Across twelve seasons, several spinoffs, and over a decade of television, American Horror Story has delivered some wild moments. Shock and awe seemed to be Ryan Murphy’s original mission when the series began, a mission he has continued to pursue despite his busy work schedule. Season 12 of American Horror Story, subtitled Delicate, was the first to not feature Murphy as the lead showrunner. But depending on the idea he wants to pursue and other details that arise, that’s the direction any new season will go. While he’s had some misses over the years, Murphy and company have managed to capture nightmares on camera a few times.
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We strolled back across the years and the moments we think are some of the scariest to ever come out of Murphy and American Horror Story. Some are pure horror, without punches pulled. Dead bodies, murder, monsters, and mayhem are all present, even if they’re just meeting for dinner or trying to scare some actors on a TV set.
1) Piggy Piggy
The pig-head-clad killer Piggy Man makes several appearances throughout American Horror Story, but his introduction carries special weight way back in the first season’s sixth episode, “Piggy Piggy.” Eric Stonestreet plays a patient of Ben (Dylan McDermott), and he recounts the story of Piggy Man, a former murderous butcher who wore a pig mask before his murders. Roanoke adds a lot more to the urban myth connected to the monster’s attacks, revealing him to be Kincaid Polk. While it is a shock to see him pop up for real later, the first moments might be the scariest.
Stonestreet plays quite the opposite of his Modern Family role, clearly pushed to his limits by his fear of Piggy Man. It also ends up being the end of his life at the end of the episode. After imagining Piggy Man attacking him while hiding in the shower, Stonestreet tries to summon the beast for real later. While speaking the words into the mirror, a burglar who was hiding in the shower takes offense and shoots Stonestreet just as he finishes the chant.
2) Violet’s Discovery
One of most shocking moments in American Horror Story Season 1 comes after we’ve spent a lot of time with Violet (Taissa Farmiga), including her suicide attempt in the Episode 6. Her point of view helps the audience navigate, and we’ve managed to get in touch with her point of view to this point. Only it turns out we didn’t really and we’ve been watching her ghost interact with everybody.
As Tate reveals, the true Violet never survived her suicide attempt tying her ghost to the house like the others. Her body was hidden in the crawlspace by Tate, later shown to her ghost while with bugs crawl over the deceased’s corpse. This hammers home that the Harmon’s daughter isn’t coming back and that everybody was a potential victim. It was the first time the show succeeded in hiding twists that were coming, but not the last.
3) Ma Petite’s Fate
This is one of the less graphic deaths in the entire series, might be the most heartbreaking. It also shows the true horror in the aftermath, especially when your mind starts to wander. In Season 4, AHS went to the Freak Show, introducing a lot of odd characters and a few cruel ones to boot. Ma Petite is one of the good odd ones, played by Jyoti Kishanji Amge – also known as the world’s shortest woman.
In the series, she portrays Ma Petite, the beloved little person member of the Freak Show troupe and an easy target for con artists Maggie and Stanley. After getting Wendell “Dell” Toledo (Michael Chiklis) to smother her to death, Ma Petite ends up in a glass jar in Lillian Hemmings’ Museum of Morbid Curiosities. In an alternate look, before Dell is revealed to be the killer, Stanley himself does the deed by drowning the little woman in formaldehyde. The harrowing scene shows Ma Petite struggle, cry to be let out of the jar, and then is held under the liquid by Stanley. Either death is horrible, but the latter is harder to watch. Her fate remains the same, which is genuinely the worst part. Trapped forever inside a jar in a museum.
4) Tate’s Past
Most viewers knew that Tate Langdon was a troubled boy from his first appearance in AHS‘ first season. He is possibly the darkest resident of the Murder House, and that’s unrelated to the reveal that he is the Leather Man. Before the Harmons move into the home, Tate had perpetrated a school massacre that left 15 students dead at Westfield High School in 1994.
The imagery of that day plays out much like Tate’s supposed fantasy he describes to Ben Harmon at the start of the series, where he paints the skull on his face. During the real shooting, he puts on a black leather coat, packs a shotgun, combs his hair back, and takes his time shooting people at the school. The students in the library get an extra bit of spotlight as they return later as ghosts to spill Tate’s secret to Violet. It’s also an early example of Ryan Murphy pulling from real life, as the Columbine shooters allegedly taunted victims in the library during their spree.
5) Infantata
Also in “Murder House” is the youngest monster we’ve seen on the series. Infantata, real name Thaddeus Montgomery, is the reconstituted remains of Charles and Nora Montgomery’s child. Taking cues from the Lindbergh Baby case, the Montgomerys have their child taken and dismembered. This leaves Dr. Charles Montgomery to sew the body back together, steal a heart from a fetus taken from one of the many abortions he performed in the home, and bring their child back to life.
The result is a little beast that bites Nora Montgomery when she tries to nurse him, leading to her stabbing the child with a letter opener. She was unsuccessful, killing herself and her husband as a result. The Infantata now lives in the basement of the house, killing trespassers and sneaking around in the night.
6) Shelley’s Fate
In Asylum, American Horror Story does a good job mixing in the horrors of the Nazis with the overall horror within the Briarcliff Manor insane asylum. Dr. Arthur Arden is the facility’s main physician and comes with a dark past as a former Nazi doctor. Arden ran concentration camps and escaped after the war, landing at Briarcliff. It started as a tuberculosis ward before becoming an asylum in the ’60s, where Arden would torture and experiment on patients in his lab.
The result was zombie-like creatures called Raspers. Shelley, played by Chloe Sevigny, is one of those unfortunate souls. She ends up sexually assaulted by Arden before he surgically amputates her legs. She was used as a test subject from that point on, until Arden’s past was uncovered and his experiments needed to be hidden. Shelly, now horribly disfigured, is dumped by an elementary school by Sister Mary Eunice (Lily Rabe), where she attempts to crawl up some stairs to escape before scaring the children as a “monster.” A horrible way to die and a horrible period of torture, all close to prime time television.
7) Bloody Face I
Dylan McDermott returns as the son of Bloody Face in AHS Season 2, but it is his TV father and original Bloody Face who deserves the spotlight. Zachery Quinto as Oliver Thredson is a member of the staff at Briarcliff, but his real profession is murder. Keeping his intentions hidden under a stoic and clinical position, Bloody Face is a sadistic murderer who was abandoned as a child. He takes special interest in Lana Winters, claiming to want to help her before escaping with her to go to his home.
That’s where he reveals his true side, trapping Lana in his dungeon after she discovers his home has furniture he’s made out of human remains. He has also killed Lana’s lover, Wendy, and keeps her frozen body, sans teeth, with Lana. The reveal after is that the corpse’s teeth have become the newest addition to his gory, leathery mask as Bloody Face. She eventually gets the best of him and kills him, later killing their son after he took up the mantle of Bloody Face.
8) Devil’s Night
Lady Gaga might be the main attraction of American Horror Story: Hotel, but one of the special moments of the season comes during the annual Devil’s Night episode. We’ve seen the concept play out in prior seasons, where ghosts and other things from beyond the grave can venture out and enjoy one night. In Hotel, this is represented by a murderer’s feast featuring the hotel’s prior owner — based on H.H. Holmes — and a smattering of real true crime murder figures, like John Wayne Gacy, Zodiac, and Aileen Wuornos.
James Patrick Marsh (Evan Peters) welcomes the ghoulish group in for a meal, where dessert turns out to be murder. A naked victim is walked in and handed over to Jeffrey Dahmer. All while Det. John Lowe is handcuffed and forced to watch by Gacy and Zodiac. It’s a different kind of creepy than our prior entries due to the real-world influence. It also devolves into a weird absinthe trip with Wuornos dancing with Richard Ramirez while the murder is happening.
9) Twisty’s Story
In Freak Show, the serial killer clown Twisty is a force of terror that haunts the whole season. He seems like your typical unstoppable murder machine, but the series ends up revealing the sympathetic side of Twisty. He grew up with a mental disability, but ended up working at a local circus as a clown. That’s until he’s falsely accused of being a pedophile and leaves the job, unable to clear his name.
His eventual choice is suicide by shotgun, but he fails, only blowing his lower jaw off. This pushes him over the edge, leading to his murders as an attempt to “save the children” from their unruly parents. A monster was born, as was the most iconic character the series has had apart from the Leather Man.
10) Roanoake’s Real Butcher
AHS: Roanoke was an interesting attempt to intertwine stories surrounding the real lost Roanoke colony and the creation of the reality series My Roanoke Nightmare. The series begins as a reality series telling the story of Matt and Shelby Miller. They are haunted by The Butcher, played by Kathy Bates in the reality series.
She returns when the cast returns to the home, this time with the real Millers alongside the actors who portrayed them. Bates returns, but has a bit of a mental breakdown and starts to believe she is the real butcher. This doesn’t end well, as her actions summon the real Butcher and her fellow colonists. The harsh depiction of the real Butcher makes Bates seem like some kid playing dress up, with her braining Bates with her cleaver and sending the other colonists to kill anybody remaining on their island.
Did we hit all of the scariest moments? What did we miss? Let us know in the comments before it is too late!
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