American Horror Story: A frightfully popular horror movie homage

Pick of the day: American Horror Story, Netflix streaming.

Jessica Lange As Fiona, American Horror Story. ForSwitched On use only until Jan 22, 2014 Picture: 10 Channel

Pick of the day: American Horror Story, Netflix streaming.

This streamer has picked up this popular American horror show created and produced by former Nip/Tuck executive producers and Glee showrunners Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk.

Each season of the anthology series is conceived as a mostly self-contained miniseries, following a disparate set of characters and settings, and a storyline with its own beginning, middle and end.

It’s a compellingly witty postmodernish homage to psychological horror movies such as Don’t Look Now, Rosemary’s Baby and The Shining.

Television critics love this series, and the repertory cast has been critically acclaimed, particularly Jessica Lange, who received two Emmy awards, a Golden Globe award and a Screen Actors Guild award for her performance.

The first season takes place in Los Angeles in 2011 and centres on a family that has moved into a house haunted by its deceased former occupants. And of course it’s where you have to start on this epic frightening journey across the seasons.

As the series progresses, each miniseries moves around in time, and the settings range from an institution for the criminally insane to a Louisiana coven of witches, an American freak show in Florida and a supernatural hotel.

In the first season, the Harmons, who appear to be the perfect American family, have just moved from the east coast to an old, creepy Victorian house in Los Angeles.

The family — father Ben (Dylan McDermott), a psychiatrist, mother Vivien (Connie Britton) and teenage daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga) — has relocated for a fresh start after Vivien caught Ben cheating several months previously.

Unfortunately for the Harmons, the house is like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe tale, with a strange neighbour named Constance (Jessica Lange) and her Down syndrome-afflicted daughter (Jamie Brewer) living next door.