American Horror Story: Murder House

American Horror Story is a series that was first aired in 2011. There are currently five seasons that have been released, each taking place in a different time period with different characters and a different story line. The thing that is unique about this series is the fact that although each season is completely different, the same actors tend to be used, leading to a big cult following.

The season that have currently been released are:

• Murder House - The first season, telling the story of a dysfunctional family who move into a house they are unaware is haunted and meeting lots of people that they are not aware are dead.
• Asylum - Based around an insane asylum in the 1960s, showing experiements that went on their and the attempt to find a serial killer.
• Coven - Based around a boarding school that is actually a coven of witches in New Orleans.
• Freak Show - Based around a 1960s freakshow in Florida, just around the time that they had lost almost all their popularity. It tells the story of the people who live at the show and how other people treat them.
• Hotel - based in a hotel named 'The Cortez', showing the horrific history of the hotel and it's occupants, as well as present day killings. This was the first series that Lady GaGa has starred in.

I have chosen to focus on Murder House for my project as I feel this season ties in best with the brief that we've been given. 

The series takes place in present day, with a family moving in to the new house they've bought, dubbed 'Murder House', although they are unaware of this A married couple, Vivienne and Ben, move into the house with their only daughter Violet after Vivienne suffers a miscarriage and Ben has an affair in an attempt to bring their family back together.

Ben, a psychiatrist, begins seeing a teenage boy at his home named Tate, who he believes is mentally unwell. Tate and Violet soon meet and are drawn together despite Ben not wanting them to have anything to do with each other. This relationship progresses and Violet soon starts to notice strange things about Tate and about her house.

It later turns out that a lot of people who are frequent guest or visitors at the house are in fact the ghost of people who have died there and cannot leave. This turns out to be the same for Tate and Violet soon finds out that he was shot by the police after carrying out a shooting at his high school, killing multiple students, who had previously confronted Tate and Violet, with Violet thinking it was a halloween prank (in the series ghosts can only leave the place they were killed on the night of 

halloween). 

While watching the series, I always felt that I wanted to know more about the school shooting and hat had happened to the students afterwards, so I started thinking about how I could use this idea with the brief. I decided that I wanted to do victims in the school shooting for my Claudia and Quentin, with Claudia being a survivor but Quentin, her boyfriend, being shot and killed.