American Horror Story: Murder House
American Horror Story: Murder House (originally titled as American Horror Story) is the first season of the FX television series "American Horror Story". It aired between October 5, and December 21, 2011. The season was produced by 20th Century Fox Television, and the executive producers were Dante Di Loreto and series creators Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy.
Pilot (American Horror Story)
Series co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk began working on "American Horror Story" before their Fox series "Glee" began production. Murphy wanted to do the opposite of what he'd done previously and thus began his work on the series. He stated, "We're doing some squeaky clean, sweet, optimistic, non-cynical piece, I wanted to do something that sorta tapped into the different side of my personality." Falchuk was intrigued by the idea of putting a different angle on the horror genre, stating that their main goal in creating the series was to scare viewers. He said, "You want people to be a little bit off balance afterwards." The dark tone of the series was influenced by the 1970s ABC soap opera "Dark Shadows", which Murphy's grandmother forced him to watch when he was younger to toughen him up. In addition, the series draws inspiration from classic horror films such as Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" and Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining."