With American Horror Story [1]: Apocalypse on its way [2], it's hard to believe that it's been seven years [3] since the first season of American Horror Story debuted on FX. The first instalment, retroactively subtitled Murder House, centreed on an apparently "typical American family" who moved into a haunted house. If viewers weren't sure what kind of show this was going to be, the shocking twists and graphic murders proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was not a series [4] for the faint of heart! Unlike most shows, though, a character's death didn't mean the actor's departure from the show: the anthology nature of the series meant that several of the actors whose characters died in Murder House would go on to experience several more creatively gruesome deaths in future seasons [5]. Here are some of the first season's deaths that still keep us up at night.
Addie Langdon
Most of the deaths on American Horror Story [6] are supernatural at best, and genuinely horrific more often than not, so by that standard, Addie got off easy. The daughter of scheming Constance Langdon [7], Addie seems to understand the haunted house better than most, giving warnings and playing with some of the ghosts. When she's killed in a hit-and-run accident, her mother tries to get her body to the house so she can return as a ghost, but she doesn't get there in time.
Chad Warwick
Murder House flashed back to several of the deaths in the house's history, including the story of Chad and his partner Patrick. Their relationship is fraught with conflict and infidelity, so when their bodies are found in an apparent murder-suicide, it makes sense to those around them. In reality, Tate's vicious ghost [8] murdered them both, and set it up to look like their own crime to avoid notice.
Travis Wanderly
Every creepy diva needs a sidekick, which is exactly what Travis is to Constance [9]. He's a struggling actor who works as her "business partner" in between call centre shifts and becomes close to Addie — something that makes Constance suspicious. He eventually develops a relationship with Hayden's ghost, but it abruptly ends when she murders him and turns him into another house ghost. At least the discovery of his body gets him the fame he always wanted!
Dr. Ben Harmon
The patriarch of the Harmon family, Ben starts the series on a pretty unlikeable note: right off the heels of an affair with one of his students, Hayden. He's able to survive the Murder House longer than the rest of his family, but when he tries to escape with his newborn son [10] to start over, Hayden's ghost and several of the other house ghosts kill him and make it look like a suicide.
Hayden McClaine
At first, Hayden seems like a pretty standard character type: the unstable student who has an affair with her professor (Ben). She then backs out of getting an abortion and demands that he leave his wife and raise the baby [11] with her. Eventually, she's bludgeoned to death by Larry Harvey, but her ghost remains at the house, insinuating herself into the Harmons's lives and helping other ghosts murder Ben after the rest of his family is dead.
Violet Harmon
Can we all agree that Violet deserved better [12]? The teenage daughter of Ben and Vivien, she's lonely and upset about having to move to Los Angeles. And then, when she finally makes a friend in Tate Langdon, she discovers that he's actually a psychotic ghost. Overwhelmed and afraid, she attempts suicide. Tate seems to save her, but soon reveals that she didn't survive and is now one of the house's ghosts.
Vivien Harmon
Vivien's trauma line just kept on going. Before the series began, she had suffered a miscarriage and her husband Ben had an affair with one of his students. Once in the Murder House, she's deceived into sleeping with Tate, believing him to be Ben, and becomes pregnant with twins — one Ben's, one Tate's. She gives birth to the twins, but one dies and she does, too. As a ghost [13], she "raises" her son that died at birth, and teams up with Ben and Violet's ghosts to scare off future would-be tenants to protect them from suffering similar tragedies.