by Joseph Oscilowski ’22

“American Horror Story” (AHS) is a very popular show, known for actress Sarah Paulson’s whale-crying, as well as its fairly graphic scenes involving everything grisly, gory, and gruesome. As fall is coming up right around the corner, this is the perfect show to watch to get into the Halloween mood. Each season, including those titled Murder House, Asylum, Coven, Freak Show, Hotel, Roanoke, Cult, Apocalypse, and 1984, tackles a different storyline, ranging from killer clowns, to witches, to the Zodiac Killer.

Since each of the AHS seasons has a completely new storyline, it’s 100-percent alright to skip between seasons. As a new watcher, I was a little worried about what I’d witness while watching the show. Some seasons definitely show more gore than others, and by “gore” I mean things like shootings, severed limbs, removal of intestines, bloody stabbings, etc. If you’re someone who wants to get into AHS, but aren’t sure which season to start off with, you’ve come to the right place. Here I will be listing which seasons of AHS have the least amount of gore, and which you may want to be cautious of. 

Low Gore – Coven, Cult, Murder House, Asylum: I listed these in order of which I believe one should watch. These four seasons are the lowest on the gore-scale. Coven is probably one of my favorite seasons. Its focus is on witches, and has a very fascinating storyline. Cult focuses around killer clowns and the 2016 election, definitely a fun season to watch. Murder House was the first season I watched when I was getting into the show. The story is about a family that moves into a new house that has lots of history to it, and has lots of twists here and there, but is slightly more on the scary side compared to Coven and Cult. Asylum is probably the least gory of the set, but in my opinion is the most scary. It focuses around psychological torture, so it’s not very light-hearted.

Medium Gore – Apocalypse, Freak Show, Roanoke: This set is slightly more gory than the last, Apocalypse is a really good season, a very entertaining watch. Freak Show is more on the weirder side; it’s not scary but it can definitely be uncomfortable at parts. Roanoke, again, is more on the weirder side; it’s slightly more twisted than the last two.

High Gore – 1984, Hotel: These seasons are definitely the most gorey seasons. Between the two though, 1984 is the one to watch first. 1984 is a very campy season, focusing around a group of friends that literally go to a camp in the woods and start to get killed off. It’s pretty entertaining but honestly gets a little repetitive. Hotel, however, I don’t even think is worth watching at all. The whole plot basically focuses on gore, as it has more disembodiment and necrophilia than actual plot, making it hard to watch and not entertaining.