of Tate’s when he killed 15 people in a school shooting.
The school shooting is graphically violent and realistic and seeing the victims like this is just as controversial.
Vivien And The Rubber Man
Vivien (Connie Britton) is approached by the rubber man and thinks that it’s her husband, Ben (Dylan McDermott), trying something different in the bedroom.
The two have sex but it becomes very clear that the person in the rubber man suit is not her husband Ben and the entire scene becomes deeply disturbing. In a reference to Rosemary’s Baby, the baby Vivien is carrying begins to turn into the Antichrist.
Tate Murdering Chad And Patrick
Tate (Evan Peters) brutally murders the couple Chad and Patrick in horrific ways that might not be able to be shown on television today.
The murders are graphic, one involves sodomy with a fire poker that probably wouldn’t be allowed to be shown today, and Tate doesn’t hide his joy as he kills the two who were only trying to revive their relationship.
Constance Having Her Son Killed
Constance Langdon’s (Jessica Lange) son Beauregard is a kind soul and one of the only kind ghosts in the entire series despite his horrific backstory. Constance kept her son Beau chained in the attic and eventually had him killed instead of having him taken away from her.
She hired someone smothered to death with a pillow and played off his death as if it were from natural causes in this tragic storyline that was difficult to watch.
Baby Tate
Constance finds Tate and Vivien’s baby, presumably the Antichrist, having killed his nanny. The child looks like Tate and is gleefully covered in blood happy with what he’s done.
American Horror Story is known for disturbing and uncomfortable imagery and for presenting scenes that make the viewer shiver, but this scene might have gone a little too far.
Serial Killer Fans
Early on in the series Vivien and Violet are held hostage by a group of serial killer enthusiasts who are looking to recreate past murders that had happened in the house that they now live in.
It’s a terrifying episode that sees the group absolutely giddy at the idea of hurting Vivien and Violet and re-create the murder of two nurses. Since real-life copycat murders exist, these scenes might not have been allowed on television today.
Killing Ben’s Mistress
Most of what Larry does in the show is pretty horrific as he kills multiple characters including Constance’s son Beau, but arguably the most shocking death was when he killed Ben’s mistress Hayden with a shovel.
Hayden tries to come back to tell Ben that she doesn’t want to end their affair and she plans to keep their baby instead of getting the abortion. While a difficult situation for Ben and he wasn’t the one who killed her, it did end his problem at the moment.
The Infantata
The infantata storyline was truly disturbing on Murder House and followed a family in the 1920s struggling financially. The father, Dr. Charles Montgomery, began secretly performing abortions for money until a distraught boyfriend of one of his patient’s kidnapped Dr. Montgomery’s son, Thaddeus.
Dr. Montgomery slowly received dismembered body parts of his son and in his grief, he decided to sew Thaddeus back together and bring him back to life.
Violet Seeing Her Own Body
In a shocking reveal on the show, the audience learns that Violet (Taissa Farmiga) is a ghost and that she did not survive her suicide attempt as she believed.
Tate tries to tell her this and that she can never leave the house again, but she doesn’t fully believe it at first. He decides to bring her to the basement and shows Violet her own decomposing corpse as proof. Although not the most violent scene in the series, it’s still a shocking and disturbing scene.
